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Galaxy Tab Sales Ban Lifted, Samsung Sues Apple Over iPhone 5
another random user sends this quote from the BBC:
"A temporary sales ban on Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the U.S. has been lifted by a U.S. court. District Judge Lucy Koh gave a court order rescinding a ban on U.S. sales that was part of a patent dispute with Apple. ... The ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 had been placed before a month-long patent trial between Apple and Samsung. In August, at the conclusion of that trial Apple was awarded a victory on many of its patent violation claims where it said Samsung had copied Apple's iPhone and iPad designs. It was also awarded more than $1bn (£664m) in damages. However, the jury found that Samsung had not violated the patent that was the basis for the ban on the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung, therefore, argued for the sales ban to be lifted."
Samsung also went on the offensive against the iPhone 5 today, filing a motion to add the device to its ongoing patent infringement suit against Apple. Meanwhile, on another front, some good news for Apple: Motorola Mobility, owned by Google, has withdrawn its second complaint against Apple to the ITC. The complaint was filed in August over patent infringement claims involving several minor features. No explanation has been provided for the withdrawal, but Google indicated there was no agreement between the companies.
i am going back to BB
By copying Apple's well-established business process of suing their competitors for trademark and patent infringement, Samsung is clearly guilty of infringement.
(sound of recursive cranial implosion here)
Before the iPhone, the mobile phone industry was still a patent thicket minefield. Lots of established companies had patents on various parts of what made the whole system work. Standards weren't dead then. Nobody was insane enough to launch the first nuclear weapon. Mutually assured destruction only works if all the parties are rational.
Enter Apple.
Apple thinks if you're going to start firing nuclear weapons, you might as well fire lots of them all at once.
Remember Steve Jobs say he would spend all of Apple's (eg, stockholders) money to destroy Android. Does this sound like a rational statement from a rational person? Really? Destroy Apple in order to destroy Android? Wow.
Apple's lawsuits aren't about rectangles with round corners. They're not about bouncy scrolling. They're not about any other particular details being claimed. Apple's lawsuits are about competition. Steve Jobs dreamed of having a new Bill Gates like monopoly. Pesky competitors think they should be able to compete. Apple believes that the entire mobile smartphone business is God's gift to Apple by divine right. Even established existing players who've made mobile phones for decades should get out and leave the entire market to Apple.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It's not like Apple has ever copied. Or like Steve Jobs proudly boasting about copying. It's the fact that someone dared to compete in what Apple wanted to be a total monopoly market. Nobody else should be able to build smartphones. That is what this is about. Not the trivia of rounded corner rectangles or bouncy scrolling. It's about Apple wanting to have a monopoly market with monopoly pricing. That doesn't work if smartphones become a commodity.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Only now it's mutually assured destruction via patent law.
The only winners are lawyers, judges and monopolies.
The rest of us suffer the wounds and sores of stagnating technology and lack of innovation.
I knew I should have studied to be lawyer.
Sigh.
It's hard not to be on Samsung's side in this. Apple sued first over some totally ridiculous crap.
They are both far from being saints, that's a given. Both phones suck*, but Apple definitely crossed the line of sanity here.
* They both suck *as phones*, when compared to "dumb" phones. My old Philips had 3 weeks of battery life with my usage pattern and it took two pushes of a button (including unlocking) to call pretty much everybody I care about.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
is an empty comments section.
Did yo read those "internal documents"? They are just expert telling design team where they went wrong with examples of good design (from Apple). It reads like "Our UI: buttons are not aligned. Good UI (yes, it's Apple's, so?): buttons are aligned. What to do: align those fucking buttons, you morons"
Saying it's "how they wanted to copy iPhone" is funny considering the advice on the slide in the article says "Differentiate icons from iPhone".
TL;DR: Take care not to steal specifics, but let's steal all common design sense from Apple!
There's also a problem with that. Apple doesn't license their design patents, and will pretty much only license others when under duress.
It's not that ideas are crap, it's ridiculous that they got a patent for what amounted to letting the first year engineer design the outside of the device. Things with rectangular screens are going to be rectangular with rounded corners.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.