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."

Comments

hmmm

[Tmann72]

These kinds of software patents are patently bogus.

Re:hmmm

[JDAustin]

It's not that they are bogus but that there is substantial prior art for each of them that wasn't given to the patent office.

Re:hmmm

[ArhcAngel]

Or...it was given but never looked at because the USPTO is buried with applications that they can't possibly devote the required resources to properly vet.

Re:hmmm

[Trent Hawkins]

I believe that patent is held by Professor Scott from Edinburgh.

Re:hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples is clearly scared shitless of Sumsung's hardware + Android.

Since Apple is so eager to endorse Sunsung as a superior hardware alternative, sounds like it needs to be my next phone purchase.

Re:hmmm

[foradoxium]

you mean from the perspective of businesses that Apple has stood upon?

On my windows mobile 6 phone, I had a "slide to unlock" screen; So how many billions of dollars did Apple spend R&D'ing that?

I'm sorry, but Apple is everything they used to speak out against, they are the suits. The amount of "new" things that Apple has patented is very small. Everything else is just a tweak from something else.

Re:hmmm

[rahvin112]

They are most certainly afraid of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) and they should be. People should really see their BS for what is with these claims, seriously, they own voice control? My Car's navigation system has had voice control for a decade.

Re:hmmm

[Hatta]

There's no excuse for issuing patents that are not properly vetted. If you don't have the resources to properly vet patents, stop issuing patents.

Voice Search

[Anonymous Coward]

....has been on Android long before it was on iOS. I guess we know Apple is going to use their warchest to be anti-competitive.

Yay software patents.

No slide to unlock? Perhaps we should make a "place genitals here" unlock mechanism. At least that may not be patented yet.

Re:Voice Search

[poetmatt]

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.

Re:Voice Search

[MogNuts]

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."

Re:Voice Search

[Tsingi]

... Perhaps we should make a "place genitals here" unlock mechanism. At least that may not be patented yet.

Yeah, Lotsa prior art there. I could send you some.

Re:Voice Search

[geminidomino]

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.

Yawn.

[piripiri]

This is starting to become childish.

Re:Yawn.

[Moheeheeko]

You havent seen anything yet

Wait till Apple finds out that Samsung phones "allow people to communicate via text and voice"

Facepalm

[__aajfby9338]

I like my Apple products, but this endless pissing match between them and Samsung doesn't endear them to me.

Re:Facepalm

[jedidiah]

No. The alternative is that they win the market BY BUILDING A BETTER PRODUCT.

You're the perfect example of what's wrong with the current state of corrupt corporate culture. Actually competing on merit is something that isn't even considered.

Re:Facepalm

[realityimpaired]

The alternative is that they and similar companies silently cooperate with each other with practices like price fixing, cross licensing of patents and behaviour befitting a cartel.

Cross-licensing of patents is actually a good thing, and something everybody in the cell phone market (except Qualcomm) was already doing for decades before Apple decided to enter the market. Price fixing, bad. But using ridiculous patents like "sliding an image to unlock the screen" is worse. They want to drive the competition out of business, and when they realized that they can't do that on the actual merit of their product, they have decided to resort to litigation. When they finally do establish the monopoly they seem to want, gods help us all.

The amusing part of it is that Samsung has a very large number of patents they can bring to bear against Apple, if they really wanted to go for a full on trade war. Samsung is trying to cooperate with them, but when they finally do realize what Apple's game is... how long do you suppose Apple could last if Samsung and LG decided to stop selling them LCD's? For anything, including their desktop and laptop computers. You do realize there's only two companies producing anything approaching a significant number of LCD panels in the world today, and that everybody else is just reselling either a Samsung or an LG panel?

Re:Facepalm

[xaxa]

Cross-licensing of patents is actually a good thing

I disagree -- it's fine for the large companies, but it blocks out small, perhaps more innovative companies.

Re:Facepalm

[geminidomino]

What, you think these lawsuits have had any effect on their market share?

Uh... yes? Considering that the entire purpose of these lawsuits is to keep the competition off the fucking market in the first place, I'd say that's a pretty sane conclusion to reach.

Re:Facepalm

[gstoddart]

You're the perfect example of what's wrong with the current state of corrupt corporate culture. Actually competing on merit is something that isn't even considered.

More to the point, I don't think it's even possible.

Between all of the players, damned near everything is patented. And anybody who owns a patent (no matter how absurd) wants everyone else to pay them crazy licensing fees (Microsoft gets paid something like $5 for every Android device), and sues to keep you out of the market if you don't.

