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The Surprises In the Latest Apple V. Samsung Court Documents
Nerdfest writes "The lawyers behind the upcoming Apple v. Samsung trial have been hard at work filing docket after docket as their court battle looms closer, and many of those dockets have just been released to the public. We're now seeing a lot of previously secret information about the early days of iPhone and iPad R&D, and what's happened behind closed doors at both Apple and Samsung. Surprises include the iPhone design being 'inspired' by Sony product ideas, and that Samsung was warned that it was copying Apple."
Microsoft moves to seal their agreement with Samsung for Android licenses.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120727084323510
It would be nice to get a close view of the MS-Samsung deal.... it would be even more interesting if it is found that Microsoft PAID money to Samsung rather than the other way round.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The Wired.com article is totally biased towards Apple.
An example is the SONY concept phone released in 2006.
http://www.cellphonebeat.com/sony-ericssons-cybershot-concept-phone.html
Going by Apple's logic, their version of "inspiration" is removing the slider from the SONY concept phone and making the front all touch (removing the silver buttons). With these two basic modifications, there is no difference between the SONY concept phone of 2006 and the iPhone 4 of 2010. I fail to see why does Apple have double standards when treating with the issue when Samsung / Motorola and HTC are concerned. (rather all popular Android manufacturers)
The industry was already gravitating towards touch screen phones in 2007. The technology was not ready earlier in terms of CPU power, price/performance ratio and OS maturity for touch only phones to be popular mainstream phones. Apple was the first to released a polished product, granted. But, Apple is behaving as if it owns all rights to a touch screen phone / tablet, which I find ridiculous.
The mock-ups were based on the design description from Sony, and are quite similar to the design patent awarded to Apple.
Not really a surprise if you read the Samsung filing. Apple didn't copy a design that they saw from Sony. An interview with a Sony designer described a concept for a phone that fit in the hand, had rounded corners, and a lack of buttons on the front of the device. Based on this, an Apple designer created a concept design of what this Sony phone would look like. Just to be clear - the screenshots that people will be posting links to in comments during the coming months are screen shots created by Apple. These are not designs that Sony created, although many posters will have that misunderstanding.
It will be very tempting for people to make posts saying "how can Apple sue Samsung for rounded corners when they stole the idea from Sony.". These comments will be modded highly, as there is a common misconception on slashdot that Apple has sued Samsung for rounded corners. Rather, Apple has sued Samsung for combining so many visual and behavioral elements from the iPhone and iPad that they have obviously ripped off the design. Any one of these elements in isolation does not infringe on the design, it is the sum of so many similarities. So many similarities, in fact, that Google actually demanded that Samsung alter their design.
3. The fact that the iPhone design was lifted from another product design seen by Apple's team isn't a surprise, it's how all companies work.
They didn't see it. Apple *read* (in an interview) about a prototype Sony was working on and then did a mock-up based on the description. Sort of a "What would Sony do?" or "How would Sony do it?"
Cant find an accurate date on these SONY phones (range 2006 to 2010), but the iPhone 4 looks extremely close to these.
http://www.cellphonebeat.com/sony-ericssons-cybershot-concept-phone.html
http://moblog.net/view/273678/new-sony-ericsson-concept-phone
And multiple phones in these pages (plus/minus a few pages)
http://www.concept-phones.com/tag/sony-ericsson-concept-phone/page/6/
It does not matter whether SONY actually released the particular product in the market or not. The bottom line is Apple's claim that they have come up with an "entirely original" idea that never existed before does not hold water. If anyone is going to design a new touch screen only phone / tablet, there is not much one can do. They cant Patent a rounded rectangle and assert it to prevent competition in the market and escape the microscopic examination of others.
Apple keeps parading the image of before / after iPhone cellphones, where it claims that all cellphones before iPhone were flip / qwerty and candybar and touchscreens did not exist at all (which is a lie). There were many PDA phones before the first ever iPhone in 2007. Even without the iPhone touchscreen phones would have come in the market.
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p910-846.php (one cant argue that size of this phone would have never shrunk with time and with advances in technology)
That's right. As it seems,Apple did this: They copied Sony's idea based on their description of a product, not any real product, then patented the design as if they had invented it themselves as something genuinely new, and then sued Samsung for damages, claiming that it took them millions of dollars of R&D costs to come up with the design and the product specifications in the first place.
Apple is "inspired" by other designs, while Samsung "copies". Gotta love that fanboy doublespeak.
But Xerox was a xeroxing company. They made products for copying.
There is nothing 100% original in this universe. Actually there is nothing 10% original to tell the truth.
