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Samsung Appeals Apple's Injunction Against Galaxy Nexus
It will come as no surprise that Samsung has filed an appeal in response to the injunction granted to Apple against the Galaxy Nexus phone in the U.S.. From the article: "The motion, filed with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, seeks a stay of the injunction for the duration of the appeal.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ordered the preliminary injunction on Friday, granting a motion Apple made in February that alleged Samsung infringed on several of its patents. The injunction, which would keep the Samsung device from being sold in stores in the U.S., can go into effect as soon as Apple posts a bond of nearly $96 million."
Injunction terms are too narrow. Can't we have an injunction against patent related douchbaggery?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It will come as no surprise that Samsung has filed an appeal
I think that more supposed news stories should begin "this is not news".
I love apple products, but this is becoming disgusting. I cant see how anyone can think that android is anything like iOS except for where it uses icons, and you use your fingers, and it runs apps.
The whole thing with this is underlining a major flaw in our court system.
1 - Judges are not educated enough to make a ruling need to be retired. Sorry, but why are you presiding over a technology case when you know nothing about technology?
2 - Our patent system is so broken that it's proving to anyone that has a brain that it is causing a strangulation effect. A little guy in his garage has ZERO chance of creating anything without being gunned down in court by a rich company afraid of competition.
The sad part is that we cant change it. No matter WHO get's elected into congress, they are always outnumbered 300 to 1 by the bought and paid for senators that are there to do what the industry tells them to do instead of doing what is right.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'd agree if the patents weren't bogus and obvious. If we had a patent system that actually granted patents of merit and not a rubber stamp this would make sense.
Go read some of these patent. It's isn't revolutionary stuff, it's just who won the horse race for patenting "clicking icon to make something happen" and the like.
the short answer is no, but it is whats inside that counts.
Not for Apple's patents.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Not going to reply to this other than to say that you need to look up the definition of the word conspiracy. If people are working as single individuals or groups IN THE OPEN then it isn't a conspiracy. You're just trying to use "conspiracy theory" as a putdown.
U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647 for a "system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data" which was validated in Apple's U.S. International Trade Commission case against HTC. U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172 for a "method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations" or predictive text. U.S. Patent No. 8,046,721 for a system describing "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image" or the "slide to unlock" function found on iOS devices which was successfully used against Motorola in Germany. U.S. Patent No. 8,086,604 for a "universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system" that was the basis of Friday's ruling." http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/240003036?nomobile=1
Uh, have you actually looked at the patents in question? We have a slide lock switch for the touchscreen. Slide locks are not particularly novel. But of course the idea of using them on a touchscreen is perfectly novel and non-obvious.
The other two are of similar caliber. There is no way you can avoid those totally obvious things if you are going to create a touchscreen user interface for a phone.
Basically Apple thinks it is entitled to a monopoly on touchscreen phones because they were first to, uh, sue (other products were in the market first), and would suffer irreparable harm if others were allowed to enter into the market, something known as "competition".
Because they are an American company (never mind that they avoid producing stuff in the U.S.A.), a U.S. judge swallows the "we want the market to ourselves" sob story.
The "patents" are merely a pretense for getting the judicial system's active help monopolizing the U.S. market. One needs to sue over something, however ridiculous, or one does not get a judge involved in this sort of perversion.
If Apple can keep Samsung out of the the market for 1 or 2 years, Apple wins. If Apple loses the case and pays out the 96 million to Samsung, Apple wins.
The 96 million is a wonderful investment in trying to crush Samsung. MS has all the cash in the world. Cash does not equal smart phone market share. Samsung has momentum. If Apple can break that momentum, Samsung getting 96 million won't help much.
Apple's strategy is to win in the long run. If people can't by Samsung products for 1 year, what are they going to do? Switch. Samsung will lose hard earned market share, time and momentum. When Samsung re-enters the market, the 96 million will not cover their true losses.
She stimulates their cash flow every time she makes a ruling, and for lawyers that is an exceedingly attractive trait in a woman.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Well, perhaps Samsung should try inventing things themselves, rather than let Apple invent everything.
Here is what all touchscreen smartphones looked like before Apple came along and showed how the world how to do it (complete link).
Apple were first people to do anything like that at all, so they should obviously have a patent.
They basically invented the entirely featureless tablet and the touch based user interface.
(for the impared: please actually look at links before flaming)
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's based on the "unified database search" function (Siri) because Apple claimed (and the judge accepted without critique) that this is a major reason why people by iPhones, and hence copying it posses a potentially serious threat to sales. Nonsense in every respect, but there it is.
In this case, it is my understanding that the patents are not for 'rectangular devices possessing a touchscreen on the front'; but for certain software features.
I have to wonder why Samsung doesn't flip the disable bit on the features Apple is suing about(for extra credit, in some manner that allows firmware modders to oh-so-deviously flip it back, if they want) so that they can start moving units without having to clear up any legal issues, and then push a firmware update once the legal wrangling is sorted out...
