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Samsung Vs. Apple Tit-For-Tat Down Under
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?"
Not going to let Samsung do that, too...
At least Apple didn't try to patent wireless data transfer.... Samsung has a patent (of course invalid) that covers pretty much all radio communications.... There is not good or bad, they all are bad, and lawyers win as usual....
As previously stated, it's not a patent on round-rects:
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.
> Except nobody bar a few design students with incredible vision (but without the support of large companies) knew it at all. If it was obvious then early 1990s tablet PCs would have soon had the same design.
Oh you mean like the PADDs in STNG or the ones in all sorts of other SciFi since the 80s. They are the ones with the vision, the SciFi writers, producers and set designers. Apple just managed implementation.
I'm so glad to see Slashdot his picked a side in this patent battle. I guess we'll just safely assume that Samsung only tried to submarine the entire 3G standard in retaliation of Apple's legal moves and would have never pulled that shit with less than noble intentions. I guess whenever Apple gets mad because one of their biggest business partners is aping their design cues and ripping off their trade dress, that they are trying to patent rectangles and smother innovation.
Got it.
Maybe if you actually read the patent and had some imagination you'd realize that there are different ways of doing things.
Apple's design process: let's do lots of research as to what works and doesn't, both in software and hardware.
Samsung's design process: let's copy Apple's.
Can Samsung's UX team point out exactly how they designed all of Samsung's hardware and software? Why do their icons look that way? Why have the sheen/gloss instead of a flat look? Why not make the icons circular vignettes instead of rounded squares? Why taper the back of your device just so?
They can't, because their work is basically Apple's work.
Samsung's UX and R&D team are sitting in Cupertino inside 1 Infinite Loop. Their secondary teams are in a Samsung facility sitting around and changing some little things here and there.
Have you ever seen any interviews with their design and UX teams? No. That's because they don't exist.
Have you ever heard the name of their head UI person? You'd think that, given the success of the Samsung tablet, that the person would be giving interviews left and right. Anyone? Anyone?
Here's an analogy that even a closed-minded geek can understand. You have a Wii, XBox 360, and a PS3. Which one of them looks like the other? They all have an optical drive and a bunch of A/V output ports. Could you, at a glance, mistake one for another?
Trademarks are not patents. Patents are not trademarks. You'll have a hard time getting a patent on a rectangle, but getting a trademark on an iconic design that just happens to be rectangular? Sure. Trademarks are there to protect the look and feel of products from copies, knock-offs, and imitations, and to ensure that consumers don't confuse products they see with one another. People, including the summary, keep referring to this as strictly a patent battle, but trademarks are playing a large role as well, and the "rectangle" complaint the submitter made is referencing trademarks, not patents.
Speaking personally, I'm a dyed-in-wool Apple fanboy, but even I didn't think too highly of Apple's recent complaints and lawsuits. That is, I didn't until I went into a Best Buy a few months back, walked up to what I thought was an iPad display next to the Apple section of the store, activated the device, and discovered it was a Galaxy Tab. If I got them confused both at a distance and up close, what hope does a typical consumer have? Trademarks are designed to prevent that sort of confusion, and I honestly think it's justified here.
You mean the one with an asymmetric bezel, 10 buttons, and a completely different profile?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Sure:
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. I expect that Samsung will fail partly because of overseas precedent, but mostly because their patents are technical and narrow in scope.
Happier now?
For the record I do not own any Apple product, any Android based device (Samsung or other), or a mobile phone. I hold shares in neither company. Ultimately, I couldn't care less about these particular two devices, but I do care about the collateral damage to innovation caused by the patents-as-weapons mentality regardless of who is wielding it.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
If it wasn't for Apple's iPad and iPhone, Samsung's tablets and phones would look like this [askdavetaylor.com] and this [mobilegazette.com].
Either that or... form follows function. Capacitive screens and more robust OSs have killed the need for buttons. This limits the design space available. A modern tablet (with or without Apple) would eventually have turned into a nothing but a face and a screen. All of those buttons on your cherry-picked photos are completely superfluous thanks to better technology (which Apple didn't invent). The only choice is the size of the screen, the color of the flat space around it, and whether to round your corners or not. Black is a normal color for these things, as well. Go to your local electronics store and see what the popular color for all gadgets currently is... You'll be shocked to learn that its black. Further... icons in a grid... really? I've have icons in a grid long before anyone even thought of smart phones. I've have hand-held devices (back when they were called PDAs) with icons in a grid. Actually a grid is the most sensible way of arranging small squares... Go figure.
I don't have a horse in this race. Both Apple and Samsung are behaving badly. But at least Samsung actually is using patents that DO something, which isn't nearly as dangerous as the shit Apple is pulling.
This is true, since there existed flat objects with rounded corners, and a centered touch sensitive screen before the iPad, or iPhone.
Unless the argument is that Samsung should have been forced to stick superfluous buttons on their modern devices, since obviously Apple is special.
Further, icons in a grid
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
No. While they are both fighting each other (although Apple seems to have the better lawyers after a few salvo exchanges),
Apple doesn't have the better lawyers, they have the better case.
Fandroids hate facts.
Anyone who talks about a company "stealing" something as vague as the look-and-feel of an interface has obviously never invented anything. Inventors usually stand on the shoulders of inventors before them, making small improvements and combinations of several existing ideas. It's a much more evolutionary process than a spontaneous leaps-and-bounds process. Example: Does your website use a menu bar on the side or top of the screen, instead of a bunch of hypertext links in the main body of the page? Did you invent that concept, or "steal" it from someone else?
I don't think that's quite true. Apple has initiated all of this and Samsung has retaliated quite reluctantly. I have been wondering why Samsung didn't launch this action months ago. Samsung doesn't seem to want to stifle competition, because they make money from phones Apple sells.
I think Apple's initial claim was valid... its obvious the Samsung product in question would never have existed if not for iPhone. Don't get caught up over rectangles, Samsung is clearly and without any duplicity whatsoever attempting to take advantage of iPhone's popularity by releasing a product that superficially looks identical to Apple's. You seem to be of the opinion "I'm suing you because you're suing me" is a perfectly valid legal strategy. If it is, then sure... Samsung is just doing what it can not to get caught under the deadly wheels of Apple's crushing anti-competitive practices as it chews up and digests industrial giants on its way to world domination.
The Admin and the Engineer
Have you ever even looked at the evidence against Samsung? I'm guessing not since you posted Anonymous. They copied the design, the icons, the packaging, even the power adapter is identical. This isn't some 'vague look and feel', but pretty much straight clone. It is an obvious attempt to cash in on customer confusion.
http://copyrightcommerceandculture.com/2011/05/12/did-samsung-copy-apples-iphone-ipad/
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/09/29/apple-samsung-copycat-2/
How can you look at the above links and call it 'vague'? Hell they even got caught using iPhone graphics on their own webpage.
http://feeds.appleinsider.com/click.phdo?i=d1a78f8d91e14e80da004b76d84dbe93
I mean seriously?