Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Has Spent More Than $100 Million Suing Android Manufacturers

Posted by Unknown on from the saved-three-iphone-sales dept.

Diggester writes with an excerpt from an article at Gizmocrazed about the absurd amount of money Apple has spent suing HTC et al: "The never-ending war on Android has cost Apple more than $100 million, according to latest estimates. While a huge chunk of that money was spent (read wasted) in claims against HTC. So far, 84 claims have been filed against different Android manufacturers (HTC, Samsung, etc.) for patent infringements, out of which only 10 were proved to have been infringed and only one ruling has gone in Apple's favor."

31 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Does not compute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So far, 84 claims have been filed against different Android manufacturers (HTC, Samsung, etc.) for patent infringements, out of which only 10 were proved to have been infringed and only one ruling has gone in Apple's favor."

    WTH? What happened in the 9 cases where the patent was proven to be infringed but the ruling didn't go in Apple's favour?

    1. Re:Does not compute by almitydave · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't see it discussed in TFAs, but all 10 could be from the same case, or Apple could have lost the cases for some other reason, such as when filing the paperwork with the court, on the place on the form that says "do not write in this space," they wroke "okay."

      --
      my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
      I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
    2. Re:Does not compute by oxdas · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think the reason is these are not full court cases,but injunction hearings. Only one jurisdiction, Germany, is enforcing any sort of an injunction and they are still allowing third parties to market and sell Samsung products, just not Samsung.

    3. Re:Does not compute by s.petry · · Score: 5, Informative

      Groklaw I believe is where I read a brief summary. The judge in at least one of those cases said that while there was infringement there was no possible way that damages were caused because of the nature of the patent. I like smart Judges personally.

      In several other cases (again see if you can find them on Groklaw) the MFR was given time to work around the patent. Again no damages were awarded.

      Which is which case? No idea off the top of my head. I read way to much to know sources this long after reading them.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    4. Re:Does not compute by Xeranar · · Score: 4, Informative

      9 cases of infringement that involved software that was changed in the next update so that while Apple MAY have won court costs they didn't win any profit from the defendant. Winning infringement cases usually means the end of a product in the physical world but since this is design attacks on software they can simply rectify the issue in the next software push and thus negate the whole issue.

    5. Re:Does not compute by mjwx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So far, 84 claims have been filed against different Android manufacturers (HTC, Samsung, etc.) for patent infringements, out of which only 10 were proved to have been infringed and only one ruling has gone in Apple's favor."

      WTH? What happened in the 9 cases where the patent was proven to be infringed but the ruling didn't go in Apple's favour?

      They made minor changes to the software as per court orders.

      What you have to remember is that Apple are so afraid of Android that they are suing over anything and everything no matter how petty.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  2. 1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by psergiu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Question is - how much money did they won from that one ruling in favor ?

    --
    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    1. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by Lambeco · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Question is - how much money did they won from that one ruling in favor ?

      Any compensation awarded to Apple in these cases is purely icing, and a molecule in the bucket compared to Apple's capital. This is about protecting their brand, trademarks and image. And as we all know, Apple will go to any lengths to do so.

    2. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Funny

      Question is - how much money did they won from that one ruling in favor ?

      As the case wasn't tried in South Korea, I think the award was probably in dollars.

    3. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by nomadic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is about Steve Jobs throwing a tantrum because Google had the audacity to try and compete with the iphone with Android.

    4. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by Qzukk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The real question is: how much money did all the lawsuits (winning or not) cost the competitors?

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    5. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Question is - how much money did they won from that one ruling in favor ?

      Zero. HTC just removed the feature and the court where Apple brought the suit can't issue money damages.

      .
      http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/21/BU5H1MFCVG.DTL

    6. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is about Steve Jobs throwing a tantrum because Google had the audacity to try and compete with the iphone with Android.

      The tantrum was about someone doing to him exactly what he did to Xerox.

    7. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by teg · · Score: 3, Informative

      The tantrum was about someone doing to him exactly what he did to Xerox.

