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Samsung Seeking Ban of iPhone 4S in Europe
First time accepted submitter KingofSpades writes "Samsung has announced that they will try to stop the sale of Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S in France and Italy. Samsung believes that Apple is 'severely violating' some of their patents. From the article: 'Samsung will file motions with courts in Paris and Milan seeking the ban, each citing two patent infringements on wireless telecommunications technology, the Suwon, South Korea- based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S in Cupertino, California this week and aims to start sales later this month.'"
FIGHT
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"Let the Battle Begin!"
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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
You're missing out on the why, Samsung has said Apple is using their 3G wireless patents. This is simply retaliation for Apple blocking Samsung's Galaxy sales in Europe.
If Samsung can get sales of the iPhone 4S blocked in enough countries maybe Apple will stop their patents on rectangular shapes nonsense.
And not because Apple did the same thing to Samsung using a German court to block sales of the Galaxy Tablet in Europe?
Yeah, were you saying that when Apple did the same thing to Samsung?
Both suits are garbage, but I hope Apple gets to taste some of their own medicine here.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Two wrongs and a right - ever hear that one? ;)
Well actually they do. If Samsung are blocked by Apple from selling their products, and Apple are blocked by Samsung from selling their products as well, that will force them to make a patent settlement to get them out of a stalemate that hurts both companies.
Hello fanboy.
You realize, for example, that that is the same camera that has been available for quite some time in *other* phones?
Oh wait, it's magical and new.
which patents could apple possibly be violating that they were violating already?
This is over patents that Apple has been violating all along. Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and have all been tryng to negotiate licensing deals with Apple since the day the iPhone was shipped and they still haven't come to an agreement. The different companies have had different thresholds of how far they are will to push negotiations before suing. Apple crossed Samsungs threshold when they used a shitty German "Design Patent" to force the Galaxy Tab off the market because it was a black rectangle with rounded corners.
What it all comes down to is that Apple thinks that it should be able to license all the hardware/communication patents that these companies hold under FRAND terms, while at the same time refusing to license any of it's software patents. Many of the communication patents are related to the GSM/CDMA standards, and thus do require FRAND licensing, but not all of the hardware patents.
Patents are bad. Patent lawsuits that create problems for Apple are good, because they're likely to get noticed and hopefully result in improvements.
Lawsuits over say, patents related to RAM are obscure, hard to understand, and in the end only drive up the prices. The global economic impact might be huge, but the average user won't notice much, so chances are nothing will get fixed.
However when people are not able to buy the phone they want that gets their attention, and maybe will get them to see that the system could use improvements.
It's ok for Samsung to do it because Apple are a bunch of poo-poo-heads!!!!
It has a WCDMA radio in it. Samsung holds a patent related to that kind of thing. In the older iPhones, only the Verizon ones had CDMA radios, the AT&T ones had GSM. Now I suppose Samsung could have gone after them, but that might risk angering Verizon and Samsung doesn't want to do that. This one though, all phones have both radios so they can go after it and try to block it generally.
IANAL, so I probably shouldn't even speak these word, but doesn't the equitable doctrine of laches mean that if Samsung knew that everybody was violating their WCDMA patents and did nothing to enforce them, then they eventually forfeit the right to enforce them.
Although now that I think about it, they might be trying to enforce WCDMA patents specific to HSPA+, which wasn't present before the 4s.
If anyone knows, speak up.
On the outside there doesn't appear to be many changes. On the inside there have been many hardware changes. However it is easier to call someone a fanboy rather than give Apple any credit. You do realize that Apple was able to put in a larger processor, make the phone operate both CDMA and GSM, put in a larger camera-- all the while keeping the same form factor with a slight increase in weight (3g). I would think geeks would appreciate the engineering it would take to do this.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yeah, they built a working physical representation of a "2001 A Space Odyssey" handheld tablet computer (or a Star Trek ALCARS handheld tablet, or any of a couple hundred tablet computers described in sci-fi stories over the last 50 years.) Then effectively under threat of law claimed that the tablet was their original idea and that anyone building one needs to pay them. This either makes them brazenly stupid or brashly assholerific. I'll let you pick, please, be my guest!
You're missing out on the why, Samsung has said Apple is using their 3G wireless patents. This is simply retaliation for Apple blocking Samsung's Galaxy sales in Europe.
That's right. Apple should have seen this coming. These big corporations are playing like babies and someone needs to take their toys away.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Well samsung is actually doing this in revenge for a hardware patent, admitted a retartedly vague one for a rounded rectangle with a touch screen, but that no less is a hardware patent.
You guess wrong, Samsung wants the right to sell a tablet that happens to be rectangular with round corners in Europe back.
The iPhone 4S isn't available to buy, it's not even available to pre-order yet. But Samsung managed to get ahold of one, reverse engineered it, and found it to infringed on their patents. Impressive.
The way Apple employees tend to lose prototypes of the iPhone at bars, it can't be that hard to get one.
It doesn't matter if you could build one or not. Apple didn't sue Samsung over its inner workings. They sued because both objects were rounded rectangles, and a couple of the icons used a similar color scheme.
Dual core processor... what you can find on other (slimmer) phones for months
8MPixels camera... You also find it on other phone... And the size of the camera is barely different... The biggest part is the lens which didn't have to change.
Voice recognition, available on Android for long
There is nothing big about the new iPhone 4S... it's only trying to play catch-up with the other smartphones... And, yes, it's the best iPhone as each iPhone is better than the previous one (otherwise, nobody would purchase it).
Oh... and about their A5 chip... more than 95% of it is "common IP cores" that can be found in many other chips... ARM core, 3D core, RAM, ... But it's more sexy to say "our brand new ultra-secret processor called A5" than to say "Our brand new ARMv7 two cores, 1GbRAM,XXX 3D core,...chip".
And iOS5 will probably be available to other Apple devices... Those with older devices being left in the cold.
only if you break the clause that says your FRAND licence is revoked if you sue the owner.
iPhone is good.
Android is better.
Android > iPhone
They did do that with the 4... they call it the 4S.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
No, it's schadenfreude. Patents are rapidly proving themselves to be destructive legal constructs, and each case like this simply reinforces that reality.
Typical fandroid responses. "Been available on Android for long".... Kind of like how the android community preached the XOOM in all its multi-core, NVidia GPU glory, and it could not even outperform a 1-year-old single-core iPad. Apple gets the hardware and software working together like a swiss watch. It's the same tired responses from tech-heads that they refuse to accept. Android slaps together a bunch of half-baked solutions, supporters say "see!! we did it first", and cringes when iOS does the same thing, except it actually works and makes it simple for the joe-consumer to use.
What's even more sad about these whiners is that they think consumers really give a rat's-ass what's under the hood of their phone. I've had both iOS and Android phones. Android is great for tinkerers and tech-heads that want absolute control over their devices. Everyone else (where the money is at) just want a toaster, and a darn-good toaster. And the /. dickheads here simply label those folks as too stupid to deserve using a smartphone if they are unable (or have no desire) to root their phone. Pathetic.
That's why the iPhone is the single best selling (and most profitable) individual smartphone out there. Because it works well.
They want to continue to behave childishly by calling me a fanboy, it's because I have better things to do with my time and life than to live in a basement and manage phone resources and overclock phone CPU's.
The iPhone is shiny, but Android phones are shiny and don't involve giving money to Apple.
No, they involve giving money to Microsoft.