Apple Wins EU Ban of Smaller Samsung Tablet, Demands $2.5 Billion In Damages

walterbyrd writes with news that Apple has won a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 across the European Union, thanks to a decision in a German regional court today. At the same time, the court re-affirmed the denial of an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a version of Samsung's 10.1" tablet that was modified to avoid infringing upon the same patents Apple had asserted earlier. The two companies are still fighting on the other side of the Atlantic as well. In a filing today in a San Diego, California court, Apple is claiming $2.5 billion in damages. "Samsung's infringing sales have enabled Samsung to overtake Apple as the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property." Samsung, of course, thinks it should owe much less — $0.0049 per unit per patent — if anything.

Comments

Why foss patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

The story links almost entirely to FOSS Patents, which is the Microsoft-paid Florian Schillers website. Did no one else report this story ?

Re:Why foss patents?

[RanCossack]

The story links almost entirely to FOSS Patents, which is the Microsoft-paid Florian Schillers website. Did no one else report this story ?

Seriously. This is *slashdot*. We should know better.

Re:Why foss patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here.

Re:Why foss patents?

[Baloroth]

Ars Technica did as well, but it isn't terribly in-depth.

Re:Why foss patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two out of four links is not almost entirely. By my very rough estimation it totals 50% of the links which is closer to half than entirely.

Re:Why foss patents?

[kervin]

Because Florian is one of the best and most prolific law bloggers on the web today. I read his site just about every day and I haven't seen a pro Microsoft slant as yet.

Re:Why foss patents?

[CowTipperGore]

Because Florian is one of the best and most prolific law bloggers on the web today.

Florian is not a lawyer, not a patent expert, and not a good law blogger. He is a paid shill and prolific blogger. I avoid his site these days but I've read a lot of his stuff over the past few years and it is generally trash. During the Google v. Oracle case, he routinely misrepresented what was said by the judge, the attorneys, and the witnesses. His analysis was obviously shoddy to anyone not relying on FOSSpatents for 100% of their reporting. His predictions did not pan out. He is a shill paid by Microsoft and Oracle. He is an enemy of FOSS and a proponent of software patent abuse, exactly counter to what he claims. His background is in software marketing, not legal, and it shows.

Anyone quoting him or linking to his blog is demonstrating their ignorance of who he is and what he represents.

Re:Why foss patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is prolific because he doesn't write most of it himself. His team includes Microsoft's Burson Marsteller online marketing experts who are also careful to ensure the bias is not blatant (anymore).

Re:Why foss patents?

[kervin]

Anyone quoting him or linking to his blog is demonstrating their ignorance of who he is and what he represents.

That or maybe they simply disagree with you on the subject of his bias.

Not everyone that disagrees with you is dishonest or bought and paid for.

Some opinions I agree with, some I don't. I just factor those as someone elses opinion. Who knows, I could be wrong. It's known to happen.

Re:Why foss patents?

[CowTipperGore]

Not everyone that disagrees with you is dishonest or bought and paid for.

Absolutely, but Florian is. I'm sorry if you are somehow completely unaware of Florian's status as a paid shill who is terrible at his supposed job. That doesn't mean everything he says is wrong, but his well-funded bias makes him a worthless source of actual information. It is public information that he is paid by Microsoft and Oracle. It is relatively simple to read his blog for any amount of time and see that his opinions driving his analysis do not square with his claimed support of FOSS and opposition to software patents. You can review his history and see that he moved from marketing and PR to a well-placed position as an analyst and blogger in the software patent world.

I always wondered

[zero.kalvin]

How high these people have to be to demande few billions in damages ? Remember Oracle and Google ?

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the number is based on the profit Samsung made from these devices, Apple's alleged "losses" due to these products, and some punitive amount added in for good measure.

Just goes to show how much is at stake.

Re:I always wondered

[tripleevenfall]

You can ask for whatever you want. You can ask for a zillion euro, a pony, a unicorn, the moon. A unicorn on the moon.

Re:I always wondered

[Antipater]

Don't try to swallow the moon, though. It'll all dissolve, see, and the moonbeams will shoot out your fingers and toes and the ends of your hair. Then Philips will sue you for patent infringment and you'll end up back where you started.

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering what's at stake and the millions or billions in revenue pulled in by the companies who infringed, it makes sense. Contrast it with the judgments made against music "pirates" who made $0 and you'll see even these numbers are fair and proportional.

Re:I always wondered

[Krojack]

Can't ask for the Moon. If you do the NASA will sue you because it has some items on the Moon that belong to them. =)

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

They know the initial claims will be cut down an order of magnitude or a few. If they'd really mean billions in damages, they'd demand trillions. If they ask for millions, it means damages are in thousands.

It's same everywhere, copyright lawsuits, patent lawsuits.

Even common people aren't far away with suits to the effect of "There was no warning label on that hammer, so it's manufacturer's fault I hit my finger with it! I demand $100,000 for medical expenses and $1,000,000 for moral suffering!" - "Meh. We'll give you a bandage and $100, just not to sit through the proceedings" - "Showed them!"

Re:I always wondered

[Nerdfest]

Oracle didn't have a Reality Distortion Field to counteract their douche-baggery.

Re:I always wondered

[jonfr]

Apple has not made any "losses" due to some patient. They might have made losses on having fancy looking product that does not work so well in the end.

Re:I always wondered

[icebike]

I think that the number is based on the profit Samsung made from these devices, Apple's alleged "losses" due to these products, and some punitive amount added in for good measure.

Just goes to show how much is at stake.

That might work if the iPad wasn't outselling the Galaxy tab by about 100 to one. Apple still owns the tablet space even tho they have lost the smartphone market.
But these are triflingly inconsequential patents we are talking about here.

Re:I always wondered

[Grudge2012]

I think that the number is based on the profit Samsung made from these devices, Apple's alleged "losses" due to these products, and some punitive amount added in for good measure.

Just goes to show how much is at stake.

That might work if the iPad wasn't outselling the Galaxy tab by about 100 to one. Apple still owns the tablet space even tho they have lost the smartphone market.

Well, if you would have actually understood the summary, the damages Apple seeks are also about smartphone patents - and unrelated to the European ruling.

Re:I always wondered

[easyTree]

1. It took us three major OS versions to implement copy-and-paste
2. You make slimmer, faster tablets with more ports which are more open and cost less - we can't compete
3. You owe us billions of dollars. Q.E.D.

PS. Our failure to patent copy-and-paste was an oversight which is soon to be rectified. See you in a Texan court in the immediate future.

Re:I always wondered

[ganjadude]

alleged is the key word. I would not buy an IPad if it cost me 50 bucks, but Id buy and android based tablet

Re:I always wondered

[Anonymous Coward]

"There was no warning label on that hammer, so it's manufacturer's fault I hit my finger with it! I demand $100,000 for medical expenses and $1,000,000 for moral suffering!"

Only in the USA would someone actually be able to sue someone else for that...

http://www.lawfirms.com/frivolous-lawsuits

Re:I always wondered

[cheesybagel]

It still remember people saying Android was a bust because it had very low market growth in the first couple of years. I still remember being modded down by the usual rabid Apple downmodders here on /. for saying that Android was certain to be a success and that Apple would lose market share in the smartphone segment because they simply could not cover the entire market demand and they did not have products which the entire world population, including those in the BRIC countries which consist of the majority of the global population, could buy. Guess what history repeats itself. Again. Apple may sue as much as they want. If they manage to block Samsung from selling one quarter then LG, HTC, Motorola, Google, Amazon or whatever will make up the difference and Samsung will remove the allegedly infringing parts and have a product the next quarter from that. The only way for Apple to win is to have superior products but as usual they think they can win this by litigation.

Re:I always wondered

[gmhowell]

Don't try to swallow the moon, though. It'll all dissolve, see, and the moonbeams will shoot out your fingers and toes and the ends of your hair. Then Philips will sue you for patent infringment and you'll end up back where you started.

I think Frank Capra, Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, and Albert Hacket & Frances Goodrich will sue first.

Re:I always wondered

[VisceralLogic]

It fell out of copyright. That's why it's so popular.

Re:I always wondered

[Thumper_SVX]

Can't ask for the Moon. If you do the NASA will sue you because it has some items on the Moon that belong to them. =)

Well then they can damned well go and get their stuff back before I win my lawsuit. Damned messy apes...

Re:I always wondered

[Meski]

Darl McBride had a fairly good one, in his time ...

Hey Apple

[Nyder]

Fuck Off

Love

Samsung

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, "make it not rectangular, or not flat, or not have rounded corners" as Apple's consultant said about possible ways to not infringe on Apple's design.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every car has 4 wheels.

Lazy.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Make us a drawing of a tablet that doesn't look like an iPad please. I'm curious what it would look like.

Re:Hey Apple

[jareth-0205]

Keep drinking...

Re:Hey Apple

[oodaloop]

Yeah, like a matte gray pyramid shaped tablet with sharp corners and a proprietary 49 pin connector.

Re:Hey Apple

[jedidiah]

So you think that the rest of us should wait 20 years while Apple OWNS the tablet market then?

That's basically what you're saying.

Re:Hey Apple

[kthreadd]

Isn't that why we have patents? To give innovators an exclusive period of time.

Re:Hey Apple

[jaymz666]

Seriously? How do you propose you design a flat piece of glass with a computer and battery attached to it other than slate-like?
EVen the iPad looks eerily similar to those devices used on Star Trek and other movies and TVs

Re:Hey Apple

[0123456]

Isn't that why we have patents? To give innovators an exclusive period of time.

The key word being 'innovators'.

Re:Hey Apple

[kthreadd]

Why should it be a flat piece of glass with a computer and battery attached to it?
Google is looking into making glasses, now that's innovation!
The other manufacturers should look at Google and start thinking outside the box.

Re:Hey Apple

[kthreadd]

So you're saying the iPad was not innovative?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

No, to give INVENTORS and exclusive period of time. Innovation is not invention, and an obvious design should not be patentable.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't we talking about tablets, not goggles?

Re:Hey Apple

[BlackSnake112]

Look at the gun patents from the 1800s. A small change and a new patent was issues. Patents were clear. They were not vague. Did different manufactures sue each other? Sure. But those cases were settled one way or another really fast. All the manufacture got to make their guns. Apple wants to stop all other manufactures from making anything that Apple sells. Apple is getting patents that are as wide as possible to discourage any other company from entering the market. The patent system someone how went from protecting the little guy from the big company to a tool for big companies to whack everyone else in the head with.

Re:Hey Apple

[0123456]

So you're saying the iPad was not innovative?

Yes. At least in the patent sense. Certainly in the design sense. If there was any innovation it was in removing the desktop user interface in favor of something that worked better on a tablet.

Or would you seriously argue that someone skilled in the arts of electronics design wouldn't obviously have thought of something rectangular with rounded corners and a glass screen when designing a tablet?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying rounded corners are innovative?

I remember then being an upgrade going from a NES to a SNES over 20 years ago. There's probably even older examples, but I don't know them offhand.

Re:Hey Apple

[GameboyRMH]

And the same bunch of windows. 1 at the front, 1 at the back, and a set on each side, usually attached to the tops of doors. Bunch of lazy fuckers all copying the Model A. Notice how all the wheels are rounded too? Pathetic.

Re:Hey Apple

[HexaByte]

I just went back into my parents box of save school papers from long ago, I was drawing rectangles with rounded corners when I was still wearing short-pant.

I wonder how many billion I can sue Apple for for stealing my design.

This whole "it looks too much like mine" crap has got to stop. If you make it with sharp corners, you get sued when it pokes out someone's eye. If you make it round corners, you get sued because it looks too much like Apple's.

And how can they assume that Samsung's profits are their losses? Maybe people were just too smart to get locked into a closed system.

Re:Hey Apple

[jaymz666]

Because it's a tablet, based off a smart phone that looks pretty similar, just smaller.

Goggles are another product entirely, or do you propose that the google self-driving car is equivalent to a tablet?

Re:Hey Apple

[tripleevenfall]

Apple is a private company using a broken patent system the way every other private company would if they held those patents. The system is the problem. Apple is just doing its fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder wealth. Blame the system. Reform the system.

Don't hate the player...

Re:Hey Apple

[jaymz666]

Nope, it was evolutionary. Not revolutionary.

It's not that different to a large Palm Pilot. A bigger colour screen and a bit more CPU.

Re:Hey Apple

[amoeba1911]

The answer is most definitely: Yes. We're all saying that the iPad was NOT innovative. There are over 50 prior art examples for a tablet shaped computing device. It's pretty cool that Apple was the very first to make a soccer-mom oriented version of a tablet computer, but Apple most certainly had nothing to do with the first tablet computers, which predate the iPad by about a two decades.

Apple invented the tablet computer as much as Edison invented the light bulb.

