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Galaxy Nexus Designed To Avoid Infringing Apple Patents
An anonymous reader writes with an except from an article on Geek.com about the Galaxy Nexus: "Samsung has been on the receiving end of many an Apple lawsuit in recent months, and in some cases a ban on selling its products. The Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which was unveiled last night, could also come under close scrutiny in the courts once Apple takes a look at it. But unlike previous Samsung Android devices, the chances of that happening are apparently going to be diminished or even non-existent. Shin Jong-kyun, the president of Samsung's mobile division, admitted yesterday that the Galaxy Nexus has been developed taking into account Apple's patents."
They released a picture of it. Looks pretty sweet.
But it may still infringe on Apple's "Physical object with an ability to dial a number" patent.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Not innovation, just needless small alterations to an over all design.
You dont understand. Anything released by any company in any field is an "answer to the iPhone xx" where xx is the model of the last iPhone released. Black and Deckers new toaster oven? Their answer to the iPhone 4s. The new Toyota Prius? Their answer to the iPhone 4s. And so on.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
It's important to remember that it still might infringe on some Apple patent or the other. It's a sad sign of how broken the system is when you try and design a product to specifically avoid all patents but still can't be sure that it succeeds. If Samsung/Google with all their resources can't be sure that it avoids hundreds of thousands of "patents," how is a smaller company without all the resources supposed to do the same?
You could read his statement that way, or, you could read it as an admission that they simply developed technology without reference to Apple's patents and were surprised to find out these obvious technologies and algorithms were patented.
Incidentally, all of the items you list -- those aren't patent violations, at best they're trademark issues.
-GiH
Or, if you are an Apple IP attorney, proof positive that the other models were not designed to avoid infringing Apple's patents.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
The first thing I notice is they've changed the phone icon from green to blue, which I'm sure is an attempt to avoid Apple's claims of trademark infringement. The color green has long been used to indicate placing a call, which is why Samsung changing the color from green to blue is such a good example of IP law being so stifling that companies have to intentionally avoid making anything remotely similar to another company's products. The problem is there's only so often you can do this before you run out of things to avoid.
Aside from the green phone icon, another example is Apple's claim that Samsung's yellow notepad icon infringes on its own yellow notepad icon. Yellow notepads are fairly common, yet for some strange reason it is wrong for Samsung to use the color yellow for its notepad icon. If all other companies acted the same, imagine the many different colors each company would have to avoid, like mines in a minefield.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
They need to get all its features ready for the 2013 model iPhone so they can claim them as own their invention, the same way the half assed iPhone update from 2 weeks back magically got the widgets and notifications Android has had from the start.