Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Samsung Ordered Talks Fail - Trial Date Set
Fluffeh writes "Apple and Samsung just can't come to an agreement, even when the two CEOs have been ordered by a court to hash it out over a two-day period. U.S. Judge Judy Koh had ordered the sit down prior to court proceedings between the two giants, but the talks resulted in nothing more than each side confirming its position. Although Apple CEO Tim Cook said, 'I've always hated litigation and I continue to hate it,' he also said, 'if we could get to some kind of arrangement where we'd be assured [they are inventing their own products] and get a fair settlement on the stuff that's occurred.' Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, or perhaps Apple has bitten off more than it really wants to chew, with the litigation between the two getting to truly epic and global proportions."
It's like when we were kids and my sister and I would fight. My mom would tell us to "settle it yourselves, or I'm going to settle it for you!" Mom always ended up having to settle it because each of us knew we were right and refused to find middle ground.
Of course, looking back - I was the one who was right, and my sister was wrong.
#DeleteChrome
"each side confirming it's position"
Is this what the world has come to?
This is precisely what courts are for. Applying rough justice to intractable parties. It's working. Now make it 90% cheaper in the future with vastly expanded pre-trial provisions of and rulings on evidence and legal theories.
JJ
When you have as much money as Apple there is very little it cannot gnaw upon.
That said, all of these lawsuits are getting silly and hopefully ALL of the companies going into multiple lawsuit gyrations these days settle down.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Its, its, a thousand times ITS!
there is this thing called 'thingiverse', and another thing called 'grabcad', and another thing called 'shapeways', they are your death knell.
what you do is not hard. its not difficult. its not even that special. volunteers on the internet can do what you do, and they can do it better, and they can do it for free. the only thing you have is hordes of factory wage slaves who live under a dictatorship. that can do alot, but it can only do so much for your bottom line.
ask yourself. why would someone support a system where they themselves are not included? why would someone want to support a property regime where they themselves are de-facto excluded from owning property? why care about the morality of privacy when you have to work every day under a boss who beats and harasses his workers and have only enough money to eat and live at the end of years of labor?
why?
it is incredibly obvious that the world as it is, organized into the few who have, and the billions who do not, is unsustainable. the earth cannot survive like this. you represent the catholic church at the dawn of the renaissance. you represent the barons at the dawn of democracy. you represent slave owners on the eve of the civil war. you are going to go away and lose everything you have. nobody is going to take it from you. its just that the world is going to change overnight, and you will be left adrift in a strange place you no longer understand, that follows rules you no longer create.
i am only warning you of this for the good of you and your families. find new work before you are unemployed and have to learn what the masses you drive by every day on your way to the office have to deal with in order to survive.
American Business schools give young whippersnappers all kinds of fucked up advice (like to Dell: continue to cut costs by outsourcing to a Taiwanese company ....good... untill Asus eats your lunch). Here is another one. Send product assembly to Foxconn because they can abuse Chinese labor like no one else on earth. Communist, shmomunist. Wanna eat? We have work. Just chain youself to that post and we will let you eat and sleep nearly every day! And in another cost saving measure: oursource difficult to manufacture parts of the supply chain to South Korea. What's the vendor? Kia? Hundai? Daewoo? LG? No. Its another South Korean company. Samsung. Thats it. Now, on to these legal battles. Who are we competing with? Those bastards! What's their name? Sam*sung? We Will Sue! What? What do you mean our supply chain collapsed? Our difficult-to-manufacture parts supplier is experiencing bottlenecks? Its killing our business, we *NEED* those parts! What? What do you mean someone is suing them and until the law suit is over they can't supply parts? I thought outsourcing was supposed to be a good thing! The short answer is: if Apple wins the suit, their supply chain dies. Hello android.
I think the real story here is that people still believe innovation is possible in the United States. The patent on originality isn't set to expire here for another 150 years plus the life of the author, at which point, the rest of the world will send researchers and film crews in to study our city ruins and study the native peoples...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Stop selling them parts for their iPhones!!!
Can't be good for Apple. Reality distortion simply won't work on her.
"Don't you piss on my leg and tell me it's raining!! My goddamn iPhone drops calls!!"
what you do is not hard. its not difficult. its not even that special.
