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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?"
As previously stated, it's not a patent on round-rects:
Isn't that, in large part, because Apple's design avoids having anything that particularly distinguishes it as Apple? IE there is no Apple logo on the front. It seems to me that Apple is trying to claim what is essentially a lack of trade dress as trade dress, thereby gaining protection over something essentially generic rather than something specific.
I think it is a worrying technique because the trademark stops being a useful tool for the customer (ie letting them know a certain company stands behind a particular product) and starts being a weapon against other companies implementing fairly basic designs.
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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?
I don't know about the icons, but most laptops these days are glossy because that's what people tend to buy. This isn't something that started with tablets.
Why not make the icons circular vignettes instead of rounded squares?
Because a square shape is much more practical. It gives you more space to work with to come up with a descriptive picture. It's kind of like these things called "icons" some of us have had for decades on our computers. I've seen plenty of rounded icons on non-Apple devices long before the iPad.
Why taper the back of your device just so?
Ok, may have been copied. But it's a stupid thing to block a product over.
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?
I can't name the head UI person of really any company ever. Most companies don't have celebrity designers.
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?
Those devices aren't trying to pack relatively standardized parts into the lightest and smallest packages they can. They don't have to support a flat display on the front or fit nicely in your hands. I have some ear buds that look a lot like some old ear buds I had from a previous brand. Should those companies sue each other because there's a limited number of practical ways to make a device fit in the ear?
I don't know why I'm even responding to an obvious Apple fanboy but that post being modded insightful is absurd.
"At least they didn't try"? Are you serious? How much money does Apple spend on such R&D please? How much Samsung, owning core 3G patents (and that worldwide, not US where you can patent basic ideas) and what not spends on it?
Apple "develops" in-house brilliant "design patents" like rectangle with rounded corners. Apple BOUGHT company that had multi-touch patent. Apple BOUGHT company that has developed Siri (former appstore app, now withdrawn)
Samsung spends money on real R&D.