      Apple licensed the technology, and paid in Apple stock. So not comparable

    8. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is about protecting their brand, trademarks and image.

      Not really. It's about obstructing its competitors from bringing their phones to market. Apple figured out a year ago that its competitors have better phones than it does.

    9. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by psiclops · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Before the iPhone was first unveiled(January 2007) there was a phone (LG Prada) that actually did look a lot like an iPhone

      LG Electronics has claimed the iPhone's design was copied from the LG Prada. Woo-Young Kwak, head of LG Mobile Handset R&D Center, said at a press conference, “We consider that Apple copied the Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006.”[8]

      Note: While the LG Prada was not released until after the iPhone, the design and concept were released before we saw any of this from Apple.

      --
      i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
    10. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you're saying that Apple should be able to trademark the rounded rectangle? That's stupid. Touchscreen devices, quite obviously, should try to maximize the size of the screen relative to the device. And anything that people must handle regularly shouldn't have sharp corners. The rounded rectangle is simply a case of form following function.

      Also, at least one of those photos has been manipulated to make the Samsung phone look more like the iPhone. The Galaxy S and iPhone 3G have different dimensions, including different aspect ratios, yet they appear identical in the photo comparing them. Whoops! Newsflash... if you have to lie to prove your point, you don't have one.

    11. Re:1 ruling in favor vs. $100M by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 3, Informative

      We are talking about a company that nearly went out of business because they didn't properly patent their UI (And Apple did a lot of improvements over the Xerox design)

      Speaking as someone who worked on both Xerox and Apple computers during the mid 1980s, this is rubbish. There were no significant innovations which Apple and its offspring brought to their user interface - at least until NeXT Step - which had not at least been experimentally tried at Xerox PARC before Steve Jobs' famous visit. Even if they had, nothing in this ought to be patentable anyway - it's all reasonably obvious to any practitioner in the field as soon as the technology (bit-mapped screens and a pointing device) becomes available. When I last bothered to track it, there were fourteen US patents for which I personally had created prior art; I'm sure there are many more now.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
  3. So much for returns. by sethstorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They could have gotten higher ones investing in manufacturing in the US for US markets versus this unproductive litigation.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:So much for returns. by psergiu · · Score: 3, Informative

      They did - Samsung will open a new factory in Texas for producing the A? CPUs. Too bad that they will be shipped to China for final assembly as there are no suitable factories in US :)

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    2. Re:So much for returns. by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft's mobile business essentially IS extorting money from Android manufacturers to indemnify themselves against litigation, I'm not sure why Apple wouldn't try their hand at it too.

    3. Re:So much for returns. by j-beda · · Score: 3, Informative

      The iPhone still has a hefty market share - which is important for Apple because they make the bulk of their iPhone related money on the iTunes store commissions.

      I don't think it invalidates any of your other points, but it looks like iTunes (apps, music, and video) brought in about 1/10 the money as did sales of iPhones in the last quarter, about 1/3 of the amount brought in from iPad sales, about 1/3 of the amount brought in from CPU sales and about the same amount as brought in by iPod sales. My rough estimates from the following graph give about 2.5 billion for iTunes, 2.5 for iPod, 7.5 for CPU, 7.5 for iPad, 25 billion for iPhone.

      http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/24/apple-reports-best-quarter-ever-in-q1-2012-13-06-billion-profit-on-46-33-billion-in-revenue/

      They seem to have had a total of 46 billion of total revenue, and 13 billion in net profit. Even if all of the 2.5 billion of iTunes was 100% profit (ie no costs associated with it), that is still only about 1/5th of their total net income. The iPhone would need to have profit rates of less than 10% to get its net profit to be about equal to this. That doesn't sound like "they make the bulk of their iPhone related money on the iTunes store commissions".

      Apple is making some pretty big bucks in their content sales businesses, but they still seem to be making the lion's share of their money in the hardware sales business.