Re:Hey Apple

[GameboyRMH]

Yeah like after Ford got a big hit with the Model T, anyone else who wanted to make a car should have made motorcycles and...motorized skateboards and stuff, and left the cars to Ford, forever.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

Perhaps Apple needs to stop patenting shit like flat surfaces and rounded corners: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pxcLePP8Vzs/UADqwheExRI/AAAAAAAABqg/pRRGf8Pn5Bg/s800/Rounded%2520Corners.jpg

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

"Copying Apple"? You call THIS - copying? (Actual language used in Apple's brief) A rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded The front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders As to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width

Re:Hey Apple

[kthreadd]

That's why patents expire.

Re:Hey Apple

[kthreadd]

Put them side by side and look at them. Yes, they are copying Apple.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

Put two fridges side by side. I'm sure they'll look alike too. Or two desktop pcs.

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If you really want to see what that would look like, go to Best Buy, then go one aisle over from the Apple display. What you'll find is thirty other tablets that don't look like an iPad. They even pass the 'ten foot' test.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Tablets existed before the iPad you fucking moron.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

This really shouldn't have been modded down. There are a zillion other tablet designs out there, so it's not like anybody could realisitically claim that Samsung just innocently landed on that one and had no other choice.

Boy the attitudes around here would be different if the roles were reversed.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

then they all copied my monitor, which is exactly that. no mention of touch screen, what they did wast take my 24" monitor, shrink it down and put a touch screen on it, i don't care if they have the exact same form factor, dimensions, weight and density. Apple did not invent the black rectangle with round corners. Seriously, the monitor i am looking at right now is exactly that description.

Re:Hey Apple

[cpu6502]

Wow so much bullshit coming from your mouth. President Obama? Governor Romney? Is that you?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, we can't expect any company to behave ethically, they must simply play within the rules.
And when they become large enough they can simply make their own rules.

 

Re:Hey Apple

[Scragglykat]

You mean like a computer monitor? Like pretty much all computer monitors? http://www.itechnews.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/dell-s2409w-full-hd-lcd-monitor.jpg Man, from a distance, I couldn't tell if that was a monitor or an iPad.

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

There must be more to it than that, or else Microsoft would have reaped the tablet market ages ago.

Re:Hey Apple

[jaymz666]

Marketing. They should patent that.

Re:Hey Apple

[spidercoz]

If it was reversed and Samsung was acting as shamefully as Apple is, they'd be the bad guys too. And what other tablet designs are you talking about? The triangle one? Hexagon? I think I like the oval one best.

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

Ok, there are 50 prior art examples. Note that none of them apply to Apple's patents as much as Samsung's tablets do, but that's for another post.

Now. How come Apple made ONE tablet, after 50 or so competing models, and they sold more tablets in their first day than the 50 models combined in their entire lifespan?

And please, don't make it a marketing issue. You know there's more than that at play or else you haven't learn much in the past few years.

So obviously there was something about the iPad that the other tablets didn't have. But that's not innovation, even if YOU cannot pinpoint what made the iPad different after three years!

Please explain.

Re:Hey Apple

[amRadioHed]

The system is *a* problem, but it's not the only one. Not every company abuses the system the way Apple does. Google has never initiated a patent lawsuit against anyone, they have only used their patents defensively. While the patent system is plenty deserving of any criticism it gets, the companies taking advantage of it are equally to blame.

Re:Hey Apple

[Jeng]

wouldn't obviously have thought of something rectangular with rounded corners and a glass screen when designing a tablet

You just described an Etch-a-Sketch, now we know who all those different companies are copying from.

Re:Hey Apple

[VGPowerlord]

Put them side by side and look at them. Yes, they are copying Apple.

And when I put the iPad next to Samsung's digital photo frame from 2006 (before the iPhone came out, let alone the iPad), they look remarkably similar... at least from the front, which is where the majority of Apple's claims come from.

Remind me, who is copying who?

Re:Hey Apple

[Nadaka]

Put them side by side and you see the aspect ratio is different. Hell, I can tell them apart from a fair distance based on the aspect ratio if they are not tilted.

But the key thing is, both are tablet shaped. The shape of a tablet is pretty damn basic and fundamental.

It is like suing someone a tire manufacturer because someone was dumb enough to give you a patent on round wheels.

Re:Hey Apple

[gl4ss]

Put them side by side and look at them. Yes, they are copying Apple.

no, they're not. logitech copying keytronic? keytronic copying ibm? ibm copying whoever? they're as easy to mistake with each other as my rog-asus is to mistake with lenovo thinkpad. they're both black and both have a touchpad and both are laptops.

but aren't the patents on the usa billions case some other bullshit patents that apply to bullshit like "ui item activated by sliding" etc bullshit you could go find plenty of prior art in pc games etc?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

No it wouldn't because you can't be evil if you're using Android.
Apple doesn't use Android, therefore they would still be blamed even if the roles were reversed.

Re:Hey Apple

[tripleevenfall]

Exactly, we can't expect any company to behave ethically, they must simply play within the rules.
And when they become large enough they can simply make their own rules.

People are immoral, corporations are amoral

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

A buddy of mine who develops for iOS and Android was at Best Buy a few weeks back to pick up a new tablet, and he saw and overheard a conversation between a mother and daughter, where they looked at the iPad, and decided based solely on price that they should go for the Galaxy Tab. The same thing, for cheaper.

For the great majority of people outside of SlashDot, they don't understand the difference between iOS and Android based devices. They see similar-looking gadgets and they hear that they can get Angry Birds on both, so they make a barely-informed decision based on purchase price.

This is why companies like Apple are concerned about trade dress and other patents. The Samsung products, in this case, appear to them to have been designed to look as close as possible to the iPad, and as demonstrated in this case, Apple lost a sale not based on technical merits or open technology, but rather because the buyer thought they were getting the same thing for a lower price. Regardless of your preference, the Tab and the iPad are not the same thing, and the fact that the similarities in design factor into poorly made purchase decisions does indeed affect sales.

I'm not saying that this uninformed girl shouldn't have bought the tab; merely that her decision was clearly based on an incorrect assumption that was influenced by stark similarities in design. She wasn't looking at the Sony wedge tab and thinking it was the same thing.

Should that stuff be protected? I don't know. But the current law says that it is protected, so all the involved parties are going to do what they can to take advantage of the law. If the roles were reversed, I'm sure Samsung would be doing the same thing.

It reminds me of the old tales about Burger King, which was an up-and-coming fast food joint riding the coat tails of MacDonald's. McD's, according to allegory, would spend tens of thousands of dollars doing research on economics, traffic patterns, etc., before putting down a restaurant. Burger King would wait and wait and wait and... get a space right across the street from McD's; this is why they're so often close together.

I'm sure that McD's lobbied--and probably in some cases with success--to limit the number of fast food restaurants in a given radius in order to prevent this, in a way trying to protect their investment in research. That's what Apple is doing. If you don't like it, don't bitch and moan in slashdot; get a law degree and fight the law. Or write your congresscritter. Or become an expert witness and hire yourself out to the EFF.

But comments here do nothing to change the status quo.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

You can't wrap your head around a company behaving ethically?

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

Why bother? Nobody seems to be able to duplicate that one.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

I've lived in seven places, each with a refrigerator, and every single one of them looked recognizably different. And thinking of the fridges at each of my friends' houses, none of them look like mine, nor like each other. There is no way that, if a judge were to ask which is which, a lawyer for one manufacturer or another, would respond, "I can't tell at this distance".

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

But in your example, it's pretty obvious that the girl did NOT confuse the two products. She knew exactly which was which. And there are dozens of industries where everyone settles on a certain form factor after a while. Like microwave ovens. They all look the same. Being a first mover is the only advantage you have. And it's a pretty big advantage too.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

> where they looked at the iPad, and decided based solely on price that they should go for the Galaxy Tab
> They see similar-looking gadgets and they hear that they can get Angry Birds on both, so they make a barely-informed decision based on purchase price.
> merely that her decision was clearly based on an incorrect assumption that was influenced by stark similarities in design

Make up your mind! Was it "it has Angry Birds too and cheaper" or "it looks the same and cheaper"?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG A comment the author used his brainz to write!

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

So if Toshiba had made the iPad, what would the sales figures have looked like hmm?

Re:Hey Apple

[amRadioHed]

You don't need to go to the store, right here you can see all their 10" tablets.

There are very few devices there that would pass the 10 foot test, there's a super clunky looking "Toughbook" and 2 or 3 with slightly rounded edges. That's it. Your assertion that you can find 30 different looking designs is not even close to true. the iPad is about as close as you can get to the platonic ideal form of the touch screen tablet. You can't possibly stray far from that design without reducing the devices functionality with useless bezels or hard coded buttons.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

And regarding desktop PCs, My Commodore 64 didn't look like my IBM PC XT which didn't look like my Quadra 650 which didn't look like my G4 tower, which didn't look like my E-Machine. And that C64 was also recognizably different from similar machines available at the time. The Atari 400/800, TI99/4a, Apple ][e, Coleco Adam... All very unique.

Are you saying that there is no other way to design a tablet than how the iPad is built? Sony would suggest otherwise. If you're suggesting that Apple's design is the best and because of that, all other manufacturers should be able to make knock-offs, I'm not sure I agree on either account. I'd suggest that even Apple is looking for ways to improve their design.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

There are lots of fridges that look alike. Same goes for microwaves. Or computer monitors. Or mikes. Or wallets. Or bulbs. Or t-shirts. Or cars. Or combs.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Over one hundred tablets on the market, only one design patent case. Think about it. Then remember the defense's own lawyer couldn't tell them apart, then think about it some more.

Shame on Samsung.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

She knew one was $100 cheaper. That was all.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

Apple is saying that no other tablet can have uniformly rounded corners. It's the exact wording in their brief. So they want other tablets to have...what? Sharp corners instead?

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

It was "looks the same, both have angry birds on them, and this one's cheaper". Not exactly the best set of data points to make a decision.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

To follow up, what happens, if another company patents sharp corners? Or Apple themselves patents sharp corners?! *Mind blown*

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

Thank you; I'll be here all week.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

That's enough. Price competition is a bitch.

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You can see a bunch of postage-stamp sized thumbnails of them.

Check out these not-iPads: http://tablets-planet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Best-Buy-Tablet-Central-in-store-display.jpg

Oh, hey, here's more: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=best+buy+tablet+section&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=BvUOUOK6IaKMiAKsuYGQBA&biw=1334&bih=848&sei=CPUOULanJ4WXiAKMwIHgCQ

Follow instructions next time.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

I wouldn't know. I'm not trying to create a tablet. It's up to them to determine their own best designs.

It is my understanding, though, that "uniformly rounded corners" is only one of the factors. It's kind of like a finger print. If there were enough other differences, the corners thing would get them laughed out of court. The fact that it's not getting them laughed out of court indicates there's more to it than you seem to believe.

Re:Hey Apple

[Lendrick]

Seriously. Who would have ever thought to make a rectangualr tablet with rounded corners? It's not at all obvious, and there's certainly no prior art.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

Oh and by the way, the Galaxy Tab doesn't look EXACTLY like the iPad. I know because I bought one.

Re:Hey Apple

[darien.train]

I love how you dismiss marketing as an invalid answer without any reason or citation for doing so. Just because you don't want it to be part of the argument it doesn't mean it isn't a prime factor.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

What if Apple had made a design where the corners were not uniformly round, i.e. each rounding having a slightly different radius. And what if Samsung had copied that? Heck, why doesn't Samsung do that now? Or even make the device purple or green? Or have the home button in a corner? Or have a hardware keyboard lid over the screen?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

http://twitpic.com/67ykpa

Re:Hey Apple

[spidercoz]

Yes, shame on them for actually producing a product that is a threat to the Apple monopoly. Hundreds of tablets on the market that until recently have been largely garbage and have sold as such. Then one comes along that can actually compete. Well fuck that. Kill it with lawyers.

I'd be willing to bet that defense lawyer couldn't tell the difference between a Mac and a PC either.

Re:Hey Apple

[kthreadd]

Yes, Apple doesn't put Samsung's logo on their.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

Courts are not really noted for their common sense. And that "fingerprint" is what's at stake. You can't claim a fingerprint so wide that it prevents anyone else from making a decent product.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, were you trying to support or contradict GP? Seems like support to me. Especially the first link.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

Yeah - those are truly attractive and realistic options. Purple tablets?

Re:Hey Apple

[symbolset]

The proportions of the iPad are modeled after the Parthenon's "Golden Rectangle", itself derived from prior art.

Re:Hey Apple

[atriusofbricia]

You can see a bunch of postage-stamp sized thumbnails of them.

Check out these not-iPads: http://tablets-planet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Best-Buy-Tablet-Central-in-store-display.jpg

Oh, hey, here's more: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=best+buy+tablet+section&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=BvUOUOK6IaKMiAKsuYGQBA&biw=1334&bih=848&sei=CPUOULanJ4WXiAKMwIHgCQ

Follow instructions next time.