Actually, that is AMAZINGLY untrue. What Apple and Samsung both do is make products that have many, many finely crafted parts, between both software and hardware. I would say in fact that BOTH companies are special, the products they are producing are light years ahead of what open source hardware designs could produce, and even the software is polished well beyond what open source is capable of.
why would someone support a system where they themselves are not included?
I don't think you understand the people working at large companies, certainly not at Apple. The thing is they ARE included, at least in part. They work under a lot of stress knowing the things they work on go to millions.
it is incredibly obvious that the world as it is, organized into the few who have, and the billions who do not, is unsustainable.
Your only other option is billions who have even less than the poor today. Would you really prefer that system? I would not, but I know some wish for the destruction of humanity, for us to grovel in the dirt like pigs. No thanks say I, humans should be shining like the amazing end result of evolution that they are. To pretend anything else is natural is to ignore human nature, all of history and just plain common sense.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While the world media headlines are blaring "Apple sues Samsung" or "Samsung sues Apple", Apples is providing Samsung more one billion U. S. dollars to keep Samsung's Austin, Texas fab in operation
There is more than meets the eyes
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Us being anti-patent-everywhere people. The more these companies tear each other apart, the more obvious it becomes to disinterested observers that the system is broken.
Dismissal? What the judge should do is take away both set of patents!
I would LOVE to see a judge walk out, call the CEOs to the bench, grab them both by the ear and yell "PLAY NICE OR I'LL TAKE BOTH YOUR TOYS AWAY" and then dismiss these ridiculous lawsuits.
Dismissal? What the judge should do is take away both set of patents!
If I have mod points, I would mod you up !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
But the US company will win.
As long as I see 'SAMSUNG' on Chelsea's kit? DIAF Samsung.
Have gnu, will travel.
Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch or perhaps Apple has bitten off more than it really wants to chew with the litigation between the two getting to truly epic and global proportions.
None of that is in the article. So, Fluffeh is the new Fox News?
In general, two companies failing to come to an agreement means... two companies failed to come to an agreement. Not, "one company is 'worried' and 'has bitten off more than it really wants to chew'."
If everything went absolutely against Apple in all cases (not likely but just saying) they could wind up with a ton of money but nothing to do and no easy ability to make more. I mean if Apple had a situation where their products were ruled to be violating other companies' patents, and other companies wouldn't license them, plus suppliers stopped working with Apple (Samsung is a big supplier of parts like their screens) they would have a situation of nothing to sell.
Money doesn't solve that. In the long run it could solve a supplier issue as they could build their own production lines, but that takes quite a bit of time and still wouldn't solve patent issues. If the patents are fairly trivial, sure they could work around them, however if they are more fundamental to mobile phone operation or the like they might be fucked.
I don't see that as likely but don't make the mistake of thinking that lots of money can solve the problem. Apple is likely going to have to learn to play nice with others.
So basically Tim is willing to talk so long as Samsung willingly acquiesces to all his demands and Apple isn't required to give up anything.
Perhaps he not doesn't realize that's not how mediation and arbitration works?
Using samsung products as intended is now "inventing their own products" by apple?
You didnt invent the hardware, you didnt invent the rounded rectangle, even your precious steve was quoted as stating "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!"
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium&search=round
You didnt invent grey metal, nor glossy piano black, or the widescreen format, so I am sorry outside of software (which is based on open source) what did you do outside of marketing and packaging?
"Perhaps Tim is worried that Samsung is still the primary component supplier for mobile products"
Holy shit, something el steveo never got... what drives droves of apple customers away? They fact they cant offer compatiblity, sometimes within their own family of shit. People dont like paying a pile of money just to find out all the new shit next month wont work because of a rom issue, architecture change, or planned obsolescence based on an flake assholes whim and personal hissy fits.
The problem is that Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Ericcson spend billions of USD annually on research that has contributed to the underlying technology that makes mobile phones work. Apple hasn't and has little to offer in a cross-licence agreement, since most of their mobile patent holdings consist of weak software patents--many of which probably wouldn't hold up under reexamination. I can imagine why the negotiations have failed, but I've also wondered if the FRAND licenses held by component manufacturers like Qualcomm extend to Apple.