You can't do that with hardware-related patents, obviously; but I would think that the financial impact of an injunction that keeps you from shipping on time(especially given the percentage of the US phone market dictated largely by what phones carriers feel like flogging today, and the carriers' distinct dislike for delay: see also Microsoft Kin's horrible death) would be overwhelmingly greater than the financial impact of having to ship without a few bullet points for whatever crap skin you are slapping on top of your Android build, especially if you can turn those back on with an update once the lawyers clear.
Except those pictures are photo shopped and this is well documented...
There's no denying that Apple's designs have permeated the industry - but that's not what this injunction is about. It's about the ability of a device to have a uniform interface to search multiple databases (implemented by Siri in iOS and by the Google search bar in Android). *This* function predates iPhones/iOS, should not be the basis of a patent, and is not Apple's "intellectual property".
Even though I like Apple products quite a bit, I thought it was BS that they were claiming Samsung's were too similar and that they were confusing consumers...
Until I walked into a Best Buy one day (a friend dragged me in, I swear), went up to what I thought was an iPad display area next to the Apple section, and picked up what I thought was an iPad on display (though something seemed off, which I later realized was the camera located on the other side of the device than it is on an iPad). It became clear a few seconds after I turned it on and didn't see the typical iOS home screen that the device in my hands was not an iPad, but was actually a Galaxy Tab 10.1. I''ve been using Apple products for years, so you'd think I'd recognize their devices, but I was unable to identify that it wasn't an iPad until I had the device in my hands for a few seconds.
After that, my opinion changed, to say the least.
Oh yes, the misuse of the English language yet again.
Invent implies they had something to do with the r&d into the development of touch screens. They "integrated" touch screens into a product which they received after acquiring fingerworks.
For yor reference see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch
Google just announced that they will be teaming up with Samsung to fight this patent case. http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-were-working-on-an-apple-attack-with-google-02236690/ Now we've got a fight!
You do realize that the patent you're talking about predates the launch of iOS by two and a half years and the launch of Android by four years, right? While Siri is indeed an implementation of the patent, they had it patented long before then. In fact, of the other patents being used in this case, all but one predates the launch of Android, and one of them dates back to 1996. So, at least in that regard, it is valid.
As to software patents in general, well, I despise them as much as everyone else here. I just prefer that we argue against them from a solid foundation, rather than arguing out of ignorance.
Maybe all smartphone makers should review other companies' patents BEFORE they make a phone. Then if there's something legit, don't put it in your phone. If there's something not legit, try to get the patent invalidated. That would definitely save some money. But I guess "screw it, let's just make a phone and deal with it later" works too.
When I was working for a well known big tech company, their legal department advised us not to look at patents and just to blindly implement away. This advice is based on several premises:
1. There are so many patents, looking through them and figuring out which might be infringing is extremely expensive (if all the engineers do it, the company would be spending way more on looking for patents than they would actually end up paying out on the odd occasion that a court decided they were infringing).
2. If the company gets sued for patent infringement, and it is discovered that the company had looked at the patent they were infringing, the court will probably impose a much harsher penalty than if you infringed by accident.
3. In the software world at least (and I imagine this is also largely true in other sectors, for example, sectors where you can patent rectangles with rounded corners), it is basically impossible to write any non-trivial piece of software without infringing a great number of patents. So the entire software industry revolves around the principle that you _are_ infringing someone else's patents and you just hope they don't notice and sue you for it. If they do sue you for it, then you're better off if you didn't know which patent you were infringing (see (2)).
Point (1) is also one good reason why patents have become a waste of time for society. It used to be that if you had a good invention, you patented it and the patent documented lots of detail about how it works. If someone else wanted to build something similar after the patent had expired, they could do so from the detail in the patent. These days, patents have become so numerous and trivial that if you want to implement something it is usually easier to just figure out how to implement it yourself rather than find a relevant expired patent. Coupled with the fact that modern patents are so vague it's basically impossible to implement them based soley on the description in the patent, and that technology is so fast paced that by the time a patent expires, the thing it is describing is probably useless and has been superceeded many times over.
A truely fair patent system would recognise the difference between something you invented independently (even if someone else had, unbeknownst to you, already invented it) and something you copied. Unfortunately proving which is which is a problem, so I'm of the opinion that its about time to scrap the entire patent system - it no longer does what it was intended to do, is being openly abused and is harmful to society.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
She's a former patent lawyer: From 2002 until 2008, Koh worked as a litigation partner at the Silicon Valley office of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery representing technology companies in patent, trade secret and commercial civil matters.[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_H._Koh
"poking a picture" (see the pre-computer definition of "icon" or "glyph")
"autocomple text" (see any idiot that has ever cut you off mid-sentence bark out what he thinks you are going to say)
"using a slide-bolt latch" (found at any hardware store since the invention of same, an any wood-worker for before that)
"searching multiple things like in gopher" (see things like gopher)
All of these things are unspeakably innovative for their age (their age being "bronze", except for gopher, which was "computer relative (big) iron age").
Yes, we -must- protect this innovation.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Samsung -makes- the multi-touch screens for Apple. That is, Apple never went to Samsung with plans for the screen and said "make this please".
Apple is just yelling "how dare you" while whispering the "use the stuff you make to make a phone, like you do, after we claimed to invent the stuff you make that was invented by someone totally else like twenty years ago".
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press