Tim Cook Prefers Settling To Suing and Has a Huge Quarter

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's current legal battles with Samsung encapsulate a large number of patents, innumerable suits and counter-suits, and have resulted in legal motions in 11 jurisdictions across the globe. As you may remember, Steve Jobs in his biography was quite vocal about his intent to go thermonuclear on Android, vowing to spend every last dime in Apple's coffers to destroy Google's mobile OS. But Tim Cook is a bit more level headed about things, expressing during Apple's earnings conference call yesterday that he has has always hated litigation and would much rather settle than to battle in court. The caveat, of course, is that Cook doesn't want Apple to 'become the developer for the world.'" It may not be what Jobs would do, but as zacharye notes, it doesn't seem to be hurting earnings. "Despite early-morning jitters on Wall Street, Apple on Tuesday reported yet another blow-out quarter. The Cupertino, California-based company managed the second most profitable quarter in its history, posting a net profit of $11.6 billion on $39.2 billion in sales. Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones into channels last quarter, along with 11.8 million iPads, 7.7 million iPods and 4 million Mac computers. While the firm continues to dominate the technology industry — Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world — several analysts think Apple is just getting started."

Comments

Developer for the world?

[serviscope_minor]

Developer for the world sounds like a bit of a tall claim.

Apple really don't invent much new stuff. What they are excellent at is combining existing, often poorly implemented, inventions into very well polished consumer products. That's their business and they're very good at it.

But, it shouldn't be subject to patent protection, and their patents tend to be dubious at best.

The other thing is that patents or not, it's an extremely hard thing to copy.

Re:Developer for the world?

[gstoddart]

But, it shouldn't be subject to patent protection, and their patents tend to be dubious at best.

Unfortunately, this is the situation we find ourselves in. Everything is patented, no matter how absurd, and companies are basically performing rent-seeking by suing everyone who makes something resembling one of their "existing, often poorly implemented, inventions" (which as often as not are just copies of other ideas which have been around a while).

The problem is the absurdity of the patent system, much more so than any of the players. They're all playing the same game, and nobody wins in the end except for the big companies.

How much is Microsoft making off every Android phone again?

I don't see how any company could possibly not be getting embroiled in this unless you simply roll over and cough up a percentage of your earnings to any schmuck who comes along and says he's got a patent.

Re:Developer for the world?

[jedidiah]

They don't invent things that deserve a 20 year monopoly and a legal right to run everyone else out of business.

Re:Developer for the world?

[jedidiah]

> but finding the algorithm to know when its a real finger and not accidentally touching is patent able.

disputable

> no one is stopping samsung and others from doing the same thing to find their own algorithm

Chances are, they already have. It's just the Apple now "owns" the approach regardless of how it was derived. It doesn't matter if I read it in the patent, or if I was able to "re-invent" it myself.

The patent was likely never consulted because of the whole "treble damages" problem. So it is likely that the patent is competely worthless and unecessary.

Your perverse idea of how patents should work allows the first person to file to steal the intellectual work from the rest of the market.

Re:Developer for the world?

[MikeMo]

Ya know, maybe they don't "invent" things. Whatever. One can say for sure that most of the industry tends to copy Apple's, er, um, 'not inventions'. What did smartphones look like before the iPhone? What did tablets look like before the iPad? Aren't all of the ultra books attempted copies of the Macbook Air? For sure, Intel uses the Air as the target .

The point is, whatever you want to call it, Apple does seem to lead the industry (at least recently) and they probably do get a bit tired of seeing everyone make stuff that looks and feels like theirs.

Re:Developer for the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a few things new ways of looking at the world come directly from Apple, or employees they have hired and bought their inventions when no one else was looking at them -- not willing to foster these ideas into something tangible.

And most of the stuff Apple has been complaining about have been things that could have been found by others, but weren't. Or complaining that someone takes a surface level idea and tries to ride the coattails of something much more popular to the point if they didn't sue, it would encourage others to create identical devices without having to put the hours in.

I mean, with touch tablets...we all talk about how there really is only one form factor and that others are simply doing what they would have eventually done anyways, reducing the device to solely what was there. And if this is the case, why did every single tablet that came out before look pretty fucking shitty and now all want to try to look like the iPad. Wasn't like it was the first...yet, they took the time to do it right.

