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Who Cares If Samsung Copied Apple?

Posted by samzenpus on from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.

hype7 writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article that's questioning the very premise of the Apple v Samsung case. From the article: 'It isn't the first time Apple has been involved in a high-stakes "copying" court case. If you go back to the mid-1990s, there was their famous "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft. Apple's case there was eerily similar to the one they're running today: "we innovated in creating the graphical user interface; Microsoft copied us; if our competitors simply copy us, it's impossible for us to keep innovating." Apple ended up losing the case. But it's what happened next that's really fascinating. Apple didn't stop innovating at all.'"

23 of 544 comments (clear)

  1. The Chinese... by j35ter · · Score: 5, Funny

    couldn't care less!

    --
    Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
    1. Re:The Chinese... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You kid, but this is actually important.

      Supposedly we live in a "Global Economy" now.

      China manufactures a lot of goods for the US. Now ask yourself, what does the US have to offer China, and the rest of our world? Intellectual Property, which is only reinforced by our nations laws? Our Lawyers, which mostly are specialized in US law? Our MBAs?

      If we hardly manufacture anything now and IP is our primary "resource", and foreign countries do not need to respect our IP, then what exactly do we have to trade for? What do we offer the world?

    2. Re:The Chinese... by paulsnx2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is totally naive to think that just because someone can look at your product, they can execute the production, distribution, and support for your product.

      IP is not our primary resource. And if it is, we deserve to fail utterly.

      Companies should be successful for building, selling, distributing, and supporting products. There isn't any reason to Tax the world for their willingness to compete just because we pass a law that says they have to.

      Today there are nearly 200,000 patents on various aspects of smart phones. Maybe even more! If we gave every patent holder a penny, a cell phone would cost 2,000 dollars for IP alone.

      Get over it. IP is important to some extent. But Apple's abuse of the system is unethical and shouldn't be tolerated.

    3. Re:The Chinese... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I write this knowing full well that it will probably get modded down to -1 but this is exactly the sort of attitude that we (foreigners) see from US citizens which makes us look down on your country.
      You (vocal, arrogant and naive representatives of the USA) post inflammatory things (like the above) acting like you are the worlds police (Team America... F*ck YEAH!) without even realising that Chinas intellectual property laws are quite different from the USA's and they are not beholden to your laws.
      In reality it is only the AMERICAN company (in this case Samsung USA) who imports the product who is responsible for making sure the product complies with the local laws of the USA.

      Regardless it would be quite interesting to see what happens if the USA ever did declare war on China... a little flash video from Albinoblacksheep springs to mind:- http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end

    4. Re:The Chinese... by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The Chinese don't give a shit about copying anything.

      No; The Chinese care very much. China began writing long after the Mesopotanians, however, because ancient Chinese texts were carefully and repeatedly copied, they have survived much longer than texts almost anywhere else in the world. This gives them a real claim to be the oldest culture in existence. The current Chinese trend to "respect intellectual property" is a sign of their current governments disregard for the good of their culture and pandering to corporate interests over those of the Chinese people.

      --
      =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
    5. Re:The Chinese... by gman003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's because in Afghanistan, we're not fighting a war, we're fighting an insurgency. Big difference there (for a /.-friendly analogy, the difference between CP/M and RHEL).

      A war would be two armies, fighting on relatively equal ground (within an order of magnitude of each other, at least). And it would be destructive as *hell* (there's almost no way a real war now would not go nuclear), and would end only with the near-complete destruction of one side's forces and economy. That's what the US military is designed for, and what a war with China would be. Remember Iraq? The proper war with Iraq's rather significant military, many of them veterans of a very long, bloody war with Iran, and armed with reasonably modern weapons? I'm sure you *don't* remember, because we cut through them like butter. We blasted them with not even the full might of our military (we held the nukes back, at least), and they literally could not surrender fast enough.

      An insurgency is different. You don't win by killing all the enemy combatants, destroying all their materiel and wrecking their supply chain. After all, they can recruit more insurgents from the population, can arm themselves with locally-made or stolen small arms, and have no supply chain worth speaking of. No, you win this sort of war by "winning over" the people, by trying to minimize civilian casualties (instead of maximize enemy casualties), by building up civilian infrastructure (instead of destroying militarily-useful infrastructure). It's a war of politics and propaganda, not of armies and fleets.

      And it is, unfortunately, something very difficult to win. In fact, I think it is essentially impossible for a democracy with any semblance of a free press to win, because all but one of the examples I can think of of "successfully ending an insurgency" were done by brutal massacres and the sort of things the Geneva Conventions were designed to stop. The sole counter-example I can think of is Ireland, and that was not a "victory" as much as it was "stalemate".

  2. Apple Did stop Innovating. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't true. Apple DID stop innovating. You missed the section of time where Apple was minutes from bankrupt before Jobs came back with a load of money.

  3. Re:Patent System Broken by kelemvor4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think many companies have become like Apple. In my opinion the function of the high tech industry is attributable to the lack of ubiquitous software patent practices in the past. Now days, you have to watch out for patent landmines for even obvious features in a piece of software. I don't have any specific articles to link on the subject because I am lazy, but how can the patents serve to do anything but hinder progress? I just don't understand at all how companies could even try to argue the opposite.

  4. Re:It's a blood feud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, apple "steals" from open source...

    How can you steal from open source? Especially when they give back an enormous amount of development to the open source movement (such as http://www.apple.com/opensource/ ).

    But, hey, why let facts and logic get in the way of a good ol' Apple bashing, right?...

  5. Turn the argument around. by wvmarle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Having other people copy your designs doesn't mean you can't innovate anymore. On the contrary: by innovating you will stay ahead of the pack.

    Also, copies always mean the copier is playing catch-up. They always have to wait and see what you've done, before they can try to do the same. By innovating you will keep the advantage, having everybody copy your work just means you have to innovate even harder and faster. That's tough of course, much easier to stop the rest from picking up your innovative ideas.

  6. Steve Jobs (RIP) was fond of this axiom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Good artists copy. Great artists steal. And at Apple, we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

    [Source: Isaac's authorized biography]

    Apparently he never liked it if someone else followed this axiom, though.

  7. Re:It isn't very easy to tell an original from a c by wvmarle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not all copies are inferior. Japan got huge in the 80s/90s by "copying and improving". And they were not the first that did this; it's how UK lost out to mainland Europe in the later stages of the industrial revolution: they were the first to industrialise, but the continent copied there methods and products, and improved on them.

    China is currently very much in the copy phase, sooner or later they will also start to innovate themselves (some Chinese companies already do that), followed by a time in which the establised companies will be out-innovated. It may take a while, the Chinese don't seem to be very fast in picking up the innovation part, but if the world's history is anything to go by, sooner or later they will.

  8. Re:Yeah they did stop innovating by PuckSR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, and other people stepped up to innovate. Apple doesn't have some magical innovation juice. They are just a company. If they want to get lazy, then talent will move elsewhere. You mentioned "multi-tasking", but that would have been something that required talented and competent engineers, not innovators. Innovation is something you come up with while half-drunk. Everyone understood how multi-tasking was supposed to work, it was just a matter of "making it work". Apple innovated in the same way that George Selden innovated(the patent holder to the automobile). He didn't exactly create the greatest car in the world, he just had the idea for a car. Henry Ford developed some of the greatest ideas in automotive history, but he did it all while violating Selden's patent.

  9. Re:Yeah they did stop innovating by jeffmeden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After Apple lost the "Microsoft coppied our GUI" case, their desktop GUI remained unchanged for 10 years. System 7 through 9 were basically identical..... they couldn't even multitask properly (used cooperative multitasking which led to misbehaving programs refusing to give-up the CPU & freezing the system). Apple said they would stop innovating their GUI if competitors simply copied their ideas, and that's essentially what happened.

    There are two premises in play here; one is that if Apple's IP is not protected that they would choose not to innovate (perhaps so that they can take their ball and go home) and the other is that if their IP is not protected that they are at a competitive financial disadvantage and can no longer innovate since there is no revenue coming in. In the past, it could be argued that Apple was indeed at disadvantage because they lost to Microsoft and therefore had poor sales revenue, and that is what stunted their innovation because they kept creating the same lousy desktop experience over and over. However at this point Apple has more than enough money to innovate to any degree imaginable, so any "missing innovation" would be due solely to their will to restrain themselves.

  10. Re:Does Apple Truly Innovate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You mean the ones that Apple copied - after Jobs and Xerox negotiated a deal to allow Xerox to but 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock.

    In other words, Apple was happy to give value for value received. Why is this story constantly repeated as an example of Apple being underhanded?

  11. Parallels by chebucto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The parallels of current Apple to early 90s Apple are numerous.