    4. Re:So much for returns. by LordKronos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They did - Samsung will open a new factory in Texas for producing the A? CPUs. Too bad that they will be shipped to China for final assembly as there are no suitable factories in US :)

      Yep. As far as I know, there isn't a single US factory that houses 8000 "workers" on-site, ready to wake up in the middle of the night without warning and work a 12 hour shift with a biscuit and tea as their reward.

      Oh, or did you mean that none of the factories are suitable because they all lack the necessary suicide nets?

  4. Money not necessarily 'wasted' by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A patent troll might consider that money a wise investment, even if it results in a court loss. It still creates Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD).

    Also, going to court is always a risk. There is some chance that no matter how ridiculous its claims, Apple might win on some minor points, or even some major ones.

    Consider this: Apple's Dutch Galaxy Tab ban shot down by The Hague

    From that article:

    After presiding over wrangles regarding the exact appearance of the two tablets and a thorough discussion of features such as dotted lines, screen icons and thickness of the device, the Dutch judge concluded that the Samsung Tablet gave a different overall impression to Apple's iPad.

    Yes folks. Money spent to argue over dotted lines and thickness of the device.

    Yes. Thickness of the device. A reasonable design goal to anyone.

    That's like arguing infringement of a sports car design based on "goes fast".

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    1. Re:Money not necessarily 'wasted' by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      at least they looked at the devices. If I recall, Germany provided an initial injunction based on a heavily photoshopped picture, provided by apple, showing the ipad vs galaxy tab that had the tab's dimensions grossly distorted and a non-standard home screen manipulated to appear as close to the ipad as possible.

      The car equivilent wouldn't be "goes fast" it would be ferrari showing a simple photo of an F40 next to a lamborghini where the lambo's body has been completely removed and replaced with an F40 look-alike, painted with a ferrari factory color, and had ferrari-esque badges slapped on... except the whole lambo conversion was done by ferrari themselves in order to misrepresent the true appearance of the original car.

    2. Re:Money not necessarily 'wasted' by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not Trolling. Not FUD.

      Yes, it was idiotic, but it did happen.

      http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Apple+Caught+Photoshopping+Galaxy+Tab+101+to+Look+Like+iPad+for+Lawsuit/article22459.htm

      http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/apple/apple-could-have-given-faulty-evidence-in-euro-samsung-case/

      http://pauloflaherty.com/2011/08/16/was-apple-caught-fudging-the-facts/

      http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/15/did-apple-alter-photos-of-the-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-in-its-inj/

      http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/apples-evidence-in-european-galaxy-tab-injunction-was-seriously-misleading-as-in-false/

      do you need more?

  5. Thermonuclear War... by 787style · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong" - Steve Jobs

    $100 million down, $39.9 billion to go.

  6. Grandstanding for future settlements by Lugor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the articles don't point out is this could be all grandstanding and positioning by all parties in a future patent settlement. Current patent laws and process allows too much overlap; they all virtually infringe on each others patent. They will all have to settle at some point, so look at the $100 million not as court costs but investment in future patent royalties or down-payment on future royalty payout.

  7. Re:Fear of Apple by Terrasque · · Score: 5, Informative

    It seems everyone's forgotten how different things were before the iPhone. All this "obvious" shit wasn't obvious at all back then, and it was only a few years ago.

    Well, you got LG Prada (came out before iPhone, had virtual touch buttons), Samsung F700 (slightly after iPhone), and then you of course got IBM Simon... Launched in 1993, had touch screen controls, a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, and games. And it had less physical buttons than the iPhone.

    So... I'd say that all that obvious shit was pretty obvious back then, but the hardware was lacking a bit. Being the first in a race doesn't mean you invented running :)

    --
    It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
  8. Why do we make this even possible? by laughingcoyote · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doesn't this show one more reason we need to get rid of software patents?

    There are a limited number of ways to make a usable smartphone interface, especially when competing with an already-established method. Of course they're going to be similar. There are a limited number of ways to make a handheld device that comfortably fits in the hand and pocket. Of course they're going to look similar.

    Didn't we used to require "non-obviousness" as a requirement for a patent? Aren't these things obvious?

    --
    To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion