Via Files Suit Against Apple

Release the Kraken! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-22 12:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

Surely Apple did not think that they were the only ones in the market with a patent portfolio.

Re:Release the Kraken! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-22 12:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Considering they are one of the most frequently sued companies in the tech industry, it's highly unlikely they hadn't noticed others hold patents.
Re:Release the Kraken! by mug+funky · 2011-09-22 12:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

if they were worried about their IP being stolen, perhaps they should manufacture in their own country... it's not like the USA is in need of more jobs or anything.
people pay enough for their iToys that it wouldn't hurt apple too much - it'd be slow and steady growth rather than meteoric rise and then sue-town for the next 50 years.
Re:Release the Kraken! by msauve · 2011-09-22 13:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

Apple is playing a dangerous game. With their very limited range of products, they're much more exposed than most companies. Sue Samsung? Android and tablets are a small fraction of Samsung's business, they'd hardly notice if they were gone - if Apple's iOS were shut down for patent infringement (iPods and iPhones), they'd be screwed. HTC is more dependent on Android, but still has more to fall back on (proportionally) than Apple does.

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Re:Release the Kraken! by besalope · 2011-09-22 14:11 · Score: 5, Informative

Except for the fact that they are the market leader. Name *ONE* mobile company doing better than Apple right now.
They've only sued over things they believe they own, and the courts have agreed with them. They aren't trying to stop HTC or Samsung from making their own products, but they *are* trying to stop them from making products that are too much a clone of Apple's products.
There are plenty of ways to make a multitouch phone and multitouch tablet. Apple chose their style. It's up to everyone else to choose their own as well.
Except that at the OS level Android has eclipsed iOS with 2x the marketshare in 1Q11.
As for phone manufacturers: Nokia (25%), Samsung (16%), and LG (5.6%) are all ahead of Apple (3.9%) in market share.
As for styling, there's only so much you can do with a rectangular design with rounded corners.
Re:Release the Kraken! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-22 14:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

if they were worried about their IP being stolen, perhaps they should manufacture in their own country... it's not like the USA is in need of more jobs or anything.
Is it sad or funny? Complaining about Apple not manufacturing, when Steve Jobs started Next which did high tech manufacturing in the US, making really, really awesome computers... which people didn't buy because they preferred cheap imported goods and because nobody cared if the DoJ enforced antitrust laws against Microsoft who was breaking the law and undermining competition to prevent innovative companies like Next from being successful. The US had its chance at innovative, US based manufacture and pissed on it. Jobs learned better and went with foreign component suppliers when Next was acquired by Apple.
Learn your geek history.
Re:Release the Kraken! by Gaygirlie · 2011-09-22 14:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

Surely Apple did not think that they were the only ones in the market with a patent portfolio.
That's what I've been wondering about. Apple are suing all kinds of mobile device manufacturers left and right in hopes of being able to bar them from markets and to remain on top themselves. But they MUST have known that once they start suing the other big players they'll start pushing back and not only the ones being sued but also all the others too just to ensure that Apple won't win, otherwise Apple would just come after the rest later on. And well, gee, that's exactly what's happening: companies that haven't yet been sued are taking the initiative and suing first. Offense is the best defense and so on.
So what's Apple's angle here? They stand to lose quite a lot of money, and if the sh*t really hits the fan their stuff could be barred from the market and a large portion of their patent portfolio could get invalidated. So is there a plan behind this, or was it just simply we've-grown-so-big-we-think-we-can-do-anything - type of brainfart? I personally believe it's more towards the brainfart - situation here and things just got out of hand, but I suppose we'll see how this giant game of chess plays out.
Re:Release the Kraken! by MightyMartian · 2011-09-22 14:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't think Apple expects to permanently ban them from the market. It just wants to keep competitors wrapped up in court cases until Apple can scoop them with its newest offerings. I'm sure it knows full well most of its suits are sheer garbage that ultimately will fail. But ultimately could mean what? 6 to 24 months? Oh my, look at that, the iPad 3 and the iPhone 5 come out in those kinds of Windows, meanwhile the competition has a product to bring to a market but can't because of what amounts of a strategically placed nuisance suit.
Of course, if Apple suddenly finds its own products being delayed in the same manner, or worse, but actual hard technology patents, then yes, they could seriously fuck themselves over. But that's fine. If everyone eventually ends this evil little war in a compromise, the consumer will win. I just hope all sides lose massive amounts of money in the process. Unfortunately, the lawyers will get rich(er).

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Re:Release the Kraken! by QuantumLeaper · 2011-09-22 15:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

What Black Bezels and round counters, is verbatim?
Re:Release the Kraken! by erroneus · 2011-09-22 17:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

China also assumes Asia is one big China, so we're all in agreement on this point right?
Re:Release the Kraken! by tknd · 2011-09-22 21:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

If everyone eventually ends this evil little war in a compromise, the consumer will win. I just hope all sides lose massive amounts of money in the process. Unfortunately, the lawyers will get rich(er).
I don't understand how you come to this logic. Previously nobody was actively attacking each other with patent suits, Apple let the cat out of the bag, and now pretty much every player now has an extra line item called lawyer-ing up on their expense sheet as well as all future requirements having an additional risk item called "patent violation risk". Any engineer knows that the more requirements you tag on, the more expensive the product will get. But this one is a double-whammy because not only does the engineering team have to design in attempts to avoid/develop patents, but now the lawyer team gets bigger to defend against patent attacks.
All this means is delayed products, less freedom for companies to develop products, and more stand-offs between companies. The consumer is never going to benefit. The products will be delayed or put off of the market. The next generation products will be more expensive. All future products will come with their own awkwardness just because of these patent wars.
Consider this. The top two manufacturers for cameras, Canon and Nikon, don't name their "modes" identically though they should. Canon labels shutter mode "Tv". Nikon labels it "S". Additionally, the exposure bias meters are opposite. Nobody shares lens mounts. Each mfg makes their own. The result? You buy into a set of lenses and if you want to switch you have to sell all of your gear and go buy into a new set of lenses.
Macs and Windows PCs had the same awkwardness too. ctrl+c for windows. cmd+c (alt key location for PCs) for macs.
You can see this sort of non-sense going on everywhere in new technology. ebooks: Amazon kindle's only do kindle drm formats and pdfs, everyone else has their own drm format. All of the streaming video content services and random support with tvs and tv boxes (roku, boxee, apple tv, etc).
It's a giant mess and the consumer definitely isn't winning. The consumer was in an awesome position back when we were still using vhs and cassette tapes. You could take that stupid tape and a gazillion different devices played it from that giant boom box, to the school's cheezy tape player, do your car radio. Same with vhs. These days? Fuck you.
Apple knows this and they're trying to corner the market while they can. They don't want a race to the bottom but that's exactly what would benefit the consumer the most. While they certainly aren't the only company attempting this (sony and bluray, amazon and kindle, etc) they're certainly one of the most significant (ios apps).
Re:Release the Kraken! by jo_ham · 2011-09-23 00:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, but that's not all that Samsung copied. They made the Galaxy look just like an iPhone 3Gs, right down to the UI and specific colouring and icon style.
There are myriad ways to make a black bezel, rounded corner phone and not make it look like an iPhone 3G - just look at, oh, any other Android phone.
When the tech press says of the Galaxy, before any hints of lawsuits were mentioned "it looks great, but it's awfully like an iPhone" you knew it was only matter of time.
To repeat, it's not one single element that caused the lawsuit - it's all of them combined together.
Making a phone with a black bezel and rounded corners of a specific radius: ok
Making a phone with a virtually identical UI to the iPhone: ok
Making a phone with a black bezel and rounded corners of a specific radius and adding that identical UI: lawsuit.
The nonsense dismissal by slashdot that this is all about "patenting a rounded rectangle" just makes people look ignorant.
I personally don;t agree with the lawsuit, since it just seems like a waste of resources, but I can certainly see why they decided to go for it, and why they seem to be making headway.