Except, describe an iPad: A rectangular device with an all black front, rounded corners, thinish bezel and limited physical buttons
Now, describe the design likely to come out of these requirements: Touch interface, comfortable to hold, simple.

Result, pretty much what every tablet is. Or a PADD. Odd that only Apple is running around suing everyone left and right for copying their "great innovations" of rounded corners and few buttons.

Also, I can do magic. If I hold a Galaxy Tab in the perspective it is designed to be used in, it suddenly doesn't look like an iPad. Magic!

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that in the same breath, that consultant suggested it have a "cluttered appearance".

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me what brand of TV you're looking at next time you walk into someone's house without looking at the (usually pretty obvious) logo on the front. Now, how many design patents (only applicable in Germany, because apparently Germany is the only country stupid enough to issue these kinds of patents) have there been filed in the TV arena? How many times has Samsung tried to get a competitor's product blocked from the market because it looked like one of their similarly-shaped black-box-with-screen-and-bezel TVs?

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Result, pretty much what every tablet is. Or a PADD...

And.. here's where your argument falls apart. There are no PADD designs that are confusable for an iPad. They all look like... wait for it... a prop from Star Trek.

Also, I can do magic. If I hold a Galaxy Tab in the perspective it is designed to be used in, it suddenly doesn't look like an iPad. Magic!

I've accidentally reached for my Tab when intending to reach for my iPad. People I work with have asked me what I put on my iPad to make it look 'cooler', not realizing I was holding the Galaxy Tab. (I think the people I work with ache for Android's most sophisticated home screen.) This has never happened with my HP TouchPad.

You're confusing "Meets a small handful of broad requirements" with "one can be confused for another." Samsung copied Apple, the other competition has not, it is *very* obvious.

Re:Hey Apple

[Krojack]

What about the Compaq TC1000 which was released ~7 years before the first iPad. HP Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 - TM5800 1 GHz - 10.4" TFT.

Stop trying to come up with lame excuses. Apple hasn't come up with anything new since the early 1980's. They just take what someone else built and remake it. They know that all they have to fall back on is patient lawsuits because there WILL be better devices released by other companies within a year that Apple first releases their model. What it boils down to is Apple us using patient lawsuits to prevent it from getting crushed like in the 1980's

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

Oh, come now. Are you saying there isn't a market for purple tablets? Are black and white the only options? And was black the only option until Apple made a white one?

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you use a second-hand anecdote from a buddy of yours to paint the entire market, and then claim to know exactly what the little girl knew.

It's why I'm downmodding all of your posts, BTW.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

I've yet to see a purple TV.

Re:Hey Apple

[atriusofbricia]

1) Marketing. Denying the brand loyalty Apple buyers have would be foolish. Lots of people buy the iPad not because it is the best device for their goals but because it's cool. That is a function of marketing. Building on the iPhone, and iPod's popularity (also a function of marketing) helped a lot.
2) The technology available as short as three years prior to the iPad wouldn't have supported the device. That doesn't mean that others didn't have the ideas nor want to implement them. Without the capacitive touchscreen at a reasonable price and quality, you have no iPad. Apple's great innovation was applying the technology a bit faster than everyone else. Everything from the physical design of the device to the interface of the OS is driven by that single piece of tech.
3) They came out about a year prior to everyone else adopting the tech. Apple must be given credit for that, but it isn't innovation. It is market strategy and market vision.

But no, rounded corners and a simple physical design could only have been created by the geniuses of industrial design at Apple. No one else could possibly have come up with the same thing given the same available technology and design goals. Or else they did and that is why all tablets have rounded corners and few physical buttons.

Re:Hey Apple

[atriusofbricia]

I love how you dismiss marketing as an invalid answer without any reason or citation for doing so. Just because you don't want it to be part of the argument it doesn't mean it isn't a prime factor.

It has to be dismissed as the prime factor because otherwise one couldn't hail Apple as the great innovators and accuse everyone else of just slovenly copying them.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

In any case, having a purple tablet and NOT having a black one would be just stupid. You can have an entire range of colors --- including black and white.

Re:Hey Apple

[toriver]

Sure: Ben & Jerry's - that's about it. Samsung is not a hero in any definition of the word: They practically ran South Korea when it was a dictatorship, it practically runs it now that it pretends to be a democracy.

Re:Hey Apple

[bhagwad]

This isn't about Samsung. It's about Apple behaving like a dick.

Re:Hey Apple

[spire3661]

Actually, this is exactly where we want it to be. For the average consumer, both tablets are identical. Email, web browsing, light gaming, communications are all covered along with robust marketplaces. Sort of like Xbox360 vs PS3, both have their strengths and weaknesses, but at the end of the day its hard to find one that is universally better then the other and choosing either will provide a premium experience.

Re:Hey Apple

[atriusofbricia]

She knew one was $100 cheaper. That was all.

She also clearly didn't think the Apple Magic was worth the extra 100 bucks. Unless you're saying she was so completely stupid as to walk over and try the Galaxy Tab and still manage to confuse them because they were both similar shapes? Which would make her blind and stupid?

I honestly do not believe anyone could buy a Galaxy Tab by mistake and think it was an iPad. I further don't believe, like in this case, that a decision was made based on similar shape and no other consideration. Next, you'll be saying that people buy Ultrabooks and not MacBooks because they're cheaper and couldn't tell the difference between MacOS and Windows.

Re:Hey Apple

[toriver]

Apple hasn't come up with anything new since the early 1980's

Well, you have an interesting way of totally letting your hatred blind you to actual understanding. Or are you going to come up with devices that had click-wheels before the iPad, machines that looked like the early iMacs and eBooks, etc.? Practically all products build on existing products - or are you using NCSA Mosaic to browse Slashdot?

Re:Hey Apple

[toriver]

No, the prime factors were:
- Smaller size and weight
- A simpler operating system written for the device and not a WIMP system wrestled into a non-MP device
- A lower price
- Applications that regular people found useful

Marketing comes after all of those. It's like people have forgotten how clunky and expensive Windows tablets were in their attempt at historical revisionism.

Re:Hey Apple

[toriver]

Were they patented? Patents are specific, perhaps design patents slightly less so. The traditional PC tablets did not look much like the thin and light iPad.

Re:Hey Apple

[toriver]

Funny, you would think that if the photo frame - that gets trotted out incessantly - actually was significant to the case then Samsung would have presented it in the court case? And if it was such a good example of prior design that you apparently is convinced of, then the court would have sided with Samsung? Is it possible for you to consider that you might be... wrong?

Re:Hey Apple

[AxemRed]

Apple made their tablet at a time when there was a void in the market that it could fill. They made it at a time when the appropriate technology had (relatively) recently become available at a low enough price to make a tablet with a good mix of functionality and affordability (basically they beat everyone else to the punch.) Then they tied it to a line of already-successful products (iPod and iPhone) and marketed the hell out of it. It was business genius, but the tablet concept was not new.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

They couldn't have - from a hardware or software perspective - so what's the point?

Re:Hey Apple

[jedidiah]

> And.. here's where your argument falls apart. There are no PADD designs that are confusable for an iPad.

Sure there is. There was such a tablet being used on board the Discovery in the movie 2001:A Space Odessey from 1969.

Re:Hey Apple

[AxemRed]

This is probably the best example that I have seen. Go to Amazon and search for "black lcd tv." They're all almost exactly the same.

Re:Hey Apple

[jedidiah]

> Isn't that why we have patents?

No. It isn't.

You're just spouting corporate propaganda.

Re:Hey Apple

[jedidiah]

People haven't forgotten because they are cheap bastards and the price tag is the most important thing here. NO ONE has any clue how good or how bad Windows tablets because NO ONE was willing to spend $2000.

So trying to make claims about what they did or did not do is just moronic.

Apple is like IKEA. First they designed the price. Every thing else falls into place after that.

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

It was business genius, but the tablet concept was not new.

Yes, but the question was not "Did Apple invent the tablet" but "Was the iPad innovative". Thanks for not answering.

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No, there isn't.

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

So if Toshiba had made the iPad, what would the sales figures have looked like hmm?

Who knows? They were light years away from having the maturity - hardware wise and software wise - anyways. What if the chinese were first to walk on the moon in 1950 hmmmm?

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

If you really think Marketing alone is responsible for 70 million iPad sales, then I really don't know what to tell you. Apple excel in marketing, this is true. But they failed with many products thus far. Marketing is a great tool, but only if you have something worthy to sell.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

So they want other tablets to have...what? Sharp corners instead?

That's not really Apple's problem to solve, is it? Otherwise, they'd patent that too.

Re:Hey Apple

[tofubeer]

How many TVs are simply branded differently as well though (same for microwaves etc...)? One manufacturer makes the product for multiple companies that stick their logos on it.

I was on our local rapid transit the other day and I looked at all of the phones around me for the 30 minute trip in rush hour. There were a few phones that I could not tell if they were iPhones or a Samsung phone. This was within 2 meters of me. A good example of why it was hard to tell was the square box in the home button. I honestly do not know if Apple "created" that look or not, but if they did then it is pretty clear in conjunction with the shape, the silver bezel etc... that Samsugn is/was trying to make an iPhone look alike.

What possible motivation would Samsung have for making an iPhone look alike?

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

So you think a product like the iPad with half the autonomy would have been a blatant failure?

As far as marketing is concerned, yes, they have fans. That doesn't make 70 million sales. That doesn't even make 7 million sales. Maybe 700k sales, but I doubt it. What they have is an asset: Early adopters. Those will blindly buy (that is until they find something really bad). Then they show their friends, family, neighbors. And those people see something they like. And they buy it. But we're out of the fan base at that stage and the product sells itself on its own merit.

As far as rounded corners are concerned, I have a few things to say:
- you don't know what you're talking about. There is no patent on rounded corners - as much as you'd like one to exist.
- Samsung is the one to blame on that one, going in the Arena fully aware on what they were infringing on and not caring. I mean, it's not like it's a 200 people company dammit! They held thousands of patents before this came into play and Apple was VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD on the fact that they had patented the iPhone and that they were willing to fight to enforce those patents. Let them fight the fight they chose willfully.
- Not my point in this thread.

Re:Hey Apple

[savuporo]

. They see similar-looking gadgets and they hear that they can get Angry Birds on both, so they make a barely-informed decision based on purchase price.
Um. How is that barely informed ? If a rectangular thing with rounded corners and Angry Birds on it was all they were looking for, it was a perfectly informed decision. They didn't really NEED anything else, did they ?

Re:Hey Apple

[atriusofbricia]

Result, pretty much what every tablet is. Or a PADD...

And.. here's where your argument falls apart. There are no PADD designs that are confusable for an iPad. They all look like... wait for it... a prop from Star Trek.

Also, I can do magic. If I hold a Galaxy Tab in the perspective it is designed to be used in, it suddenly doesn't look like an iPad. Magic!

I've accidentally reached for my Tab when intending to reach for my iPad. People I work with have asked me what I put on my iPad to make it look 'cooler', not realizing I was holding the Galaxy Tab. (I think the people I work with ache for Android's most sophisticated home screen.) This has never happened with my HP TouchPad.

You're confusing "Meets a small handful of broad requirements" with "one can be confused for another." Samsung copied Apple, the other competition has not, it is *very* obvious.

Oddly, I'd find the HP Touchpad far easier to confuse to the iPad and have had the opposite experience with people. I suppose I just don't see it. The Galaxy Tab is larger, and clearly designed to be used primarily in landscape. The iPad is is smaller and clearly designed for portrait mode.

Re:Hey Apple

[TrancePhreak]

Maybe if the iPad was an original design that would make sense.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

If Samsung were trying to get Apple products barred from the marketplace using specious design patents, you bet your ass many of us would be on Apple's side. Fortunately for you, there's no alternate reality to test this, so you can sit there with your smug persecution complex unchallenged.

Re:Hey Apple

[Vancorps]

Everytime I see that it makes me cringe. Corporations are collections of people, people can be immoral and so can corporations. Do you believe widespread genecide to be immoral or amoral just because it's a collection of people doing it instead of an individual? The action is immoral, not the actor. An actor is believe to be immoral when the sum of his or her actions are immoral. It works the same whether it's some guy named Victor or Apple. Of course Apple is far from the only immoral actor in this business.

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Oddly, I'd find the HP Touchpad far easier to confuse to the iPad and have had the opposite experience with people.

The HP Touchpad is significantly thicker (like twice as thick) and it has a rubber ring around it that makes it feel a bit like a child's toy. It's like it comes pre-loaded with a bumper.

