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How To Avoid Infringing On Apple's Patents
bdking writes "In a public legal brief (PDF), Apple offers numerous design alternatives that Samsung could have used for its smartphones and tablets to avoid infringing on Apple's patents. Basically, as long as competitors' smartphones and tablets bear no resemblance to smartphones and tablets, everything's cool."
Even dumb phones have rectangular screens, and according to Apple those are not allowed.
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Squares are rectangular.
"To me, this case is the same as if IBM in its early days would have gone after anyone (including Apple) selling some sort of computational device consisting of a box to house everything in, some sort of rectangual screen and an input device consisting of letters and numbers - and tried to maintain a no competition policy using the courts to back its business plan."
Because, of course, this looks so much like this. If you're referring to the IBM PC, Apple was there first.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Not have a flat front? Not be rectangular? Not use black?
Remember - those are ANDs not ORs... or, at least, you need a 'critical mass' of those attributes to infringe.
I've had 4 cellphones (not a great cellphone person!).
Only one of them was black.
Only two of them were rectangular (i.e. 4 straight edges) and while they had rounded-off corners they were much less pronounced than on an iDevice.
None of them had a flat front (and definitely not flat in the iPhone "single sheet of glass" sense), two had soapbar-style bevelled edges and one of them has the "chin" which featured on the first few generations of Android phone.
The Kindle 3 doesn't break Apple's rules (its a rectangle with rounded corners, but the bezel is gently curved and its grey, not black), the ASUS transformer doesn't (front has bevelled edges - not flat, bezel isn't uniform) and plenty of other manufacturers past an present have managed to make phones, ereaders and tablets that don't look like iDevices.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
You have to copy pretty much everything to get into trouble. And that Samsung did. They could have used a rectangular case with rounded corners, a dark black bezel with two silver or tastefully grey lines running through the bezel and put the speakers on the side - they would have been fine.
People should really take time to read this disposition. Firstly, the advice that Apple gives how to make a design that is not covered by Apple's design patent is in each case accompanied by exhibits - so there are in each case one or several actual products that do exactly what Apple asks Samsung to do.
Second, Samsung seems to have come up with a list of items that they claim are prior art. And the expert witness then says "this is not prior art because it is different in this respect. This is not prior art because it is different in that respect. etc. etc.". In other words, each of the designs that Samsung claimed as prior art wouldn't be infringing on Apple's design patent because they are different.
To be in trouble, a design must match Apple's design patent in every single aspect. One difference, and Samsung would have been safe.
Even dumb phones have rectangular screens, and according to Apple those are not allowed.
You didn't read the article, or you wouldn't have posted such nonsense. Any manufacturer is allowed to use any single detail of the design used in the iPhone or iPad. It is the sum of all those details that is the problem. Apple has a design patent for A + B + C + D + E. You claim "A is not allowed according to Apple". False. A is allowed. B is allowed. A + B is allowed. A + B + C + D + E is what is not allowed, and A + B + D + E might get you into trouble.
The LG Prada was announced and described about a month before the first iPhone. It has all the design elements that Apple is claiming. In fact, LG K850 still looks like a very nice and elegant phone next to the iPhone 4S.
If it's so completely outlandish how is it that everybody but Samsung seems to have no problems whatsoever
Samsung isn't the only company Apple has sued. They just happen to be the first ones to counter-sue, hence why all the news is about them.
As I recall, Apple has also sued HTC, Motorola, and Amazon.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
If Samsung had changed a single thing on their products there would be no case.
The dimensions are different and doesn't Samsung's tablet have more than one button.
No, because the tablet being sued over is the 10.1, which has no face buttons.
Which is itself different from the iPad, which has one face button.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
There's a pretty good comparison of how the orginal ipod copied a samsung mp3 player. Apple didn't invent the smartphone, either, they extended what palm was doing. Even MAC OS was copied from work Xerox was doing at Xerox parc. It's just that you couldn't patent software back then and now you can. I'm not sure when copyrights came into play.
In fact, copying others has always been Apples strategy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU
"Good artists copy, great artists steal" ... "we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas" -- Steve Jobs
So, not Acer: http://blog.dialaphone.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/acer-tablet1.jpg
or Motorola: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2011/4/27/1303887422785/Motorola-Xoom-tablet-005.jpg
or the HP Touchpad: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41I6VtL6D%2BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
or the Advent Vega: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_Vega
or the Sony Tablet S: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Sony_Tablet_S.jpg/300px-Sony_Tablet_S.jpg
or the Viewsonic G: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/ViewSonic_G_Tablet.JPG/220px-ViewSonic_G_Tablet.JPG
no, none of these look remotely like an iPad. Except the Xoom, cause Apple have tried to sue Motorola for them. The rest haven't been sued because they're not black, with rounded edges and a single button with a rectangular screen.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
what about that bit of the article that lists Apples complaints?
Looks to me like it's mostly LOLRectangle followed by a few LOLSquareIcons and LOLDesktop
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.