Maybe Sony didn't patent their design because they are adult enough
Uh no, because we're talking about Sony here. Remember Betamax? Memory stick? Minidisc? Rootkits?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My point is you can't tell the difference between concept (which was never released) and an actual working product. Computing history is filled with lots of vaporware and concepts that never made it. It takes a great deal of work to get something to work. But you don't want to give Apple any credit for implementing actual working systems. You would rather lump everything into "shiny" category than admit that Apple does engineering to get their products to market.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And THAT is the first, biggest problem with "IP".
That is how Apple fanboys describe things. If Apple has it and someone else doesn't, it is the key defining feature that makes it the greatest "innovation" ever, and completely original. If someone else has it and Apple doesn't, it is a minor, inconsequential part that could hardly be called a feature. In this thread, it is suggested that Samsung copied Apple, even though iPhone doesn't do widgets. Then in another post it is suggested that Apple didn't copy Xerox because Xerox didn't have overlapping windows.
It will be very tempting for people to make posts saying "how can Apple sue Samsung for rounded corners when they stole the idea from Sony.". These comments will be modded highly, as there is a common misconception on slashdot that Apple has sued Samsung for rounded corners. Rather, Apple has sued Samsung for combining so many visual and behavioral elements from the iPhone and iPad that they have obviously ripped off the design. Any one of these elements in isolation does not infringe on the design, it is the sum of so many similarities. So many similarities, in fact, that Google actually demanded that Samsung alter their design
Very much this. This one paragraph distills the annoyance I have with a number of vocal Slashdotters who have tried to oversimplify their hate of Apple into a meme of rounded rectangular corners. Come on folks, even the most VBasic-crippled, 10E6 numbered poster can figure out the logical constructs of an AND statement....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I never called it the greatest innovation ever. I merely said Apple used ideas from Xerox; however, the Xerox concept was not complete. It was a prototype. Apple actually implemented a working product.
Then in another post it is suggested that Apple didn't copy Xerox because Xerox didn't have overlapping windows.
And you missed the entire point. If you a using a GUI instead of a command line, things like overlapping windows and drag and drop are essential. Apple implemented these things in a shipping product. Xerox as a concept did not.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'm an engineer myself. I'm not going to make light of the process of making an idea function. But the simple truth is- Xerox DID make it work. The palo alto research center had an entire network of what were essentially modern computers in 1979. They created the GUI, ethernet, network printers, object oriented programming, bitmaps, and many other important advances. Have whatever opinion you want, but we're arguing over historical fact here.
I don't see how the former could be feasible considering the timeframe. Regarding the latter, don't blame the players, blame the game.
They aren't suing LG as far as I know, so I don't see the relation, and there's strong evidence pointing to Samsung having actually and knowingly copied Apple's designs. Plus as I mention what matters are the dates in which patents are filed, not the time products come out. Once you file an application for a patent you can pretty much assume that it's public knowledge.
You see no relation whatsoever to Apple's product bearing a remarkable (and I'm sure Apple will claim, harmless) resemblance to an earlier LG product and Samsung's product bearing a resemblance to Apples (Which Samsung claims is harmless)?
You can see no reason at all that might weaken Apples claims in the slightest?
And, I will note that a game only exists if there are players. If I hate the game, I fully reserve the right to hate the player for keeping it alive.
As for timing, a patent claim is invalidated by prior art. It does matter if a design existed elsewhere before the patent was filed.
The sdesigns we are seeing ALL reflect images of future technology dating back to the 1960s. None of them have the right to lay claim on the design as far as I can see. The only reason we didn't see these designs in products in the '60s is that we had to wait for the general state of technology to catch up with the vision.
Uh no, because we're talking about Sony here. Remember Betamax? Memory stick? Minidisc? Rootkits?
Actually, I thought we were talking about Sony Ericsson, not Sony.
Sony does own Sony Ericsson right now, but that wasn't the case at the time.
You are not hating Apple because of how they do business, you are hating Apple because unlike others they are open about it, you are hating Apple because they're honest.
This is either a fanboy or a shill comment. If you seriously believe it's neither, you're the former.
Seriously, Apple have been abusing patent law for their gain for a while now. You can claim patent law is broken (which it is), and you can claim that their patents are legally valid (which at least some of them are, others are questionable), and you can claim all their competitors are doing the same (which they are, some less aggressively though). However, claiming Apple are being honest and not engaging in anti-competitive patent hoarding and suing is flat out false. Yes, lots of other companies do the same, some are worse, some are better.