Slashdot Mirror
Victory For Apple In "Patent Trial of the Century," To the Tune of $1 Billion
pdabbadabba writes "The jury is in in the epic patent dispute between Apple and Samsung and Apple appears to be coming out on top. The court is still going through the 700+ items on the verdict form, but things seem to be going Apple's way so far. In the case of Apple's various UI patents, the jury is consistently ruling that Samsung not only violated Apple's patent, but did so willfully." Reader bob zee also points to the AP's story, as carried by Breitbart.com, and Charliemopps adds Reuters' take. Reader Samalie contributes a link to a live blog of the (at this writing) ongoing recitation of the verdict. Whether you like it or not, even this verdict won't be the last word.
I call bullshit, that jury was stacked. You can't sift through such a complex case in 22 hours and come to an informed decision.
If you've ever been on a jury, you know that it's going to be full of people with very little idea of what's going on and who don't want to be there. Most of them had probably made their decisions well before deliberations even started.
It has nothing to do with the jury being "stacked" in any way; it's just a function of how juries are chosen and how they operate.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Not really, both companies will spend the next number of years appealing these cases in all jurisdictions. Eventually Apple, Samsung, and Google will settle things up and form a nice little patent license cartel. (Which is the ultimate goal, these lawsuits are just part of the negotiation.)
I see the trial was in San Jose. I am curious whether Koreans will be suspicious of the verdict. Maybe such trials should be on neutral ground. For what it's worth, halfway from San Jose to Korea from West to East appears to be, roughly, France.
109 pages of jury instructions, 700 question's to answer no way that can be done in 22 hours less they went in to deliberation with mind set up they were gonna side with apple on about everything. a decent jury would reviewed all the devices in question for each patent and that would take a while.
The fact that it was a US company against a south korean one, in a court in close proximity to Apple HQ risks stacking the jury to the favour of the home team.
And 'stacking' the jury is part of jury selection, both sides are trying to find people likely to be sympathetic to their cause and unsympathetic to the other side.
There will probably be more complaints about judicial bias going forward and hopefully somewhere along the lines someone blames the Samsung legal team for doing a shitty job, and the patent system for being designed badly enough that this could happen and so on.
Part of what might come out of this could be interviews with jurors, and we'll get to find out if they were actually clueless, upholding rules they thought were stupid, but ultimately the rules they had to work with, or whether they clearly felt Apple innovated and Samsung copied.
If you look at the list of infringing devices, the ones that were found to infringe had more than simply "rounded corners" in common with iPhone. I think the jury did an excellent job of sussing out which devices were copying iPhone and which ones weren't.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
If they keep this up, they'll tear the patent system to pieces and we'll be forced to start again.
More please. Bring it on. Its about time we got two companies in the ring who simply hate each other.
Cross-licensing agreements only benefit the companies involved - and they're a boring spectacle.
A battle to the death, however, benefits all of us.
Apple spent 7.8 billion dollars on Samsung parts in 2011. Since both its Mac and iOS sales are only increasing that figure likely increased. So for Samsung even a billion dollar loss only amounts to about a 12.5% discount on all gear they sold Apple for a year.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I agree that the situation is fucked up, but can we do without the brainless cliches for once? Yeah, it's a big payday for the lawyers, but that's true every day in this litigious society. They're not the winners, they're just well-paid peons.
The winner (of a sort, see below) is Apple. They're the ones that hired the lawyers, and the lobbyists, and the politicians, so that they can cash in big on a few design patents.
The losers is everybody who depends on innovation. Which is to say everybody, including Apple, though they they will see some short term financial benefits.
What's the answer? Well it's not to elect Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul, or Ralph Nader, or Ross Perot, or whoever the white knight is this week. Even if such a pure-minded soul had the slightest hope of winning an election in the real world, he'd be even less well equipped to fight The Bad Guys than mainstream politicians.
You've got to fix the system. You've got to throw away the stupid cliches, develop an actual understanding of how the system works, and start electing people who will actually fix it. Not just Presidents. Representatives and Senators too. (How many of you know the name of your Representative and where he or she stands on IP issues?) And you keep an eye on what they're doing, not just wait until it becomes obvious that they've sold out and whine about it.