The Tab is much thinner than the TouchPad, comparable to the iPad. Also the edge detailing in the Tab is very similar to the iPad. They mimicked the edge detailing very closely, which partially contributed to the confusion about which device I was holding. My coworkers didn't really get that it wasn't an iPad until I flipped it upside down and showed them the Samsung logo.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

"and above all, do NOT make it look like a dick".

Re:Hey Apple

[TheRaven64]

Microsof tried to push tablets that ran applications written for a two-button-mouse-and-keyboard interface, with a floating on-screen keyboard and a stylus. It was clunky because it was not a very natural fit for the UI. Apple did two things right. The first was not to attempt to run desktop apps: at the very least, you need to rewrite your UI if you port from OS X to iOS. The second was to wait until multitouch capacitive touchscreens were cheap.

Re:Hey Apple

[gnasher719]

Put two fridges side by side. I'm sure they'll look alike too.

I have two fridges in my home, and they look radically different from each other.

Among tablets, there are a few that look very much different than the iPad, there are some that have a certain similarity but nowhere near the point where Apple could claim its design patents were infringed with a straight face, and then there is the original Samsung tablet which is very much a copy. Then there is the re-designed Samsung tablet, which is most likely changed enough to be not infringing Apple's design patents, but then it suffers from not having a consistent design.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the iPad as the Model T, 100 years separated. Tin Lizzy wasn't the first car ever, not by a long shot. It wasn't even the best car when it was made. But was the first one to really sell like crazy to the mass populace. iPad isn't the first tablet ever, but is the reigning champion. Now, I wasn't around for the last "teens," but I don't recall reading anything about Henry Ford going sue-crazy over any other companies riding the popularity of the Model T or copying the assembly line techniques used to produce it.

In the end, you can't patent awesome. "We feel as though our product is awesome, and any other awesome products are henceforth infringing."

Re:Hey Apple

[jimmetry]

But the actor sees little reason to take personal responsibility for it. Hell, if the actor takes a moral high ground instead of playing by the rules, they will lose their job, and someone else will play by the rules in their place. Even the CEO must follow rules - maximise profit for shareholders or you're out. Morality is inversely proportional to profit. It's an unfortunate part of capitalism and why regulation in all areas is so important.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, your whole argument is based on a single non-verifiable instance of an 'overheard conversation' without knowledge of any conversation the mother & daughter may have had before that...but besides that...here's the main point I took away...the mother & daughter decided to buy the Tab based on PRICE...why does Apple think that it's device commands a significant premium over the Galaxy Tab which for all intents & purposes for the mother & daughter IS 'exactly the same thing'?...yes, I know it isn't, but for the mother & daughter they certainly were, especially if all they wanted to do was play Angry Birds!

What Apple is finally up against is REAL competition, the bits & pieces of the electronics no longer matter, 'coolness' no longer matters (as much), Apple fanboys & girls have spent all their money over & over again, you can only go to THAT well so many times... Samsung can get the same parts as Apple just as cheap if not cheaper...the OS underlying the use of the tablet device or phone is effectively the same, just like buying a burger from McD or Burger King is 'effectively the same'...so the prices should be 'effectively the same'(a simple burger at both places is $0.99)...but Apple in their arrogance thinks they should get a premium for their device...they shouldn't, not any more...that's what competition is supposed to breed, lower priced, better products for consumers, not higher priced, locked down devices..

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

O bull! To the same extent covered by Apple's supposed 'design patents' most fridges look exactly the same from a distance...there are a few exceptions based on size & fancy/high end design (e.g a fridge in a drawer)...but for the consumer market looking at fridges, they all look the same from a distance...

Re:Hey Apple

[rtb61]

Sample early examples of rounded corners on digital equipment http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/facit_1106_sharp_el-805s.html. Calculators from nearly every manufacturers. Main reason for rounded corners. With portable devices, that get handled quite a bit, sharper corners get knocked off leaving the devices looking fairly ratty, also rounded corners use less material while producer better impact resistance, logically engineering design as old as portable calculators. If you buy Apple you are just supporting douche baggery in corporations.

Re:Hey Apple

[mattack2]

Apple invented the tablet computer as much as Edison invented the light bulb.

So, in other words, Apple invented the tablet that people actually wanted to buy and use, rather than a lab sample that didn't work very well and wasn't practical? (Edison's bulb vs previous bulbs.)

Re:Hey Apple

[Vancorps]

That's largely fair given the current environment, Ben an Jerry's and indeed, money companies based out of Vermont have also seen corporations as for the good of the people. Ben and Jerry's was the shining beacon of corporate responsibility, routinely giving back to the communities which made it strong. It's investors didn't have a problem with this because the positive perception of the company helped open a lot of doors.

The same goes for the company I work for today, routinely we are the most charitable company in the state in proportion to our income. Corporate responsibility doesn't have to destroy the bottom line. Good will means that some companies clamor to work with us, it's very good for our bottom line.

The rules should be modified however as you are definitely correct, there is very little direct financial incentive for companies to behave responsibly. Most people that run particularly large organizations don't see or understand soft dollars despite how their Six Sigma certifications should teach them to think.

Re:Hey Apple

[amRadioHed]

The HP Touchpad is significantly thicker (like twice as thick) and it has a rubber ring around it that makes it feel a bit like a child's toy. It's like it comes pre-loaded with a bumper

Oh, it sounds a lot like you're saying they made their design different from Apples by "reducing the devices functionality with useless bezels or hard coded buttons". I'm still not sure how any of what you've said since my previous post refutes me. Sounds like a bunch of corroborating evidence to me.

Re:Hey Apple

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

Apple is a private company using a broken patent system the way every other private company would if they held those patents. The system is the problem. Apple is just doing its fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder wealth. Blame the system. Reform the system.

Don't hate the player...

...they are just following orders^W the rules.

Re:Hey Apple

[StripedCow]

So you're saying the iPad was not innovative?

Also in the business sense. Locking content to a tablet-shaped device had been done before with great success by Amazon with its Kindle.
Businesswise, the iPad is just the logical successor of this device.

Re:Hey Apple

[mattack2]

On the CNET tech reviews of TV's, there are plenty of differences in TVs. They often comment about the different stands that the TVs use, and how big the bezel around the screen is.

Do the other commenters even understand the difference between a design patent and a utility patent?

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Oh, it sounds a lot like you're saying they made their design different from Apples by "reducing the devices functionality with useless bezels or hard coded buttons".

Actually I think I said they made it more rugged. Whatever, I don't know why it is as thick as it is but even if it weren't it'd still be distinct from the iPad for reasons I've already pointed out.

I'm still not sure how any of what you've said since my previous post refutes me. Sounds like a bunch of corroborating evidence to me.

That's probably because you completely ignored the paragraph I wrote about Samsung copying the edge detailing of the iPad.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy

Steve Jobs sold his soul to the Devil, poor Old Nick though, he didnt realise Stevie was a thousand times more evil than he

Re:Hey Apple

[cduffy]

Apple was VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD on the fact that they had patented the iPhone

"patented the iPhone"? What does that even mean? Patents protect processes, not devices or objects.

Except design patents, yes, but frankly, those aren't what most people think of when someone says "patent". Saying that you "patented" a device with hundreds of thousands of parts (once the software is taken into account) is uselessly vague; the declaration has nothing "straightforward" about it at all.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and Galaxy Tab's bezel size is not the same as iPad's and it has different set of connectors/buttons and it's profile and backside are different and so on.

That's the reason UK judge found it non-infringing on registered design.

Re:Hey Apple

[mattack2]

You did not search very hard. I saw TWO searching Amazon for "purple TV".

http://www.amazon.com/iSymphony-LC24IF56PR-24-inch-1080p-LCD/dp/B004PYEO1S

Re:Hey Apple

[mattack2]

If you want to play "God of War", you get a PS3. (or play Blurays.)

If you want to play "Halo", you get a Xbox 360.

But they're not the same thing, and even if many of the same games are available on both (e.g. "Angry Birds" in the tablet example), someone that chose poorly would be annoyed in the long run.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

I didn't paint the entire market. I presented a second-hand anecdote. Feel free to down-mod. I'm posting just to get you to burn your mod points. And yes, I know who you are.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

What I'm saying is that she clearly didn't know the difference, and physically similar designs, in my estimation, bear an implicit message of similar functionality to people who are not technically savvy enough to understand the underpinnings.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

I don't know; I think there are other considerations, not the least of which is ongoing support for system upgrades. All iOS devices have, historically, gotten at least a couple of major system upgrades including new features. Even the iPhone 3Gs is getting a bunch of features with iOS 6 (although it'll probably be unbearably slow to use).

As I understand it, the majority of Android devices are abandoned from an OS upgrade standpoint the moment they hit the shelves. I think that's a major consideration that an average consumer might not think about, but might be affected by. Much more so than hack-ability or openness.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

Re courts: you're painting with a fairly broad brush.

Re broad brushes: I agree. For better or for worse, every patent is a test of the law.

Re:Hey Apple

[bennomatic]

Are you saying that they don't look confusingly similar? I'm sure that the many Ray-Ban knock-offs have their own distinctive elements, too, and so are not identical, but are clearly trying to capitalize on similarities.

Re:Hey Apple

[tibman]

Here's a picture of a tablet i owned years before the ipad was released: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tibman/VisionPlate/DSCN0919.jpg

Rounded corners.. squarish shape.

Re:Hey Apple

[tibman]

Cherry picked.

Re:Hey Apple

[amRadioHed]

Oh yeah, the part about the edge detailing. How could I ignore that. The Galaxy Tab has smooth edges. So does the iPad. You're right, no one could have come up with that on their own.

Re:Hey Apple

[tibman]

It's not about tech savvy. One says apple on it and the other does not. She would have to be an idiot not to realize that. It's like buying a kia because it looked like the lexus.. WHAT!? This isn't the lexus i saw on TV?

Re:Hey Apple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Edge detailing, not smooth edges. The difference is something all the other manufacturers understand without difficulty.

Re:Hey Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also why you can't patent."box with 4 wheels, and rounded corners and a windscreen ".
They are too fucking obvious.

Re:Hey Apple

[atriusofbricia]

What I'm saying is that she clearly didn't know the difference, and physically similar designs, in my estimation, bear an implicit message of similar functionality to people who are not technically savvy enough to understand the underpinnings.

I would counter and say that there is no evidence at hand that she didn't know what she was getting. Further, from the perspective of "can play angry birds, write emails, browse web" they are functionally identical. In any case, she could simply have said "tablet A is 250, tablet B is 150 and both will do what I want".

Re:Hey Apple

[anethema]

It does make me wonder how things would have progressed with no iPhone in the beginning though. Like I was using a Treo 680 running Palm's OS. The only real alternative was Windows mobile. Both are HORRIBLE operating systems. I also tried Symbian phones, etc at the time, and had a couple different blackberry models.

I guess I can't point to one amazing thing they innovated, but the product they put together sure seemed to totally blow everyone else out of the water. RIMs CEO was even talking about how Apple was lying at their announce and there was no way it was possible for them to do what they claimed.

I'm current using a Galaxy S III, so am not a total Apple fanboy here, but I sure remember using an iPhone coming from palm/bberry and really feeling it was a breath of fresh air.

I do agree on shape patents etc, seems crazy to me to be able to sue for this. While I'm not sure how long if ever it would have taken for smartphones to focus on usability, nice industrial design, and power use without Apple, I certainly don't agree with the way they are handling the competition.

PS: As far as iPads go, I still dont see the function in a tablet, desktop or mobile operating systems notwithstanding. My MB Air is very comfortable on the couch, does everything an more an iPad does, and is easily as portable, so the value is lost on me.

Re:Hey Apple

[zippthorne]

I would like to note that the real tablets we have in the present are both cooler and more useful than the imagined future tablets from that TV show.

I mean, seriously.. two or more screens, different sizes, offset, odd shapes, and thick. Also, no full-screen video....

Re:Hey Apple

[zippthorne]

If you think marketing is the reason that the iPad took off and ten years of 7 pound, 2 hour, reversible touch-screen, windows laptops didn't, then you must be using that term in the "market research" sense, rather than the "shameless advertising" pejorative people often mean when using it....

Re:Hey Apple

[Pieroxy]

You make it sound like you disagree with me, but I'm not sure. The point of my post was to discuss whether the iPad was innovative or not, not to talk about patents... It would look as it you agree with me.

Re:Hey Apple

[Swampash]

They came out about a year prior to everyone else adopting the tech.

Wow, what a coincidence. Everyone adopting the tech after Apple released a hit product like that.

Re:Hey Apple

[metacell]

Or would you seriously argue that someone skilled in the arts of electronics design wouldn't obviously have thought of something rectangular with rounded corners and a glass screen when designing a tablet?

The idea of a tablet computer can be seen in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" from the late 1960's. (I don't know if it had rounded corners, though.)

Re:Hey Apple

[repvik]

If someone did, you could bet your ass Apple would be all over them.

Re:Hey Apple

[repvik]

They do have similar functionality. They're both powerful tablets.

Re:Hey Apple

[repvik]

That article is patently absurd. It complains about no interaction from the users. No shit. They're eating and watching BBC. Perhaps they don't want food all over their tablet and/or is satisfied with actually watching 20 seconds of BBC without compulsively fingering the display?

Then it goes on to complain about people drawing on paper instead of on the pads. So what? Perhaps mspaint wasn't available on tablets that early. That doesn't make it less of a tablet.

Then it rambles on about them not showing device interaction again, and noting that other devices use voice control or keys. So what? That it does not show interaction does not mean that interaction is not possible.

And wtf does how it is used relate to how it looks?

Re:Hey Apple

[repvik]

They're only attacking their biggest competitor. There are other tablets which look sufficiently alike to warrant a lawsuit.

Re:Hey Apple

[zr]

Sometimes you have to behave like a dick when another dick is actively ripping you off. Turn another cheek doesnt work well in business.

Re:Hey Apple

[ch0knuti]

From the comments section in the link you provided:

"Did anyone actually go back and read what Arthur Clarke wrote about these things?

They’re “Newspads” — and the paradigm is very different from either a ‘tablet’ or a TV per se: on the other hand, let’s just say I hope Jeff Bezos isn’t planning a similar defense strategy for the Kindle

The thing is a reading device, intended for what would constitute requested push content (say, an ‘edition’ of s ‘newspaper’). The keys let you navigate between pages, and perhaps (touch sensitivity not allowing gestures) moving a virtual larger newpaper page so you can read different sections at high default magnification. Moving images were subsidiary to the newspaper metaphor: illustrations with some TV-like character. There is a scene in the movie (during the Pan Am trip to orbit at the beginning, ISTR) where we see a NewsPad working as a newspaper (in black-and-whitish display) with moving illustrations

Running the thing as a portable flatscreen television is a different thing (and, assuming bandwidth exists, would be a logical “gee whiz!” thing that a forward-looking person in the ’60s might imagine his newspaper would turn into someday. But keep in mind — it would be far more ‘interactive’ than a typical TV metaphor, as you could select any number of running video windows within the ‘book’ or ‘paper’ you were reading. Not single-window push like broadcast TV at that time"

Re:Hey Apple

[TrancePhreak]

I see this comparison a lot, but it fails in some regards. You see, to get bundled app updates in iOS you have to get a system update. To do the same with Android, they are available separate as apps from the Play Store. So in essence, you get lots of the new functionality (from the apps) that on the other side you would get with an Apple system update.

Re:Hey Apple

[robsku]

I'm sure that McD's lobbied--and probably in some cases with success--to limit the number of fast food restaurants in a given radius in order to prevent this, in a way trying to protect their investment in research. That's what Apple is doing. If you don't like it, don't bitch and moan in slashdot; get a law degree and fight the law. Or write your congresscritter. Or become an expert witness and hire yourself out to the EFF.

But comments here do nothing to change the status quo.

So, why are you taking part in discussing here anyway?

Apple is the new Microsoft

[cyberspittle]

When Microsoft had a majority in the PC market they behaved just as badly. With Apple have their lead in tablets, looks like they are now the new Microsoft.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[0123456]

I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple now are.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[kthreadd]

Apple is far away from having a majority.
It just happens that they make all the money.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[geek]

Microsoft couldnt be that evil. It didn't control the hardware. Apple owns the whole ball of wax and can swing it any way they wish. Microsoft had to do most of its evil behind the scenes via contracts and licensing. Apple can just come right and bend you over some judges desk and stick the gavel up your ass.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[kthreadd]

Is it evil to defend your intellectual property?
I suspect enforcing GPL is also evil?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[cpu6502]

.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha

Good one.
Wait, you were serious?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[jedidiah]

What property?

These are a bunch of bogus patents that amount to going down to city hall and declaring it your personal mansion. At least with copyright, I can write my own kernel or my own web browser.

A patent is not "Apple's property". It's their license to steal mine. I can't write a kernel or a web browser any more because they "own" that.

> Is it evil to defend your intellectual property?

If you're the British East India Company? Probably so.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[cyberspittle]

I think that you are mistaken, or perhaps young. Microsoft had restrictive licensing agreements that stated you could not install other operating systems if you used MS-DOS / Windows preinstalled. This essentially killed IBMs OS/2. At the same time, other DOS vendors were pushed out. Some were even a multi-tasking version of DOS. I guess that is all history now. The main reason to the rise of Linux is that it was free. How can you compete with free? No one would want to pay extra for an operating system, such as IBM OS/2, when the computer was already installed with Microsoft MS-DOS/Windows or latter Windows 95. Consider yourself schooled.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[ilsaloving]

Then you clearly haven't made any effort at looking up Microsoft's history.

The only difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple is taking it's battles head on. Microsoft prefered to do things like illegal distribution contracts (eg: if you sell a competitors products, you can't sell ours), subverting standards bodies (eg: the OOXML fiasco), etc.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[crazyjj]

Is it evil to defend your intellectual property?

If your intellectual property includes stuff like "a rectangle with rounded corners" the, yes--yes it is.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple now are.

Loathe as I am to admit to a greater evil than Microsoft in the computing world, I must agree. Microsoft's major thing was making proprietary solutions we already had other solutions for and strong-arming everyone else out of a market via manipulation of their OS monopoly. In hindsight and in the light of Apple, there was a subtlety to Microsoft's tactics, still allowing even the illusion of competition (and some cases where they failed in their tactics and were forced to compete). You could almost be convinced that Microsoft wasn't just bludgeoning everyone else into submission by coasting in on a substandard, nonstandard OS that everyone used at the time. Almost.

Apple, on the other hand, straight-up refuses to compete. At all. A threat in one of their markets? Sue them out of existence. A better product shows up outside of their precious pre-ordained release/marketing schedule and threatens their bottom lines? Sue them out of existence. Someone else beats them to the punch on a technology? Get really, really bitter and sue them out of existence with obscure, obvious patents. Microsoft didn't go straight to the courts when they were threatened. Sure, they came back with either substandard or trivially improved products inextricably linked to their OS, or they bought the company out and absorbed the products, but they only went to the courts when there was actually a case to be made. Apple's very clearly on a slash-and-burn strategy, hell-bent on destroying the entire industry if they have to just to avoid any competition.

I tried a MacBook once a few years back (before Apple went apeshit). I thought it was cute, but didn't see the whole obsession angle, and my next laptop was a ThinkPad. Now I'm glad I made that choice. Shame I'll never be able to sell the MacBook, owing to Apple's not only planned, but FORCED obsolescence...

I read once before that there was a time when IBM was the Evil Empire(tm). It was then mentioned, by someone who was there for both, that in light of Microsoft, the old-timers never knew how good they had it with IBM in charge. I guess history's repeated itself once again.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Is it evil to defend your intellectual property?

Yes.

I suspect enforcing GPL is also evil?

Different domain.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect enforcing GPL is also evil?

Different domain.

Right, everyone defends Samsung because they use Android Linux.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[BlackSnake112]

A rectangle with rounded corners is intellectual property?

I like to see the pay offs at the patent office. A rectangle with rounded corners has been around for decades if not longer. Look at furniture tables. Monitors have been in a rectangle shape with rounded corners long before tablet computers existed. Those are displaying things. They are not hand held. Laptops themselves are rectangle shaped with rounded corners. Three examples of prior art right there. Two of them are in the computing field. How again was that patent granted?

And to quote Mr. Jobs: Good artists copy. Great artists steal. That is from the guy running the ship. Does anyone think that Apple didn't take someone else idea and patent it first?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

The current Apple evil seems to be about image, they are also being vindictive and abusing the patent/legal system as mercinaries/thugs.

If microsoft has ever cared about image, I haven't noticed. Their evil has always seemed more low key, and perhaps more carefully thought out (apple definitely is coming across as hot headed and greedy). They play games with vendor agreements, lock-in, and general monopolistic crap.

It's hard to say which is actually more evil, and it really doesn't matter much. Both are just evilllllll.

I wonder how long the image obsession and the android vendetta will last with Steve out of the picture.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[bhagwad]

Enough. Please.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[jaymz666]

In the early 00s there certainly were rectangle with rounded corner tablets.
Checkout Electrovaya Scribbler SC-2000 for example

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[geminidomino]

with all due respect, a simple design is tough to come up with, but easy to steal. Gene Roddenberry has every right to defend the product line he surely agonized to invent and promote. now Apple and others are reaping what someone else sown

Fixed that for you. For fuck's sake, the "flat, rounded rectangle" thing predates Apple Computer by like, a decade at least.

(Yeah, Gene probably wasn't the first either, but I think the point is clear.)

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Jeng]

An Etch-a-Sketch is a rectangular tablet with rounded corner.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Dog-Cow]

Forced obsolescence? I own a Macbook that I bought in 2005. Only now, with the upcoming release of Mountain Lion, will it be unsupported. That's a hell of a lot longer than most companies support their hardware. Try installing Windows 8 on a 2005 Thinkpad. Let me know how well it works for you.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. And it doesn't look like an iPad. That's proof that Apple's design is not the only way to do it.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

There was never such a licensing agreement for end users. What was there was a restrictive licensing agreement for OEMs where they either sold all their machines with MS-DOS (later Windows) preinstalled, or else the price of a single OEM Windows license for them would be 2-3x higher.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[shutdown -p now]

Try installing Windows 8 on a 2005 Thinkpad. Let me know how well it works for you.

I have a 2005 Thinkpad running Win7 just fine. I haven't tried Win8 yet, but given that it has lower hardware requirements, I don't see a problem there.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Pieroxy]

You forgot blatantly stealing a competitor product and releasing as their own whanging just the name, not even recompiling it ! That, and on many occasions!

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[spidercoz]

How? Simple. The PTO is staffed by incompetent nitwits.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[spidercoz]

You're comparing installing an OS that isn't out yet on 7-year old hardware to installing an OS that isn't out yet on 7-year old hardware. Nice job.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Nadaka]

I have prior art on a rectangular tablet with round corners.

http://www.meijer.com/s/travel-etch-a-sketch/_/R-139951;jsessionid=B6AEBBA5259F545F5D50342DC5DB4DD8.instance02?cagpspn=pla&cmpid=Google_G_US_Meijer_eCom_PLA_Toys

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[zr]

oh come on, dont pretend you dont get it, its not just the corners its the idea of clean simple and focused design of the tablet. look at tablets before and after the ipad.

i'm all in favor of competition its just that making knockoffs isnt competition its making knock offs.

let the other guys _actually_ invent new stuff, like microsoft are actually attempting to do, and we as consumers _will_ have a choice.

right now all samsung is offering is a choice between an ipad and a cheaper knock off. thats not a choice i want to have as a consumer.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[zr]

Both OSes are out, tho not for general use. Comparison is perfectly valid.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[bennomatic]

Gene's tablet wasn't a real product, you know.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[bennomatic]

The Scribbler looks nothing like an iPad. If Samsung had gone with that design, it would be Electrovaya suing them, not Apple.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[zr]

Apple sweat and bleed to design great user experience. They go through many many iterations, they hire and keep the best design talent god knows actively headhunted by the competition.

How hard do you think it is to knock off the outcome of such laborious and expensive process? Clearly looking at Samsung not hard at all.

What would you suggest Apple do? Could you propose an alternative to the course of action that Apple are taking?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Princeofcups]

I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple now are.

Absurd. Has Apple partnered with companies only to back stab them with their own cloned product? Has Apple "innovated" by buy a company's product and dumping it on the market, or else "bundling" it on all computers by strong arming the PC sellers, to put a competitor out of business? Apple has always been litigious bastards, all the way back to look-and-feel. But evil like Microsoft? Not even close.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Citations, please.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Analog Penguin]

You might find it worthwhile to try to sell that MacBook. Everything else you said is spot on, but older Apple hardware tends to hold its value for way longer than would seem reasonable. Poke around eBay and see what similar models are going for; it might surprise you.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[CannonballHead]

Yes, they did, before the iPad. Check out the JooJoo tablet. Look familiar? It was introduced/announced *before* the iPad was.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[jaymz666]

But it is a tablet that is a rectangle with rounded corners. Apparently they didn't exist before the iPad.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[risom]

they didnt used to be before the ipad. nor were the phones.

This is what a tablet looked like in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TC1100-1.JPG

It's flat (in 2004 standards), rectangular, with uniformly rounded corners, with bezels of about equal width, with the front completely made of hardened glass. There even is a HP Logo on the same place where the button on the ipad is (admittedly with a different function, but visually quite similar). I own one of those. They really look similar.

I can only see two differences: The color of the bezel and the absence of those leds.

6 years later, Apple somehow "invents" that design. It's magic!

This is what people are upset about. Either Apple _really_ innovates, then ok, fine, let them have that design patent and sue all the copycats. Or Apple has to accept the fact that tablets with a glass front all look similar (which is what they did, they basically went with the tc1000 and made the bezel black!). You can't have both.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Princeofcups]

Apple, on the other hand, straight-up refuses to compete. At all. A threat in one of their markets? Sue them out of existence.

Bullshit. Apple is not trying to sue Samsung out of business. They want them to change the look of their product so that it doesn't look like an iPad. They are not trying to stop Samsung from selling tablets, only ones that look like theirs. Silly, maybe. Too image conscious, definitely. But this is NOT Netscape, Word Perfect, Novell, ad nauseum. Microsoft is the true king of delaying innovation by destroying competing products.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

When Microsoft had a majority in the PC market they behaved just as badly. With Apple have their lead in tablets, looks like they are now the new Microsoft.

Except that instead of suing people, Microsoft was GETTING sued.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[sydneyfong]

What would you suggest Apple do? Could you propose an alternative to the course of action that Apple are taking?

This is Slashdot, you know the answer already: open source all the designs under a Free license for everyone to copy. Seriously dude, that's the only ethical thing to do.

Remember kids, you are only allowed to sue for IP infringement if it is a GPL violation.

PS: </sarcasm>

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[bhagwad]

Sweat and bleed:) . I like that one!

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[spidercoz]

There isn't a *woosh* big enough for you.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as intellectual "property". You've bought into the misconceptions spun by greedy lawyers and BigCorps. There are patents, a limited term agreement that in return for furthering society's knowledge, an inventor has the right to capitalise on it first. Copyright, a limited term agreement that in return for furthering society's art, an artist has the right to capitalise on it first. Trademarks, a limited term agreement that prevents others from creating counterfeits of your products. Service marks, a limited term agreement that prevents others from impersonating you in delivering a service.

Note that none of these things are owned. None of them are 'property'. All of them are limited term grants of exclusive rights to captialise on work.

Time for you to stop drinking the Kool Aid.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[zr]

at times literally, Jobs sweat, engineers bleed :-)

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because Microsoft is way more sneaky and behind-the-scenes.

Like the Borland murder. (If they say corporations are people, then it’s murder. ;)
The Netscape murder.
The Sun/Java attempted murder.
Many small other companies that got bought or killed via EEE.

The whole set of anti-competitive crimes they did.
The impossibility to buy a ready-built computer without paying protection money to MS (via a pre-installed OEM Windows).

The tons of times they got sued and chose to "pay" their ridiculously low fee in the form of Microsoft software for schools.

The many proxy wars, using undead companies like SCO and Nokia.

They are way more skilled than the clumsy open attacks of Apple

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[spire3661]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Turn in your geek card, now. Its not even close. Most techies will tel you Microsoft held computing back by a decade. Apple is exerting force, no doubt, but it is nowhere as insidious as MS was in it heyday. How quickly people forget how truly evil MS is.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[spire3661]

Hate to burst your bubble, but I run Windows 8 CP on a 2005 Dell D610 and D810 just fine.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[atriusofbricia]

oh come on, dont pretend you dont get it, its not just the corners its the idea of clean simple and focused design of the tablet. look at tablets before and after the ipad.

i'm all in favor of competition its just that making knockoffs isnt competition its making knock offs.

let the other guys _actually_ invent new stuff, like microsoft are actually attempting to do, and we as consumers _will_ have a choice.

right now all samsung is offering is a choice between an ipad and a cheaper knock off. thats not a choice i want to have as a consumer.

Look at the design of tablets before and after good quality and affordable capacitive touch screens.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The design of the iPad, and practically ever other post-Capacitive tablet, is dictated by the dual considerations of human interface and the screen. If you set out a design goal of: Use a capacitive screen with a touch based UI and make it pleasant to hold, then you end up with something substantially similar to the iPad or the Galaxy Tab. There is no real great innovation in either of them. It is simply a matter of form following function.

Either that or only Apple innovates and everyone else just watches them. Clearly the 10 million odd people who snapped of SGSIIIs just thought they were buying a cheap iPhone or something.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[toriver]

Apple does not demand that stores selling Macs should pay for Mac OS X licenses for all the computers they sell no matter what OS they are installed with. Microsoft did for their OS, until the court told them not to, but by then it was too late.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[toriver]

But are those two things - "a rectangle with rounded corners" - the only elements of the design patent? It seems that there are other elements as well, that you blatantly ignore, but that the court has taken into consideration.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Nerdfest]

They've done very similar things to these actually, by blocking developers products from their platforms and then including copies of them in the OS ... all the while complaining about people infringing their 'design patents'. Yeah, they're at least as evil as Microsoft.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[toriver]

Much like the Mafia, Microsoft did not do their pressuring in the courts, but outside them...

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[AxemRed]

How about this thing?

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/5/14/tablet-newspaper-1994.html

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Pieroxy]

Citations, please.

Please, not that, not here.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as intellectual "property".
No matter how much you delude yourself... I studied the physics behind it extensively...and it's physically impossible to "own" information... unless it never ever interacts with the world outside of "you" (whatever that might encompass).

Of course, your ignorance and *belief*, instead of observation of reality, will make this comment irrelevant to your retarded brain.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Cederic]

What would you suggest Apple do?

Yes. Show some fucking integrity. Display some ethics. Hell, even market the shit out of their products so that hip people buy them.

Oh, they did that one.

Try competing on merits, not on arbitrary and bullshit legalised monopolistic predation. Try fucking innovating and being better than the competition. And no, don't even fucking pretend the Apple design patent represents innovation. Don't fucking insult me by suggesting the iPad is better than the Asus Transformer tablets.

Shit, how about even undercutting the competition. Apple can afford it, but they're too happy leeching cash off their loyal fanbase and racking up genuinely astonishing amounts of liquid assets. Sell iPads for $250 each and watch Samsung's sales plummet.

Could you propose an alternative to the course of action that Apple are taking?

Hmm, looks like I proposed several. Why did Apple pick the box marked "Act like cunts"?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Cederic]

The Sun/Java attempted murder.

It's ok, Oracle finished that one for them :(

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[TrancePhreak]

This is what Apple wants all their competitors to use.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[NatasRevol]

Or patented.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[NatasRevol]

Hey, guess who else had a rectangle with rounded corner tablet in the early 00s?

Apple.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/the-original-ipad-was-gigantic

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[busyqth]

Or recall when Microsoft added code to Windows to check and see if it was running on top of Dr-DOS instead of MS-DOS.
Windows artificially reported and error and terminated if it wasn't running on-top of MS-DOS.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[cyberspittle]

Isn't that what I said?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[jaymz666]

Speaking of blatant ignorance... The context of this entire sub-thread is in regards to the claim that

does tablet _have_ to be a rectangle with rounded corners? they didnt used to be before the ipad.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Didn't have devoted religious (ie cultist) followers drooling and preaching their products as gospel, Us MS people at least know that they suck and could be better but live with the reality that they still have a sizable market share and keep me employed (even with the keyboard bashing and constant cursing all day while using their products) Apple people live in a distortion bubble and not a reality one.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Try competing on merits, not on arbitrary and bullshit legalised monopolistic predation.

Have you seen the Galaxy Tab 7.7? It pretty much eats every iPad ever made for breakfast. Better screen, battery life, portability, and usefulness. Faster internet, even though Apple's allegedly gotten on the 4G train with their latest. It's sleek and sexy as hell, and Apple wishes they'd come up with it first. That's the real reason for this lawsuit, it's because Samsung is killing it right now.
 
Imagine Tim Cook's face when Samsung outs the new Note 2 just before the iPhone 5. Compare a 4s and the Galaxy S3 side by side and that's why Apple keeps this BS going.
 
Apple can't compete on design or quality. Speaking as the owner of a 2012 Air, and soon to be upgrading to a Series 9, there is absolutely no comparison in these product lines either. I believe that Apple is scared of Samsung eating their iPad, iPhone and desktop lunches all at the same time, in the very near future.
 
That said, the major flaw is Windows 7. If/when Samsung gets that out of the way, maybe with Win8, Apple will be in deep shit.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Win7 not only runs, but it flies on my c.2005 Thinkpad T43, a single core machine with a 100gb drive. It also boots the latest Ubuntu. How do you like them apples?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[geminidomino]

Irrelevant. I'm not saying he/his estate should have sued apple. I'm saying their claims of "design innovation" are a steaming pile of bullshit.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[metacell]

It'd be too expensive to do a detailed analysis of every patent someone applies for... The system is based on granting all patents which are not obviously infringing, and let the courts sort it out if and when someone objects. Most patents are never going to be questioned anyway (I'm guessing this is because most patents are never used).

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[metacell]

Microsoft's tactics were of a different kind. They did things like locking out competitors through deals with retailers, and paid for smear campaigns, which got them convicted several times.

Apple's tactics are more straightforward: they use the law to their benefit without trying to hide anything (as far as I know).

If Apple is Lawful Evil, then Microsoft is Chaotic or Neutral Evil, using the law or flouting it as it benefits them. So far, I think Microsoft still leads the league for Evil.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[NatasRevol]

Since they're sueing on patents they made relative to the design, it's completely relevant.

Also, see other actual tablet design innovation previous to the iPhone/iPad before calling it bullshit.

Obvious is often only so in hindsight.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[AliasMarlowe]

I run Windows 8 CP

And the police are on their way to arrest you (and maybe beat you up just a little).
Microsoft stuff can be weird, but I didn't think it would be that blatant...

Everywhere in the UE ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Samsung's products get banned *everywhere* in the UE because a little regional court (even probably corrupted, who knows) decided so ? It's insane. A such case should be treated in a european court ...

This war was already ridiculous before, but now it's just hard to believe.

Re:Everywhere in the UE ?

[Grumbleduke]

I was talking to a (UK-based) trade mark attorney about this sort of thing last week; basically German courts are designed to give quick, cheap decisions, which is why they tend to be the first to issue judgments and injunctions in these sorts of cases. However, what they make up in speed and expense they lose in accuracy.

Contrast that with the English cases (such as the Apple v Samsung and Apple v HTC ones over the last two weeks) which can take a lot longer to reach a final decision, and cost a lot more (€100,000+), but tend to be very thorough. Sadly law tends to be that way; either fast and cheap, or thorough.

The EU-wide injunction was granted (probably) because this case involved an EU right (such as a Community Design Right), rather than a national one. Certain national courts across the EU are given special powers to rule on these issues (to save the CJEU having to get involved all the time), so their rulings are binding across the EU. However, that also means that if another court somewhere else issues a final ruling (rather than just an interim injunction) that goes the other way, the German court's decision will be set aside.

Question to Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all those people that bought the Galaxy Tab would had bought the iPad if the Galaxy Tab didn't have round corners? Hmm.. All of them? Your damage claim is bull shit. Stop looking at the Movie and Music industry for business tactics. You are being insane!

Re:Question to Apple

[nitehawk214]

Perhaps they are including all the sales of people that would never have buy an iDevice because of fiascoes like this.

Or the fact that Apple is helping drive Samsung's sales on this. I wouldn't have heard of the Galaxy Tab if it wasn't for Apple. Now I think I will buy one before they are made illegal. Thanks Apple!

Re:Question to Apple

[Cederic]

Having acquired a 'free' Galaxy Tab 2 (the 7" model) I'd strongly recommend against it.

It's not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just that there isn't actually anything right with it. Even running ICS.

If 7" is your desired form factor then consider the Google Nexus 7 - same manufacturer but I think a significantly better device. If you're a size queen and want a full 10" then consider hanging on for the Asus Transformer TF700 (or grab a TF300 at lower price). They're very nice bits of kit.

Re:Question to Apple

[marsu_k]

Slight correction - Nexus 7 is manufactured by Asus, not Samsung. But yes, TF700 (aka "Transformer Infinity") rocks, got mine last week. I use a tablet quite frequently as a PMP when traveling, and 1080p content looks simply stunning on it (and with the IPS+ mode it doesn't matter if you're sitting next to a window, or are outdoors even).

Its getting stupid now.

[spikestabber]

Samsung just needs to stop making A5 cpu's in Texas and cut a ton of American jobs, see how quick will get the government's attention on this whole patent mess.

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[Baloroth]

Samsung just needs to stop making A5 cpu's in Texas and cut a ton of American jobs, see how quick will get the government's attention on this whole patent mess.

Apple has won a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 across the European Union, thanks to a decision in a German regional court today

Hmm, methinks someone needs to brush up on their geography a bit (the patent in question is a European design patent, which are a kind of patent the US does not even have. Which, yes, makes the US look like the reasonable one in this area. )

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Methinks you need to brush up on design patents, which the US in fact does have, and has had for quite a long while now.

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[spikestabber]

Sorry but this crap is happening in the US as well. Apple is an American company, Samsung A5 CPU's are used in Apple devices, my comment applies.