That would hurt Samsung more than it would hurt Apple.
Because Samsung's patents are FRAND, and by taking it away, it means everyone who implements a cellphone (ANY cellphone) no longer has to negotiate with Samsung on those patents.
Apple's patents are design dress patents, which have a much shorter life (5 years), and really cover a specific design of product. If you wonder why companies periodically change the design of long-running products, it's usually because their design patents are about to expire, and the design isn't iconic enough to apply for a trademark (e.g., the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle IS trademarked, and it's why only Coke comes in those bottle designs).
Of course, the two sides can never come to an agreement - Apple knows Samsung's patents are FRAND, and since they're essential to implement a cellphone, believes they already got a license through purchase of Qualcomm chips. (Basically, Apple buys chips from Qualcomm, of which part of the price of those chips is used to pay for the patents paid to Samsung etc.). Samsung believes Apple should still pay, akin to the recording/videogame industry saying if you buy a CD/game secondhand, you still owe them money. Whether or not that is true, is up to bunch of agreements between Samsung, Qualcomm and Apple.
Apple's beef with Samsung is the design of their tablets, and Samsung believes they're distinct enough ("we don't let lawyers design our products"). Since it's not an FRAND issue, Apple values part of the whole Apple Experience(tm) is the product design and thus values it highly.
And it's also why Apple's push for nano-sim will never succeed. Even if Apple gives away patent licenses to anyone who asks for whatever terms they want. Nokia and RIM are opposing Apple purely because if Apple gets a patent into the FRAND pool, it means Apple pays a lot less money to them for their FRAND patents. Apple's got the money and everyone wants some of it, and they definitely do not want Apple getting their patents into the standard at all. Even if Apple's implementation is techically superior to Nokia and RIM's design - they will vote for an inferior standard in order to keep the Apple goldmine coming.
Apple vs Samsung. Oracle vs Google. Microsoft vs Motorola.
The thing about the Patent Wars was that it used to be a cold war. Each side with their stockpile of threats. "Yeah we infringe on your patents A,B,C. But you infringe on our patents D,E,F. Let's settle this peaceful-like. And in the meanwhile the little guys who don't have enough clout to get a seat at the table lose out. Innovation stagnates.
But now, aha! It's not a cold war anymore. The Big Guys are fighting! And it will only get worse. Folks, this is going to get seriously ugly as time goes on. This *will* escalate. It has to. Once a shooting war starts the only way to win is to score more damage on your opponents than you receive. And money is the score in this war. Sue me for ten million because of patent X? Fine. I'll sue you for eleven million for patent Y. See you in court!
Which is good for the rest of us. Eventually when the courts are swamped with this nonsense they'll eventually legislate it away. Software patents will someday be on a shelf with buggy whips and other obsolete ideas. When that happens it will be a bad day for all of us. Patent portfolios are valued at billions of dollars for the large players. That's a lot of value to suddenly go *poof*. It will suck, no doubt.
But every day after that will be better and better. But brace yourself for the worst in the meantime. A storm is coming.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Hang about. Don't Samsung want Apple to simply pay up for the time period BEFORE they started using patent-paying Qualcomm chips (and they're both arguing about how much that should be - with Apple being at the "nothing, get stuffed" end of the scale and Samsung the other) ?
After all Apples famous "rounded corner" look and feel court actions against Samsung regarding smartphones, they suddenly have a change of heart and want to settle like grown ups. Just as they are about to launch a TV. Which will presumably be of the large, square, flat, black rectangular kind with a remote - in fact, having exactly the same look and feel as the ones Samsung and zillions of clones have been selling for 10+ years. Coincidence?
Samsung can answer the question "You and what army of killer robots". Apple can answer the question "You and what army of hipsters who are to worried about their lattes to ever make a stand for anything". I know which one I would be more afraid to anger.
People forget that Samsung is an old fashioned giant, it may not have as much cash but it has business in nearly everything under the sun. Anything from ships to military to the chips that Apple so desperately needs. Samsung could loose all its mobile income tomorrow and it easily survive on everything else with full backing of the Korean government and its US military customers. Apple would be bankrupt and torn to shreds by its share holders and nobody has any incentive to keep it going. The world needs Samsung as a supplier, Apple? Nah.
