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Samsung Vs. Apple Tit-For-Tat Down Under

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

New submitter GumphMaster writes "In the latest edition of the Apple vs. Samsung patent fight, the ABC is reporting that Samsung has filed in Australian and Japanese courts seeking an injunction to halt sales of the iPhone 4S for alleged 3G patent violations. It remains to be seen whether Samsung has any better luck with the retaliatory strike in Australian and Japanese courts than it did with courts in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, I expect that Samsung will fail partly because of overseas precedent, but mostly because their patents are sane, technical and narrow in scope (unlike the patent-a-rectangle nature of the opposition). If this stupidity ever stops, then millions of dollars, euro, or Won that are being spent on lawyers might actually go into the innovation that patents are meant to promote. Who knows where that might lead?"

6 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. MS Stole Apple's Lunch Money in the 80's by wzinc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not going to let Samsung do that, too...

  2. Not (primarily) about round-rects by Ster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... (unlike the patent-a-rectangle nature of the opposition) ...

    As previously stated, it's not a patent on round-rects:

    I came across this yesterday and found it interesting (comparisons of what Samsung's tablets looked like before and after the iPad came out):

    It seems like it's not quite as silly as it's usually been presented. (Don't get me wrong, I do think it's silly.)

    -Ster

    1. Re:Not (primarily) about round-rects by FireFury03 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As far as interface icons are concerned, I'm not sure what the law says, but from a practical point of view I think it's best to encourage companies to imitate each others' interfaces whenever possible: it makes it easier for consumers to switch from using one to another.

      Well yes and no. Yes it makes it easier for customers to switch between devices, but it also limits their choice because maybe the customer doesn't _want_ the interface to look like that.

      As an example, several years ago I was looking around for a new phone. I was considering an HTC Dream (which I did buy in the end), but the salesman at the Carphone Warehouse was doing his level best to tell me that I didn't want an HTC Dream because it wasn't very iphone-like (it had a hard keyboard rather than an on-screen keyboard) and kept directing me to various other phones because they were "more iphone-like". He didn't seem to be able to grasp the concept that I didn't *want* an iPhone clone, I was specifically looking for a phone with a hard keypad and if I wanted something like the iPhone I'd probably have just damned well bought an iPhone!

      Whilst I will accept that having the same interface everywhere is good in environments where you are constantly switching between several devices that do essentially the same job, in an environment where you own and use a single device for this job (which is usually the case with phones) then it would seem more sensible to give the user a UI that they find pleasant and efficient to work with rather than forcing everyone to use the same interface that may well not work for them. This applies equally to other devices, such as desktop PCs - as another example, I find having my PC set to do sloppy-focus so that I can rapidly switch between and work on half-hidden windows. It is a minor inconvenience when I have to use someone else's PC that isn't set up like this, but it would seriously harm my working efficiency if I was unable to set my own workstation how I wanted. Since 99% of my time is spent working on my own workstation, it makes the most sense to have it configured in the best way for *me* (and then having to deal with some inconvenience on the 1% of the time I use a different machine) than it would be to have a lowest-common-denominator setup where everything is identical(ly crap).

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
  3. Re:Hey, buddy. by wzinc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, MS wasn't 'wrong' in the 80's; Apple just wrote a poor contract that technically allowed them to use a desktop-style OS... after having paid Xerox for it in stock. MS just used shrewd business practices. IMO, they were unethical, but perfectly legal. Samsung, on the other hand, doesn't have such a contract, so I'm not sure how they're going to get away with this. I'd hate to see computing go straight from the MS dark ages to the Android dark ages.

  4. Re:Illiterate troll? by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Um, no...because a console's case has no 'function' other than to look exciting and stop people touching the innards.

    A 'pad' computer has to have a touchscreen covering the top side of it. There's no choice about what the principal surface looks like - It's a screen. Period.

    It has to be slim so the side walls are pretty much done. Maybe you can use a different color plastic, I dunno.

    The back has to be flat and smooth so you can lay it down on things.

    That's all sides covered methinks. The only real design choices are whether the corners are rounded and where the connectors go. I don't think Samsung copied Apple's connectors. Arguing about exactly how round the corners are isn't making anybody look intelligent.

    --
    No sig today...
  5. Re:Well, it depends by andydread · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah.. but Apple filed software-patents on swipe-to-unlock, pinch-zooming, scroll-bouncing, "Displaying pictures as thumbnails and when clicked opens in a picture viewer, " All a bunch of obvious software-patents. and patents on effects/gestures all software patents meaning that if your decide to write code that does anything similar, then Apple through the use of software-patents, not copyright will own your totally different code. The days of being able to write code freely without it getting cleared by Apple and Microsoft are coming to an end. And you are ok with this?? Software is authored works. You are ok with companies filing patents on authored works? Should book authors file patents on books stories? Should music authors file patents on the concept of the story in their songs? So if I write a book on the concept of a love story should i be able to sue over that concept? blocking any other book on a love story even if the story is completely different? if not then why should Apple be able to take ownership of my authored code when it is not theirs and is completely different just because it provides a similar function?