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that move would have nothing to do with stupid design patents...

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[Pieroxy]

Maybe they should just stop making products that are so much alike to those from another company which have proven its willingness to sue everyone over them.

Frankly, it's not that hard either.

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[PRMan]

No. They just need to suddenly stop selling them to Apple. They lose 8.8% of their market. Apple loses 100% of theirs.

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand they could also just stop making copycat crap.

Re:Its getting stupid now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the US don't have European design patents. Sheesh can't you read properly?

Seems fair....

[Fatch Racall]

...because obviously, people accidentally bought Samsung tablets when they meant to buy an apple device. The designs are just that similar.

Re:Seems fair....

[jaymz666]

And 7 inch tablets at that! Because it's so similar to the 7" iPad

Re:Seems fair....

[Dinghy]

And 7 inch tablets at that! Because it's so similar to the 7" iPad

Of course! How can Apple get a design patent on a 7" iPad if they let other 7" tablets get on the market first?

Half a penny per unit?

[cpu6502]

If Samsung got their way, they'd pay very little in damages.

Re:Half a penny per unit?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what Samsung proposed. It's what Apple believes Samsung's standard essential wireless patents are worth per patent.

The number was supposedly arrived at by taking the cost of the component which these patents cover, and dividing that cost by the approximate number of standards essential patents that are used in that component.

Re:Half a penny per unit?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

They should pay zilch.

Re:Half a penny per unit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary has it WRONG...it's Apple claiming Samsung's Standard Essential Patents are only worth a half a cent...patents that actually help make wireless communication worth & without them Apple would have had to make a completely new wireless standard/protocol & hope people buy those along with 'apple wireless routers' that can only speak to apple devices...and if you read Florian Mueller's article he actually believes that Apple's design patents on a simple rectangle ARE worth more then actual 'stuff' that makes 'stuff' work...nice...but he was wrong about Oracle vs Google and he's wrong about this too...he's wrong about alot of things.

Urgent

[Anonymous Coward]

My website is much less popular than slashdot, this has caused great monetary losses to my business, which would have been very successful otherwise. I demand $1,000,000,000 American Dollars in damages for this horric injustice.

7.7

[MrDoh!]

Well, that's further confirmation that Apple's about to release a 7" tab. Sue everyone else for a design you don't even have a product for yet. Interesting they've gone after the 7.7 and not the old first Tab perhaps (maybe just what's being sold still I guess). 7.7 + Jellybean is probably going to compete very favourably with whatever Apple brings out at that size too. I just hope that when it IS released, the media holds up existing tablets and says 'Apple's done a great job of copying other 7" tablets here' and point things out for what they are. They won't of course, it'll only be all the tech sites making the 'does it come with sandpaper for your finger' jokes! But it'd be nice to call out Apple at the same time as the product is released for being derivative of existing hardware.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

And the tablets of old -- the ones 10 years ago? Had a few more ports, but was a rectangular solid-coloured slab (even those that were "convertible" laptops).

How else would you design a tablet? Even the movie 2001 had a black rectangular slab, and tablets didn't even exist back then.

Distribution from Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Key point missing: EU distribution currently is happening from Germany, where German judges can set the rules.
That's why a German ban is currently a de facto EU-wide ban.

I say currently, because the same case played in the Netherlands, and Apple has lost twice there now. They're taking it to the Dutch supreme court -- I wouldn't be too surprised if, should that court favour Samsung as well, the Netherlands suddenly becomes the distribution center for this stuff in the EU.

(Basically: yes they could move to another EU country, until they were challenged there. I just don't think judges would like that approach -- deliberately evading justice does not score bonus points with them. However, the legality of the tab was already affirmed by Dutch courts, making it more a business decision than an evasion.
I am not a lawyer, so if you're samsung, use this advice at your own risk :)

Are they phones or tablets?

[hawguy]

I thought the Galaxy Tab 10 and 7.7 were tablets, but Apple was quoted saying:

"Samsung's infringing sales have enabled Samsung to overtake Apple as the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property."

Why does Samsung's status as a smartphone manufacturer have anything to do with tablets?

And why is Apple suing for $2.5B in damages when by their own admission, they lost only "hundreds of millions of dollars"?

Re:Are they phones or tablets?

[MrDoh!]

Projected sales perhaps? And it's interesting that they went after the 7.7, as that IS the one usually with the cellular connection (there's a wifi model as well, but I think Apple's intent was to aim for the 3G version). And as I think we can see the market direction, the difference between smartphones/tablets is shrinking to be smartdevices that use wifi/3g/led blinking/chirping to communicate around them, so Apple's thinking 'lets get this war won now by claiming any device, rather than having to fight this again for every future disruptive tech' This is a proxy war against Google, they know it, we know it, it's obvious they'll let slip sometimes what they see the big picture as.

Re:Are they phones or tablets?

[amoeba1911]

And why is Apple suing for $2.5B in damages when by their own admission, they lost only "hundreds of millions of dollars"?

Lawyers... they use fuzzy math.

Re:Are they phones or tablets?

[VGPowerlord]

I thought the Galaxy Tab 10 and 7.7 were tablets, but Apple was quoted saying:

"Samsung's infringing sales have enabled Samsung to overtake Apple as the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property."

Why does Samsung's status as a smartphone manufacturer have anything to do with tablets?

And why is Apple suing for $2.5B in damages when by their own admission, they lost only "hundreds of millions of dollars"?

It's a Chewbacca Defense.

Re:Are they phones or tablets?

[IrrepressibleMonkey]

The culprit is the thrown-together submission/summary of multiple stories. Two different cases have been joined to stimulate a healthy landscape for the usual troll and counter-troll comments. The injunction on the tablets is in the EU and the damages refer to the ongoing US case, which I believe relates to a wider range of Samsung products.

Re:Are they phones or tablets?

[spire3661]

smartphones and tablets are inextricably linked. They are more alike then not so using that term is perfectly fine until we start calling them what they really are which is pocket/mobile computers.

Oh Apple, Apple, Apple

[sandytaru]

I don't use Samsung products because they borrowed Apple's intellectual property without permission. I use Samsung products because they are not Apple iOS products. If it wasn't Apple, it'd be HTC, LG, or any other provider of Android based hardware. Your suing Samsung into oblivion and killing market choice is not going to endear me to your products in the future. Frankly, I'd rather just do without. No one needs a tablet.

Re:Oh Apple, Apple, Apple

[spidercoz]

Word. I've wanted a tablet since I first saw one on Star Trek. I didn't get one until the Galaxy Tab 2s came out because I know what I want out of my devices better than Apple does, and they disagree.

Re:Oh Apple, Apple, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Samsung products because they are not Apple iOS products

And they say the market is rational....

It's almost like posting on slashdot because you hate Digg.

Re:Oh Apple, Apple, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you're not an Apple customer.

They don't give a shit about anything else you said.

Re:Oh Apple, Apple, Apple

[StripedCow]

Sadly, 99% of consumers don't give a damn about this issue, and just buys iPads because they're shinier and easier to use.

If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

[crazyjj]

Looks like Apple has a new business model.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

[Arkham]

Re:If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

Looks like Apple has a new business model.

Actually Apple's business model is "beat 'em, then sue 'em anyway". As a shareholder of Apple, I approve.

If you think Apple is losing in the smartphone or the tablet market, you're not looking very closely.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only are they losing, half their argument is "We're losing to Samsung because Samsung is stealing from us."

Hopefully for Apple, the judge isn't "looking very closely" either.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1983 they lost their dominance on the desktop. They just lost the dominance on the smart phone market share and soon the innovation of their competition will diminish the walled garden that is iOS. Now they are about to loose the tablet market share in the near future (2 to 3 Years). The limitations imposed on their products is what is creating the demand for the competition.

I owned an iPhone and was just waiting for them to remove the imposed limitations (mainly iTunes and sync with only one computer) went to Android and never looked back. On the desktop it's the BSD underpinnings that make it powerful. Their UI was intelligent but they just can't stop themselves. They are now changing it for changes sake. Address Book looks very ugly. Calendar too. Very seldom do I start form a blank document mostly I use a template or an existing document. "Save As" is renamed as export. Why? Autosave makes sense and is very practical.

As long as Apple requires iTunes, iOS is not an option for me and most people I know.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a shareholder of Apple, I approve.

Well thanks for stepping up to the plate as being an example of what's wrong with our economy today.

Also, fuck you.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!

[Swampash]

Apple's already beaten 'em pretty comprehensively, wouldn't you say? Maybe Apple just got bored.

even less

[DynamoJoe]

Rounded to the nearest cent, it's $0.00 per unit. Maybe they're hoping to write Apple a check for zero dollars and zero cents.

Re:even less

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but sell 10 million and you have enough to underpay two apple store employees for a year!

Re:even less

[mattack2]

You need a remedial math class. .5 rounds up to 1.

Re:even less

[repvik]

Except the sum Samsung proposes is $0.0049. Which isn't .5 penny. It's pretty much half a penny, but rounded down.

They say it like it's a bad thing

[Minter92]

"Samsung's infringing sales have enabled Samsung to overtake Apple as the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property."

$2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[kawabago]

Samsung could have used a circle, a pentagram or even a doughnut. There was no reason to copy Apple's proprietary rectangular design. Samsung needs to do their own research to find the best shape for their product and stop stealing Apple's.

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[camperdave]

"Your honour, clearly this is not a rectangle with rounded corners. It is a circle that has been extended in area by adding straight edges at the cardinal points."

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[WhackAttack]

Well then Apple should have used a circle or pentagram, because Microsoft actually came out with the first tablet, the Tablet PC. Just nobody paid any attention to it. So Apple copied Microsoft. And using a specific shape for a device is not "copying" the design. Using the specific dimensions, etc. is copying, but that is not what Samsung has done.

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[Scragglykat]

So what you are saying is, because Apple basically took a touchscreen computer monitor off it's stand and put it in your hand, that shape should now belong to them?

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[dwillden]

Maybe Samsung should try an apple shaped tablet, sans any bite of course, just an outline of an apple. Apple inc. of course has trademarked the apple with the bite, but any other apple outline is fair game.

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[jaymz666]

A squircle perhaps?

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[StripedCow]

Or they could compare the circumference of the device to the iPad's. Measuring the circumference around every little detail (atom) may actually result in kilometers of difference between the two devices. Enough to invalidate any complaint of copying.

Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle

[metalmonkey]

Apple has already sued an major Australian grocery store/supermarket using an 'apple' in it's name - which looked nothing like the apple bite logo.
http://www.woolworths.com.au/

this will keep happening until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies, specifically Apple in this case, will keep acting evilly until people wake up and STOP GIVING THEM MORE MONEY.

Just stop buying Apple products. That's the only form of communication they understand.

I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[evilRhino]

In the Apple vs Samsung patent war, it seems like almost every Apple initiated suit results in a win or injunction, but a Samsung initiated suit usually results in a loss followed by a judge that questions why a suit like it should even be brought up. The main outcome is stifling innovation and reducing competition for end consumer.

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[MrDoh!]

Does seem that way doesn't it?

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of makes you think that Apple might be on the right side of the law, doesn't it?

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[ilsaloving]

You know, if it was just a one off that's one thing. But if Apple is *consistently* winning against Samsung across different countries around the world.... they maybe... just MAYBE.... there's more to this than just some box with rounded corners.

Not that I don't agree that it just stifles innovation and competition, I'm just saying that maybe Samsung really did get caught with it's hand in the cookie jar.

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[VGPowerlord]

Not all of them!

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[spidercoz]

Not really. Makes me think the law is on the wrong side of progress.

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple lost major in the UK and have to publish an apology in the major newspapers, they also lost big time in Australia. They only seem to win in the US and Germany.

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[ilsaloving]

I'm not sure I consider it a loss for Apple. I took it to be more of the judge telling both Samsung and Apple to knock it off because they were both getting ridiculous.

Samsung: Your products suck too much to be considered infringing.
Apple: There, happy now? They're not infringing.

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[Swampash]

"Apple lost major in the UK"

Judge: "no-one would confuse a Samsung tablet with an iPad, the Samsung is obviously nowhere near as good"

Boy Samsung must've been thrilled with that victory.

Re:I'm starting to notice a pattern...

[evilRhino]

Or MAYBE more judges have personal vested interest in AAPL.

Apple is a piece of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is a piece of shit.

Re:Here is your answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

How high these people have to be to demande few billions in damages ? Remember Oracle and Google ?

Since Apples Tax shelter is located in the Netherlands in a small coffee shop in Amsterdam.

There allways pretty dam high.

Evolving the Language

[Un pobre guey]

These people add a whole new scale of meaning to the phrase ex recto.

stupid

[WhackAttack]

All these court cases are pointless. It's better for the consumers to have choices and for the companies to have competition. If the companies have competition, they may lower their prices, hence, better for the consumer.