That's hard work, and it won't happen overnight. It's so much easier to say "Don't Reward Corruption!" and refuse to have anything to do with mainstream politics. But it's time to give up on the lazy, simple-minded righteousness and actually do stuff.
I work for the law firm representing Apple in multiple jurisdictions (and have met Mike Jacobs personally - really nice guy). I am personally not a fan of Apple products, but understand their allure, and support these devices in our environment as needed. I have sided with many (most?) folks who think the patent system is ridiculous, and side with others that Apple is the new Evil. Granted, the lawyers are making a killing on this - for both sides. These guys and gals are not the ambulance chasers you see in CSI, Boston Legal or whatever. They're corporate lawyers, and for the most part work with corporations who are willing to pay their legal fees (whether with respect to litigation, or more commonly joint ventures, capital markets and other non-criminal type of law). Not to mention the Pro Bono stuff that does a lot of good towards society in general. Not trying to sway the anti-lawyer sentiment, but just wanted to lay out the other side of the "lawyers are money grabbers" side of things. There is a place for law, lawyers, and, where I work, it's a decent bunch of folks with good working conditions.
I wonder how you will talk if you weren't handed talking points.
You do realize Apple did not sue Samsung before 2010 when Samsung's phones did not look like the iPhone, right?
Was that before or after Steve Jobs vowed to go "thermonuclear" on android devices?
Apple has also sued Motorolla, HTC, and of course Samsung. Apple has sued over phones and tablets over everything from rounded corners, hyperlinked phone numbers, click to zoom on text, searching more than one source when a voice search is used, pinch to zoom, icon placement and many, many more frivolous reasons. Apple is not just trying to get Samsung phones banned in the US, including the new SIII, but they are also going after tablets and other manufacturers, trying to get them BANNED as well.
So, if Apple were to have won all her lawsuits, we'd have no HTC phones, no Samsung phones or tablets and no Motorolla phones being sold in the US. This is not a talking point, this is FACT! Apple is trying to BAN THE COMPETITION!
This ban was placed before Samsung was even guilty of anything. The latest HTC Evo line was delayed for the same reason as Apple is trying to get the banned.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Who actually got hurt in this battle? Well apple probably lost some market share. But it's nokia that got killed. Nokia lost out to all the cheap non-apple spamrtphone makers who got ahead on these google powered apple work-alikes. Nokia didn't play that game and look where it got them. Nokia got hurt far worse than a a billion.
Eric Schmitt is the one that should be paying in the end. The reason the damages were so high is because the jury did't just decide that the two devices looked a bit alike but rather that the similarity was willful. The samsung documents showing that even they thought their innovations just didn't measure up to apples refinements was the nail in the coffin. That is, if all these things were really obvious and easily arrived at by clever engineers then that document woul dnot have existed and googles android not been so slavish a copy of the human interface features.
Surely there is more than one way to make a smart phone? Yes. Microsoft is clearly answering that question with a much more differentiated product that actually licenses the parts of its OS that are like apple from apple and others.
Nokia should be suing google.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Indeed Apple just became the most valuable company in the world, ever.
Let me just say this...With Apple now being where Microsoft was in value (and plus some now), and with Apple now suing everyone that they can get their hands on. Apple has become the new Microsoft of our age. You can almost smell the monopoly and abuse of their monopoly on the horizon. It's heart breaking and awesome to see history repeat itself.
Additionally, Apple has lost every shred of credibility in pretty much all of my circle of friends. Which I know, doesn't mean squat, but I believe that this may very well mark the start of the end for Apple. Once you become viewed as the tech bully of the world, you start to loose you're ability to attract good talent. You start to be viewed as, the creative versus The Man. I don't know any company that "won" people over by being on a platform of being "The Man".
Of course, that's just one reason why mono-culture has never won. However, please continue gushing about the iPhone and Apple like the MS fanbois of days long since past.