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Apple Launches New Legal Attack On Samsung
walterbyrd writes "Apple Inc has asked a federal court in California to block Samsung Electronics Co Ltd from selling its new Galaxy Nexus smartphones, alleging patent violations. In a suit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products. Those include the ability to unlock phones by sliding an image and to search for information by voice."
These kinds of software patents are patently bogus.
This is starting to become childish.
I like my Apple products, but this endless pissing match between them and Samsung doesn't endear them to me.
That google has had for a long time, and they had search by image. Please apple try and infringe on this. I hope google sue you into oblivion.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Apple is an outsourcing manufacturer of niche products. Samsung is a global innovator AND manufacturer.
In the end, this only benefits lawyers and kills future innovation.
I don't see how Apple is benefitting long-term from this mentality and cultural mindset. It's a shortterm win at best and then a death by a thousand cuts as any of it's own innovations will be dealt with the same way by other companies.
I don't particularly blame Apple for this, but they certainly could afford a few lobbyists to turn this crap system around.
Apple should of never been allowed to get that patient! I would say the ability to unlock a phone through touch motion is active public domain knowledge and should fall outside the requirement for filing a patient. I think it's time for some major change in the US patient office. Technically Apple can now block EVERY single touch screen phone on the market and being developed. They have been allowed to secure a monopoly in a growing field, how on earth it that fair? Whats next is Apple going to patient toilet paper and go to court with everyone who goes to the bathroom?
What is up with the first sentence of TFA?
"In a suit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products."
I think it's supposed to be saying "patents OF underling features THAT customers expect"... But this seems to imply that the reason that the patents are valid is because customers expect Apple to have the features that these patents cover, which is not a basis for a patent, and certainly not the basis for a patent infringement claim.
I am very, very frustrated with the state of tech reporting regarding patents, and the tortured English and tortured understanding of the nature of the suit even in the very first sentence of this article just makes it worse.
I am long time apple user. I love their OS, their software, and they way they implement those things on elegant hardware. I will probably always be a mac (and linux) user. (disclaimer: I use an android).
But all I can say anymore to mainly apple and a lesser extent other manufactures is:
Give me a fucking break already! Aim for cooperation and interoperability. Those two things would benefit end users on both sides more than spending billions on squabbling! All of these endless back and forth lawsuits is ruining both the mac and android experience for me. I know I'm kinda rambling but I'm getting to a tipping point. Looking forward to WebOS this September.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
apple has been making phones since what 2007? samsung/windows/rim/ pretty much everyone else in the game has been making phones since the 90s? moto in the 80s? I remember a phone I had in the late 90s I could do voice search on.
I am almost forgetting about sony being evil with every new lawsuit out of apple.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Let them keep it up. They're just building a case for patent misuse - the B&N case will be a simple how-to sue for patent misuse to be used on Apple.
...
If you can't innovate
litigate!
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Most of the property they're "defending" is not really theirs.
Android OEMs are an easy target due to Google's lack of indemnification and apparently lax attitude towards patent issues, but I suspect Microsoft would already be in the clear with licensing even if there were valid patent issues there.
Lax attitude towards patents? SOFTWARE SHOULD NOT BE PATENTED. Google just happens to be on the right side of that issue. Software is authored works and hence should be protected by copyright which it already is. Just like books and movies and music. So do you have a lax attitude towards the patenting of book story concepts? Or are you in favor or patenting the concept of a love story or wars in space or whatever. Lets just say the concept of wars in space was patented so no one could write a book about wars in space regardless of the content. Would you be lax about those patents? or would you support and cheer for them? Do you write software? would you like your code to become subject to trivial patents that claim wholesale ownership of your code?
Yup. Now all the fanboys see Apple for what they are.
I just laugh at all the comments over the years. Every time Apple applies and gets a new patent, every Apple lover replies with "b-but but but they'll never use them! And they're probably doing it to protect themselves!" or some other lame excuse.
Well now the answer is clear. And they're worse than even SCO or Microsoft. At least they just wanted a cut of the money. Not Apple. They want to hinder one of the most useful and important things that benefit people today.
Though what is interesting is, *for Apple to do this*, must mean that they are scared. Very scared. Can't compete with inferior tech, so let's litigate. They wouldn't do this if they were confident that its product really is superior, and really is "magical."
Please do not blame Samsung, that is just not fair. If a guy gets mugged in an ally, and tries to fight back, do you blame the victim or the mugger? Apple is the mugger.
Yup. Now all the fanboys see Apple for what they are.
If only that were true.
You need to remember that it's the fanboys that defended Apple's idiotic "look and feel" patent based on rounded fucking corners and square icons. They'll defend this just as insipidly.
They wouldn't see Apple for what they are if Zombie Steve Jobs came back to fuck them in the eye.
Please explain how raising prices, reducting choice, and stifling innovation is a benefit to consumers?
Because Windows was more free than Apple. Any computer manufacturer could make a machine and sell it with Windows on it, by buying a license for it. They could not do that to make a machine running Apple software.