    - They were first widely used in multitouch and gui
    - Their OS is more user-friendly
    - Development and modification of their OS is more tightly controlled
    - Crucially, they don't license their OS
    - Steve Jobs isn't there to save them with brand-new product lines

    So now, they're stuck with a market-leading position that is being slowly eroded by the open ARM + Android platform (Armdroid as the new Wintel?), and are being forced to fight on several fronts at once: hardware design, OS design, and developer loyalty.

    The litigation strategy is just one more parallel, and it seems destined to fail.

    --
    The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
  12. Poor understanding of IP categories by Theaetetus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you go back to the mid-1990s, there was their famous "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft. Apple's case there was eerily similar to the one they're running today: "we innovated in creating the graphical user interface; Microsoft copied us; if our competitors simply copy us, it's impossible for us to keep innovating." Apple ended up losing the case.

    ... I've used Apple as the example here because it's illustrative in showing how innovation hasn't been stifled over time even when the patent system hasn't ruled in their favor as a patent owner.

    The Apple v. Microsoft case was on copyright, not patents. Specifically, the court ruled that:

    Apple cannot get patent-like protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor [under copyright law]...

    and look-and-feel simply isn't covered there.

    With that distinction and proper categorization in mind, the article misses a crucial difference between the 1990s and today: Apple made a significant push to protecting its designs with patents. The lack of such protection almost killed Apple in the 1990s, and its with that protection now that Apple is well on its way to being the largest company ever.

  13. Welcome to the Pirate Party, James by a_n_d_e_r_s · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Pirate Party here in Sweden been arguing just these points for a long time now. Innovation is not happening in a vacuum. Great ideas inspire others to come up with even greater ideas. By sharing the information and sharing the data others can look at it and improve it and the speed of research will increase.

    The patent system is not something that foster innovation. Its is something that hinder innovation. Remove it

    Also the billions of money going to patents trolls and feeding lawyers to hand patents could be instead used to invest in research to further the science of mankind.

    --
    Just saying it like it are.
  14. Re:Yeah they did stop innovating by __aaqvdr516 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How can something be 100% stable and have 2 kernel panics?

    If you exclude "sketchy third-party" drivers, you could knock every BSOD that I've experienced with Windows off the table.

    With Gnome taking a bit of a dive, Unity a bit on the rise, and Metro just starting out, these are certainly interesting times. Just grab some popcorn and see what happens.

  15. TED Talk on innovating without copyright by quietwalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... in this case for the fashion industry, but hey, it's interesting and relevant:

    http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html

  16. Execution, not innovation by Andrio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Innovation" is rarely little more than just a buzzword. The truth is that Apple rarely "innovates" (That's not an insult) At least not in the big picture. What Apple is good at is the *execution*.

    Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, they just made it better than most others, and marketed the hell out of it.
    Apple didn't invent high-end laptops, they just made them better than most others, and marketed the hell out of them.
    Apple didn't invent the smartphone, they just made it better than most others, and marketed the hell out of it.
    Apple didn't invent the tablet, they just made it better than the others, and marketed the hell out of it.

    That's why they're so threatened by Samsung. Because Samsung is doing the same thing. Samsung didn't invent the "iPhone," they just made it better. Just like they didn't invent the "iPad," they just made it better too.

    --
    The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
  17. Manufacturing strawman by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    If we hardly manufacture anything now and IP is our primary "resource"...

    Strawman argument. The US has a $3.7 TRILLION manufacturing sector and it is growing. Just in case that isn't clear, measured by value the US has manufactures more than any other country in the world by a wide margin. By itself the US manufacturing sector would be in top 5 economies in the world. The notion that "we don't manufacture anything anymore" is complete nonsense. The only change is that products with a high proportion of labor cost (labor intensive) are now manufactured where labor is cheaper. However a huge number of products have a low proportion of labor cost (capital intensive) and those are made here. We manufacture automobiles, airplanes, pharmaceuticals, agriculture products, chemicals, integrated circuits, and much much more. The death of US manufacturing has been greatly exaggerated.

    The change in manufacturing in the US is that it is evolving somewhat like farming did 100 years ago - fewer workers as a percent of population but producing more. As a proportion of the population manufacturing jobs are going to continue to decrease for some time. That does not mean that the US will cease being a manufacturing powerhouse however.

  18. In the words of Steve Jobs by Jahta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Jobs, interviewed in Triumph of the Nerds on PBS (1996)

    "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." - Jobs, as quoted in Walter Isaacson's biography (2011)

    So it's OK if Apple do it, but not otherwise?