Samsung vs Apple

[umask077]

Apples losing share because they do not stay current on tech. They are behind the phone system. Also there product was designed to be idiot proof but idiot proof frustrates technical people. Take that and Apple Itunes monopoly and policies and you have a recipe for a losing market share. I have owned a Iphone and presently own a Samsung Galaxy Note. Its nice to access the LTE network for more speed.

These are both good quality products but I will favor the Samsung from now on. Apple should quit its whining just because someone has a similar product and improve its product.

Good artists copy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Good artists copy, great artists steal. We steal all the time" --Steve Jobs

Samsung really isn't even stealing, and now Apple can't compete in the marketplace, and so they try to whine to the courts "They stole our eye-pee (sob)." Apple is a poor competitor, and a poor sport. In reality, Samsung owes Apple nothing. If Apple was a serious competitor, they would be able to compete on value and price. Instead their products can only try to match functionality, but at a greatly inflated price. Suck it up Apple! Change your business model or die! It always amazes me how these companies cry about government regulation and "Let the market sort it out", yet run like rabid dogs to the courts yelping about "EYE PEE" when the market sorts them out.

Re:Good artists copy

[ilsaloving]

" If Apple was a serious competitor, they would be able to compete on value and price"

You're joking, right?

Re:Good artists copy

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck it up Apple! Change your business model or die!

If you haven't noticed, numerous companies in the world are attempting to "copy" Apple's business model of selling at high profit margins -- because the model is actually profitable (compared with the "race to the bottom" model by competing on "value and price" of Dell, etc. etc.).

Perhaps the AAPL quarterly results (which will be announced today) will prove me wrong (I doubt it), but by all measures Apple is far away from "can't compete in the marketplace". [1] Perhaps you thought your friends bought an iPhone because Apple sued Samsung? I'll have sympathy on your logic and not call you an idiot, because you probably bought a Samsung device because Apple sued Samsung.

[1] http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-25/tech/31396858_1_iphone-business-profit-apple

Re:Good artists copy

[Anonymous Coward]

1996 called, Apple is now crushing on price, while the competition can not design a product that they actually believe in enough to get a volume price break anywhere near apples component price.

Loving the MS vs Apple comparisons

[WiiVault]

On one hand you have evil out in the open with visible court cases (Apple) on the other hand you have back door patent threats which make more money through settlement than their own Windows Phone OS (MS). Evil is equal on both ends, but one is more devious and MS is far more successful is their scam. But hey Apple gets more press for their bad deeds so they must be worse.

Re:Loving the MS vs Apple comparisons

[TrancePhreak]

Key difference seems to be MS wants royalties and Apple wants bans.

Re:Loving the MS vs Apple comparisons

[WiiVault]

Good point, and I think in-line with my suggestion that MS is just better at extortion than Apple.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[spidercoz]

Corky, go take your pills.

Willing to pay $90 - $100 more for bouncing??

[daboochmeister]

Oh, puh-LEEZE. From FOSS Patents, "a 'conjoint survey' conducted by one of Apple's experts 'shows that Samsung's customers are willing to pay between $90 and $100 above the base price of a $199 smartphone and a $499 tablet, respectively, to obtain the patented features covered by Apple's utility patents".

Let's test that, but in reverse ... ask consumers if they would be willing to forego those utility patents on an iPad for $100 off. You can save $100 if it doesn't bounce when you scroll to the bottom of a page, and the scrolling works a little bit differently, and you zoom a bit differently.

I guarantee you that any normal person would take the money and run ... not sure i'd pay $10 extra for those features. And the idea that those features allowed Samsung to pass Apple in phone sales?? Please ...

None so blind as the terminally stupid

[SmallFurryCreature]

It is getting laughed out of court, it HAS been laughed out of court in England and Holland, Australia also reacted today with a judge saying "this is stupid".

This German judge is like that texan district all the patent trolls go to. A well known soft touch on this kinda stuff.

If I was Samsung, I would suggest to Apple that they need to seek even stronger measures. Then when the case is thrown out in a higher court, use the demands by Apple to claim their own damages.

If this judge ain't fired before. The Germans have now lost Samsung EU distribution to Holland and MS distribution. Not something that is going to win this judge a lot of political friends. And when those warehouses close, the protesting workers will make those politicians very eager to find someone else to blame.

Apple love for Patents extends to even the fanboys

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine commented after looking at my samsung galaxy S, The 'flight mode' on my phone is illegal because it came first on an Apple Product!
Apple should have patented that as well!

I was astonished!
You guys have any thought?

Also i know that this is an irrelevant topic, but thanks for your comment!

Known case, LEGO

[SmallFurryCreature]

Lego has a rather distincive design for keeping its blocks together. They asked a patent for that design. But they also patented all the other possible designs they could think of that could work, so nobody else could make anything similar.

Apple has done this as well, they made many varying designs with no intention of using them and submitted them.

Patents have not been used for their original goal for a long time.

Re:Known case, LEGO

[bennomatic]

Good example. Do people feel that LEGO corp is evil?

San Diego?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says San Jose, which makes a lot more sense and is a lot closer to Cupertino...

When did MS ever pull something this?

[SmallFurryCreature]

If MS was this evil, it would have tried to sue over windows (not the OS) being rectangular. It never did. Even Bill Gates is NOT that evil. He is nasty, he a is a very hard businessman and thinks money is the only thing that matters, but he NEVER would use a handicapped parking space or use a car without license plates to avoid tickets.

Steve Jobs is or rather, thank god, was a dirty scumbag of a pile of refuse who nobody misses, who screwed his supposed friends and threw a hissy fit if everything he didn't get his way. Steve Ballmer is a well adjusted person compared to him. But Apple fanboys love to tell about chair throwing and forget the countless stories of rage of Jobs. Hell, he even dealt in illegal organs. Who was killed so he could live? This was a man who thought he deserved an organ more then someone else because of his money.

Eh, what do you think Apple is?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Jobs was on the board of Disney and sells tons of music.

They are not copying the content industry, they ARE the content industry.

Why do you think so many trailers were MOV files?

Re:Eh, what do you think Apple is?

[ProzacPatient]

Few things get on my nerves as much as trailers in MOV format. Thank goodness for YouTube!

And you need to read

[SmallFurryCreature]

This is a German order affecting Samsungs EU distribution center in Germany. It is going to be moved. They might have moved it sooner but all the trucks were busy moving MS to Holland for pretty much the same reason.

As a dutch person. Go germans! Lets ban some more! The dutch and british courts have already thrown this out, so no worries here. I know in fact that the previous ban was like a wet dream for dutch web retailers. All the devices that were supposed to go to germany just stayed in Holland and were distributed from there by mail.

PROFIT!

apple is lame

[Anonymous Coward]

How long has Microsoft supported XP now? With 3 official service packs for free? And continued security updates? 12 years?

Re:Apple love for Patents extends to even the fanb

[Oakey]

I'm sure my Sony Ericsson P800 had a flight mode...

damages should be a lot more than $2b.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were allowed to keep their design monopoly (arguable: I think they should, just as they kept it on the ipod's wheel back in the day), they would make a lot more than $2b on it from now until their self-designed fad runs out.

PADD

[IBitOBear]

The Star Trek "PADD" device was a flat rectangular touch-screen device with rounded corners in 1988. I had found a snarky picture to that effect but I lost it.

Ah yes...

[IBitOBear]

Removing the desktop interface an making square icons you can touch and slide... The Sony Cle-something running Palm OS -never- did that before.

Innovative... I don't think that word means what you think it means...

Fixed tha for you...

[IBitOBear]

I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple always is.

use rectangle (apple buys from samsung)

[IBitOBear]

I seem to recall that Apple buys their touch screens from Samsung.

That's right, apple didn't go out and make this technology from whole cloth, they bought its bits and peices. It's sort of like buying corn from a corn farmer and the suing that same corn farmer for selling other people corn.

Fanboys fest today...

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Apple is just a lazy bastard - they do nothing else but actually putting up stuff from Samsung (!) and other companies into their beatiful boxes with the Fapple logo... Innovation in Cupertino is dead so they need to earn money other ways.

sosumi

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple can sue every single smartphone manufacturer out of existence and I still won't be their customer. I don't like iTunes and I don't like proprietary hardware. Unless they make in iPhone that has a micro USB port and doesn't need iTunes, I'll never own an Apple phone. They can't count this as lost revenue due to Samsung, it's lost revenue due to their over-inflated opinion of themselves and refusal to admit that there are people who don't like what they are selling.

Apple's Wild New Patent Covers TV & Advanced 5

[4phun]

Apple's Wild New Patent Covers TV & Advanced 5D Technology - Patently Apple

2012/07 Granted Patent Number One

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/07/apples-wild-new-patent-covers-tv-advanced-5d-technology.html

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/07/apples-25-granted-patents-include-apple-tv-future-id-app.html

Could this be why the industry now fears Apple TV?
Quote

“They copied all they could follow,
But they couldn’t copy my mind.

“So I left ‘em sweatin’ and schemin’,
a year and a half behind”

Indirect praise?

[metacell]

From the summary:

"Samsung's infringing sales have enabled Samsung to overtake Apple as the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property."

So... Apple is saying that Samsung stole their ideas, and used them to make a tablet that was better than Apple's?

And the Galaxy doesn't look like an iPad.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you disagree, then point to the patent place where it states precisely what the non-infringing etch-a-scketch design is without it reading the same as the "infringing" Galaxy design.

Describe the galaxy tablet in the terms apple have patented. Describe the etch-a-sketch in the terms apple have patented. In what way are they different? Where does apple describe why one is not infringement and the other is?

Groklaw analyzes Florian's claims

[walterbyrd]

Google's Unmerited Damage From Oracle v. Google -- The FOSSPatents Factor ~pj
Tuesday, July 24 2012 @ 10:41 PM EDT
Today, Florian Mueller of FOSSPatents writes1:
In connection with Oracle v. Google, some malicious individuals as well as some gullible people (who parrot lies without fact-checking) later claimed that my purely factual reporting on what a public Google filing said Oracle demanded2 (which Oracle later corrected anyway) was a prediction of the outcome.
Strong words, indeed. Let's take a closer look, not only at the article he links to, but to a broader slice of his body of work. Let's see if it's "purely factual reporting", shall we?

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120724125504129

Even Samsung is confused

[walterbyrd]

Apple’s Europe-wide sales ban of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 has prompted confusion this morning, with uncertainty – including from Samsung itself – as to what impact it will have on store shelves. The sales injunction, awarded by a Dusseldorf appeals court earlier today, seemingly conflicts with a UK court ruling earlier in July which ruled that the 7.7-inch tablet had not, in fact, copied the iPad’s aesthetic.

http://www.slashgear.com/mixed-galaxy-tab-7-7-rulings-confuse-even-samsung-but-it-may-not-matter-anyway-24239917/

Apple Bigots

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone still buying crap from this joke of a company? The Hype is gone, think about the future - would you invest in a company such as Apple, clearly using most if not all of its resources to stop and impact innovation they cannot control? Fucking tables have been around for ages, they invented nothing. Most people wiped their behinds on a toiled in a similar way to how Apple users unlock their phones - but I dont see toilet paper producers suing them. Fuck off, Apple. Its time to join Steve in hell.

save the trees!

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the time, energy, PAPER and lawyer fees that APPL have spent for generating these elementary school "intellectual" patents and renewing it every year.

Now they are spending comparable amount of resources to sue others (claiming $2.5 billion in damages) with those elementary school "intellectual" patents!

Global warming is inevitable! Save those tress and boycott i-things.

i read injunction and i read patent

[KingBenny]

so i didnt read tfa since i get a headache thinking it's probably just more of this thing that happens when competition on quality and price won't work

Patents (especially in the US) are a new business.

[dgux69]

Why is Apple suing Samsung ? Because they can.
Actually let dig a bit deeper, why the hell in the US you can own a patent about every shit ?
A US Judge (involved in an Apple case) recently stated that the whole patent system is crap (well he formulated differently) and it's true.
His statement was mostly based on following facts:
- the patent bureaus are understaffed, therefore the check if the patent application is correct are just minimal.
- the judges involved in patent claims have no clue about technology.
- the main reasons to hold a patent are only two:
a) holding a patent protects you about being sued for the use of it
b) get a patent for whatever and wait for someone to infringe it and thus sue them.

He also proposed a really simple way to eliminate those foolish debates:
- a patent holder cannot have exclusive right on it. A patent implicitly allows others to copy and build upon licenses payment to the patent owner.
- a patent holder loses the patent if not applied within a reasonable amount of time.

I would even go further and define a roof for the due licenses, otherwise one could decide to get gazillions licenses...
But anyway, the system is crap and urgently needs to be reviewed.
I prefer technology companies to invest time and money in R&D rather than in lawyers and trials !