It is what happens when you outsource all your actual production, just in time delivery sounds nice, but it means your suppliers own you once they realize this themselves. GOOD just in time delivery makes certain that you have a choice of suppliers and that none of them can survive without your business. Samsung can EASILY survive without and in fact, if they stop shipping to Apple, they kill a major competitor to their own products.
And if you think Apple can just go to someone else... they are all asian giants to. All of who would be perfectly happy to see Apple die and take over its business.
A lot of business stability exists because the status quo is just easier to keep. But Apple upset that, when you stir the calm waters, the sharks surface.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There's no such thing as "design dress patents".
Are you perhaps conflating trade dress and design patents?
P.S. How can something blatantly false be at +5 informative?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The argument "We are litigating about X so we can void contracts about Y" doesn't work in court.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Commercial cases like this between big companies is exactly what the law is supposed to do. When negotiation breaks down, the next level is litigation in which a third party (judge) assesses the case based on expert interpretation of the evidence. In non-civilised societies that next level doesn't exist and commercial disputes are dealt with with weapons. Recourse to the law is a sign that at least one party is unreasonable, but it is better than the alternative.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
In other words, Tim says: "I hate it when people don't just cave in to my demands!".
Except that it wouldn't be at this point, and it doesn't have to be a single species. Evolution presumes the passage of time. Already bacteria are evolving that are resistant to all our known antibiotics. And as Jay Gould observed, from the point of view of life on Earth as a whole, the dominant life form on Earth is still the bacteria.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
It's a bad state of affairs when a significant number of people in developed English speaking countries have a worse understanding of biology than a poet writing before Darwin published.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Because Samsung's patents are FRAND, and by taking it away, it means everyone who implements a cellphone (ANY cellphone) no longer has to negotiate with Samsung on those patents.
The fact that the patents are FRAND patents means there should be zero negotiations involved in licensing the patents. It should simply be "the price we charge everyone is x% - that's your price too." Done. That's it. That's the point of a FRAND patent. That is Fair, Reasonable, And Non Discriminatory - FRAND. Any attempt to negotiate a different rate with different companies is the exact opposite of FRAND terms,
And that's why Samsung is in the wrong - they are attempting to get more from Apple than they do from other companies. That is not Fair, Reasonable, and certainly not Non Discriminatory.
Not a lawyer here, but isn't that WHEN the rate is offered, you can't charge crazy amounts? Is there something that FORCES you to sell to your competitor?
ie, to stop FRAND applying, simple telling Apple 'sorry, we don't want you as a customer for our patents' is the thing the sammy lawyers are arguing here?
Waiting for an amusing sig.
If you put patents in the pool, you get FRAND access to patents in the pool.
If you don't want to put your patents in the pool, you don't get FRAND access to patents in the pool.
Apple didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the patent pool. Therefore they don't get the reduced price.
Is there something that FORCES you to sell to your competitor?
Yes. Non Discriminatory. Anyone offering a FRAND patent (typically a patent that has been accepted into an industry standard) _MUST_ license the patent to anyone and everyone who is interested in licensing it at a Fair and Reasonable rate. Almost always this means that the license rate is lower than a non-FRAND patent would garner but the idea is that you make up the money due to the fact that everyone who wants to participate in that industry standard must license from you - you make it up in volume. But, yes, they MUST license to anyone and everyone, even if they don't want to.
Fair, Reasonable And Non Discriminatory. FRAND.
And don't get all het up about typographical errors when the meaning is completely clear.
This isn't an English Lit class, dimdick.
That would apply had Apple paid the licensing fee when it was due, but the money that Samsung has sought from Apple over those patents for devices already sold. FRAND doesn't apply AFAIK to units that were shipped without paying the appropriate royalties.
It's perfectly reasonable to demand more money when a company has been infringing on the IP. Now, if there are other companies that have sued Samsung that weren't paying their licensing fees that aren't being treated as such, that might not be fair or non-discriminatory.
Samsung licensed the patents to Qualcomm who sold the chips to Apple. Apple is arguing that Samsung is attempting to double-dip - Apple already paid the license fee by purchasing the chips from a company who paid Samsung for the license.