As for other patents...I've had two patents in my name over the years (currently my university is fighting to take my name off because I refuse to 'monetize' them). And everyone in my field has come out and publicly shouted that what I did was OBVIOUS to everyone in the field. And it kinda was. Using time tested techniques and putting it together in a unique way that no one else had. Others had worked for 40 years in the field and got angry that these were patentable...the only reason I even agreed to patent it was that I didn't want to get sued by someone else in the future (and sadly, my employer technically has a suit against me now). And yet, they couldn't put two simple concepts together and make it work because everyone was fighting over the fact that they believed in one or the other concept and never thought to work together (both of which long since past the patent...and it WAS a little more than just adding the two together, but once you did and saw the results, you realized you could achieve far more going down this path than anything else).

So yeah, when Apple combines existing inventions and actually makes them work when others that have had a lot more time and budget (at least 5 years ago)...they have done something that no one else could have done. And more to the point, they had the expertise to figure out what was important, and what isn't important. You really don't know a subject until you can make it useful to someone that isn't an expert in the field.

Re:Developer for the world?

[serviscope_minor]

you can patent implementation, not the idea

No, patents protect the idea, copyrights protect implementations.

car companies have all kinds of engine patents yet there are something like 10 different car companies selling cars in the US that all take the same gasoline

The basic idea you are referring to is the Otto cycle and it was indeed patented. The patent has long since expired.

if someone comes out with an idea you can always find a better way with some time and effort.

No, you can't, especially when patents are simply too broad. If someone patents the idea of multitouch on a phone, there is no way of implementing multitouch interfaces on a phone without violating the patent, no amtter how much research you do.

its always the asian companies that only want to rip off someone's work just to sell it for less.

Whereas, American companies want to rip it off, sell it for more, then sue the inventor?

Re:Developer for the world?

[serviscope_minor]

Ya know, maybe they don't "invent" things. Whatever.

Yes.

One can say for sure that most of the industry tends to copy Apple's, er, um, 'not inventions'.

Designs. The word you are looking for is designs.

What did smartphones look like before the iPhone?

Well, in 1992, you had the IBM Simon which was a blank slab with nothing but a touchscreen. Due to the manufacturing tech and other constraints of the time, it was quite thick and a bit lumpy, because the basic aerial and speaker tech was not advanced. But bsaically, it's a cuboid with a screen and nothing else.

Then, later you had the LG Prada which was basically the same idea with 2006 era manufacturing and phone tech. That makes it a rather slicker cuboid with a screen and little else.

So yes, Apple didn't invent the idea or basic design, but they produced a very refined version of it.

What did tablets look like before the iPad?

Er, pretty featureless cuboids with little else but a screen and as thin as possible given the state-of-the art manufacturing tech, like the Hp-Compaq TC1100?

Aren't all of the ultra books attempted copies of the Macbook Air?

Again, they were not the first company to make thin or light laptops.

You're again confusing inventing the original idea with producing a good or even leading implementation of the idea. The latter is what Apple do, not the former. There's nothing wrong with that.

Re:Developer for the world?

[dyingtolive]

That's not the point Baloroth was trying to make. The claim was presented that there was no phone that looked like the iPhone prior to the iPhone coming out. That is false.

All your argument suggests is that Apple is better at advertising and marketing.

Re:Developer for the world?

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that mathematics was never supposed to be patentable, regardless of how hard someone worked on it.

Re:A ray of sanity

[mikael_j]

The thing with Adobe is that it's by no means all Apple's fault.

One of the core issues was Adobe's creative suite, when they ported it to OS X they used Carbon rather than Cocoa. They knew Carbon wouldn't live forever yet they threw a temper tantrum when Apple started dropping Carbon in favor of the all-Cocoa future. Then they seemed to realize that if they dropped OS X as a platform they'd most likely end up losing customers as others (possibly including Apple themselves) filled the void, apparently they figure out that users of Adobe software on Apple platforms are generally more loyal to Apple than Adobe...

Re:A ray of sanity

[mclaincausey]

Adobe killed mobile Flash last year. Are you expecting Apple to now build their own Flash client implementation for this buggy, insecure, dying technology? Jobs was right about Flash.

Re:Tiring

[ColdWetDog]

Simple really. It's the Golden Rule.

He who has the gold, rules.

Re:But he is still arrogant.

[Gilmoure]

There's no skill in polishing. It's all about holding up a clunky rock and expecting people to beat a path to your door. Making it attractive and comfortable and fun to use is just useless fanboi marketing techniques. No skill involved there. Thats why everyone does that and there's only a couple companies out there that make new stuff.