Sadly, it seems like innovation has taken a back seat to lawyers, and it doesn't seem to be showing any signs of getting better.

If you designed a better product, unless you were already a company with deep pockets, there's simply no way you could bring it to market.

I blame the patent system more than I do the players -- it's been set up in such a way as to encourage lawsuits more than creating actual products. And, since we're talking about markets in the billions, I doubt companies can afford to purely compete on the merit of their products.

Since the USPTO has now changed it to "first to file" instead of considering prior art, it's only going to make this worse. Pretty much every company is going to have to try to patent the most trivial ideas in order to give themselves something to fight back with. Because they no longer care if you've taken someone else's idea ... only that you filed first.

If patents are still filling their role of fostering innovation, it's sure as hell hard to see it.

Searching by voice?

[nitsew]

That has been going on since the advent of language. Walk into a crowded room... "HAS ANYONE SEEN MY KEYS?!?"

Nothing new... :)

More to follow?

[jamesl]

This will become interesting only when Apple files suit against Microsoft (one if Apple's largest shareholders) for searching for information by voice -- a long time feature of Windows phones.

Re:More to follow?

[bkaul01]

Even setting aside Apple having been last-to-market with voice search, don't Apple and Microsoft already have patent cross-licensing agreements in place? I'm pretty sure there are a number of Microsoft patents they'd rely on every bit as much as Microsoft might rely on 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.

Re:More to follow?

[ganjadude]

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.

Re:More to follow?

[andydread]

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?

Search via voice is something.....

[djsmiley]

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.

Apple, please just help stop the Patent Insanity

[rolfwind]

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.

BS

[Murdoch5]

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?

Ars puts the story in some more context...

[IrrepressibleMonkey]

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/apple-launching-sidelong-attacks-against-google-with-new-lawsuits-in-us.ars

Including a breakdown on FOSS Patents blog:

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/apple-requests-us-preliminary.html

Didn't ork in the Netherlands, let's try CA?

[icebraining]

The Slide-to-unlock patent in question: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7657849.PN.&OS=PN/7657849&RS=PN/7657849

It's important to mention that a Dutch court where Apple tried to claim infrigement on the same patent has already ruled it as invalid, after Samsung presented the Neonode N1m as prior art.

GIMME A BREAK ALREADY!

[wjcofkc]

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.

Re:They can't stop the insanity

[Nerdfest]

Most of the property they're "defending" is not really theirs.

I spoke too soon

[ganjadude]

This is what happens when I dont read my morning "paper" before I post. Looks like sony is still king - http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/sony_music_jacks_price_of_whitney_houston_music_immediately_following_her_death

Re:Apple is anticompetitive at its core.

[Dog-Cow]

Wow. What a nicely incoherent collection of rambling.

Patents may be "anti-competitive", but that's exactly what they are supposed to be! Thanks for the non sequitur.

It is not despicable that Apple relies (uses) the IP of others. No one creates in a vacuum. They publish the source code for all the Open Source code they use; even the BSD code. They do not (knowingly) violate software licenses. They purchased CUPS, and yet they still make their changes public. They are doing absolutely nothing to remove OS from the marketplace. Your ramblings about Apple's software strategy is completely nonsensical, and is not based in reality.

There is nothing what-so-ever to recommend about your post other than that it's a great essay for the entrance exam of your nearest Bigots-Are-Us club.

Blame Apple 100%

[walterbyrd]

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.

Apple stock is a bubble

[Kupfernigk]

I am not suggesting that Apple is not now a very valuable company. It is. It has large sales of high margin products. It has a lot of cash. But its stock price is still a bubble; it is inflated by projected earnings on the apparent assumption that it will have no competition for years to come. That is probably true of a Microsoft or an IBM, but unless Apple can prevent it, smartphones are pretty much interchangeable.

In view of the actual lifetime of a mobile phone, and the Apple cash mountain, I'd suggest a realistic valuation is between $200 and $300 billion.

In order to maintain the appearance of invulnerability Apple must sue, sue and sue again - just like SCO - as part of the preservation of the image that no other company can (or will be allowed to) possibly compete. If it starts to lose too many patent suits, its share price will suffer, and if, post-Jobs, it has somewhat lost direction (or is up against growing technological barriers like battery life), it doesn't really have a counter.

While the Chinese economy continues historically weak I don't thing the rulers of China will rock the boat - but at some point I suspect they will look at Apple's profits and say, in effect "Hey, we do all the work, we deserve some of that". One option would be a dramatic rise in factory gate prices. Another would be a slow rise in the currency.