Why is it that this sort of thing is sooo obvious when it comes to P2P copyright infringement ("they're not just making copies, they are *distributing*, and companies pay much more than the sale price of a copy for that"), but completely impossible to grok when Apple is infringing on patents?
Yeah right. Those patents are, indirectly, the judge's source of income, or at least his raison d'etre.
It would be, at the minimum, moral suicide for him and his colleagues.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
The terms are the same for everyone: put a patent in the pot for GSM radios, and you get a discount rate.
For ALL people wanting the patents, that's available. If you PAY the rate required, you get the rate offered.
If you can't pay the required rate, you don't get the offer.
Apple can't or won't pay the required rate.
Therefore they should not get the offered deal.
NOTE too that the chips they got from Qualcomm do not give Apple access to the FRAND patent pool under the same terms as Qualcomm (who have patents in the pool) got.
Here is what YOU are suggesting all patent owners do:
1) They pay R&D and registering costs to create patents.
2) They put the patents into a pool with others
3) People who HAVEN'T put a damn thing in the pool pay the same price as those who did
Now in what world is #3 fair? I haven't put any patents in, therefore costs to me would be LESS than Qualcomm, Nokia, Samsung et al, who had to put money into getting those patents.
HOW IS THAT FAIR?
How much simpler does this have to be put before your love of apple lets it through?
But, if the license is for x% of unit cost and the Qualcomm chips represent a small fraction of the overall cost, then Samsung is getting ripped off.
Meanwhile, I find it odd that Apple is getting ready to release an Iphone(5) with a larger(4") screen, in effect, copying Samsung's trend toward larger screens, so much for those trade and dress claims.
As for the tablets.. Sumsung uses 16x9 aspect ratio screens while Apple is still using 4x3.. Additionally Samsung has added a microSD slot to their new tablet line.
I wonder just how much longer Apple customers will tolerate the lack of battery replacement/expansion/lock-in in their purchases.
with a judge whose name is Judy Koh.
FRAND patents don't work that way. There is not x% that everybody pays. Most FRAND licensing deals in this space involve small cash payments, but the bulk of the value is patent cross-licensing. This is the same issue between Apple and Motorola, as well as Apple and Nokia (that Apple settled for above FRAND payment rates, but no cross-licensing).
Apple is arguing that they should get the same rates as everybody else despite no patent cross-licensing deals. Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia think Apple should pay much higher rates considering they don't have any patents to cross-license.
The terms are the same for everyone: put a patent in the pot for GSM radios, and you get a discount rate.
For ALL people wanting the patents, that's available. If you PAY the rate required, you get the rate offered.
If you can't pay the required rate, you don't get the offer.
Apple can't or won't pay the required rate.
Therefore they should not get the offered deal.
NOTE too that the chips they got from Qualcomm do not give Apple access to the FRAND patent pool under the same terms as Qualcomm (who have patents in the pool) got.
Here is what YOU are suggesting all patent owners do:
1) They pay R&D and registering costs to create patents.
2) They put the patents into a pool with others
3) People who HAVEN'T put a damn thing in the pool pay the same price as those who did
Now in what world is #3 fair? I haven't put any patents in, therefore costs to me would be LESS than Qualcomm, Nokia, Samsung et al, who had to put money into getting those patents.
HOW IS THAT FAIR?
How much simpler does this have to be put before your love of apple lets it through?
It is fair because if you are in the patent pool you either get paid by every company implementing your patent. So if you don't make any actual product, you just say, no, I will have the cash please. If you do make products, you get to either pay others for their patents, or negotiate cross licensing deals. If someone doesn't have any patents to cross license, they pay cash. But you cannot discriminate against people who haven't contributed to the pool, or those who have only contributed little to the pool. That's the ND part of FRAND - Non Discriminatory!
In answer to your p.s., for the same reason why posts that someone disagrees with are modded -1. There are many reasonable readers of slashdot, but there are usually several with mod points that act like petty children.
That's silly... like arguing that a criminal judge shouldn't put away criminals or only give them minimal sentences because adjudicating criminal cases is "the judge's source of income", and the more crime there is, the better...
there is PLENTY of patent law cases and IP cases to have to deal with, so no need to bend over to help out software patent trolls just to keep "business"/income flowing...