Is it just me or has litigation gone crazy lately? by syousef · 2011-09-22 12:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

It seems during this economic downturn companies have started throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to ravenously feed on each others still warm carcasses. What you'll end up with is a period of heavily suppressed innovation and increasingly locked down and crippled devices, software and services no one will be willing to part with money for. It's all going to shit!

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer

ARM by SimonTheSoundMan · 2011-09-22 12:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Shouldn't they be suing ARM as Apple licensed it from them?

VIA doesn't have a vested interest, the CEO does. by Anonymous+Freak · 2011-09-22 12:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is a difference.

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Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.

The Phone Wars by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-22 12:52 · Score: 4, Funny

In a galaxy far away, large corporate conglomerates wage battle to gain dominance in the vastness of space. The only hope of survival are a small, but pathetic force of Jedi nerds who resist the insidious marketing ploys and legal shenanigans of these dominating legal war mongrels. Will these Jedi nerds prevail? Stay tuned for continuing episodes of the Phone Wars.

Other quotes:

"These are not the phones you are looking for"

"Apple. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"

In this case by Sycraft-fu · 2011-09-22 13:14 · Score: 4, Informative

It was Apple's mouth writing checks their ass can't cash. Apple is real worried: Android is a real threat to them. Their iDevice market is where their big profits are, they don't have a "what's next" lined up right now and Android is encroaching in a big way. In particular, HTC and Samsung have been since they've smoothed out android's UI and made it even more user friendly (if bloated).

So Apple went all lawsuit happy. They want to suppress any competition. turns out, the competition isn't so happy about that and is hitting back. Hard. In the case of VIA part of it is the relation with HTC, the other part is I'm sure VIA has an interest in the tablet market. VIA has never done well at the high end and so has stopped trying, but they do low end pretty well. Maybe they want in to the tablet market.

When you start suing everyone, expect to see the same in return.

First thing that came to mind reading this... by Mistakill · 2011-09-22 13:43 · Score: 3, Funny

HTC is literally in bed with VIA

Re:Investors might sue? by chrb · 2011-09-22 13:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Wen Chi Chen founded VIA Technologies in 1983, and has run the company for almost 30 years, building it from nothing into a billion dollar company that is now the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. He is the Taiwanese equivalent of Steve Jobs. Under his stewardship VIA successfully defended a patent attack from Intel that led to 11 different court cases in 5 different countries (sound familiar?). The investors don't care about the family connection - they care about profit. And if VIA's patent portfolio was strong enough to convince Intel to settle, then what makes you think Apple will be any different? Intel holds many, many patents on fundamental CPU technologies; how many do you think Apple holds?

FUD by JustOK · 2011-09-22 13:48 · Score: 3, Funny

Total FUD. Via runs passenger trains in Canada. Their chips are horrible AND expensive.

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rewriting history since 2109

Re:Is it just me or has litigation gone crazy late by russotto · 2011-09-22 14:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

You left out Oracle.

Oracle hates everyone, but is either leaving Microsoft alone for the same reason a barracuda won't eat a lawyer, or because they're waiting for the best time to stab them in the back.

Re:When did Apple partner with Microsoft? by Telvin_3d · 2011-09-22 15:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

Everybody but Google banded together. Google was invited to join the same group. The explicit idea was to get them out of the way so no one could use them to sue anyone else. Google is the only one who refused to play along and tried to gain them independently. Shows who is serious about trying to avoid patent fights.

Re:When did Apple partner with Microsoft? by chrb · 2011-09-22 23:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Google was invited to join the same group.

The question is, under what terms? If Google had joined, would it have been able to use the patent pool to protect its Android partners from lawsuits? It seems very unlikely that Apple would've agreed to a situation where it has to back down on all of its anti-Android lawsuits, or that Microsoft would agree to a situation where it could no longer sue Android manufacturers. And if the patent pool wouldn't protect Android, then what motivation would Google have to join?

The explicit idea was to get them out of the way so no one could use them to sue anyone else.

Since the contractual terms between the Rockstar group members haven't been disclosed, it is impossible to know what the patents will be used for. It's a nice idea that they will only be used defensively, but history has shown that patents are often used otherwise.

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