Apple and Nokia Outraged That Samsung Lawyers Leaked Patent License Terms

An anonymous reader writes "U.S. courts have strict rules in place governing the treatment of confidential business information. The most sensitive information is labeled 'highly confidential — attorneys' eyes only', meaning that only a company's outside lawyers are allowed to see it. The Apple-Nokia patent settlement contract and deals Apple struck with others (Ericsson, Sharp, Philips) were such highly confidential business information. But a Samsung executive allegedly boasted in a patent licensing negotiation with Nokia a few months ago about knowing all the terms of the Apple-Nokia deal because the Korean company's lawyers had provided it to their client, against the rules. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California now wants to find out more before deciding on sanctions against Samsung and its law firm, Quinn Emanuel."

Comments

Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really care who wins the smart phone war, but it's pretty clear that Samsung is just as evil and corrupt as every other large corporation. Let the smack down begin.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as evil by being told to bend over to the evil practices of Apple and knowing their terms?

The privileged nature of those documents is precisely to allow parties like Apple to prey on others.

Samsung may not be great, but their conduct has not been evil. Quinn Emanuel has been incompetent though (here and in the $1 billion dollar court verdict - they failed to disclose the existence and sale of the Sansung F700 until too late and could not rely on it as prior art.)

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot--the only place where everyone celebrates Manning and Snowden because "all information should be free", but condem teh evil corporations for leaking information about teh other evil corporations.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung are one of the least ethical companies around. Do your research. Bribery, corruption.. They should not be painted as saints, nor should their breach of law be overlooked.
Fanboys of any denomination should be ignored.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[zieroh]

The privileged nature of those documents is precisely to allow parties like Apple to prey on others.

That doesn't even make sense.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[drakaan]

Snowden, yes. Manning, no. (For me personally, of course)

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not evil?????

What in hell is then evil?

https://stopsamsung.wordpress.com

Read and weep.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not Chelsea Manning?

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[NatasRevol]

Via http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/03/apple-samsung-sanctions-grewal/

          July 7, 2004: Jury advised of adverse interference when Samsung allowed emails to be automatically deleted even after it was told to retain relevant emails. After Samsung's appeal, Judge William Martini found "Samsung's actions go far beyond mere negligence, demonstrating knowing and intentional conduct."
        October 17, 2005: The U.S. Department of Justice fined Samsung nearly $300M for memory price fixing within the U.S.
        Feb. 7, 2007: U.S. government fined Samsung for $90M for memory chip price fixing for violations in 2006.
        Jan.15, 2008: Samsung's offices in Korea were raided after evidence showed that a slush fund was used to bribe government officials and other business leaders.
        July 16 2008, Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-He was found guilty in Seoul of financial wrongdoing and tax evasion. Despite prosecutor request of seven years in prison, sentence was reduced to three years followed by a pardon by the South Korean Government in 2009 to allow him to help with its successful bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. He is now a member of the International Olympic Committee and this 'pardoned criminal' returned as Samsung's Chairman in March 2010.
        May 19, 2010: The EU Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that shared confidential information and fixed memory chip prices (along with eight other firms).
        Nov. 1, 2011: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that fixed prices and reduced output for TFT-LCD screens between 2001 and 2006.
        March 15, 2012: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for a mobile phone price fixing scheme and consumer fraud whereby consumers would be paying more than what the discounted prices advertised.
          July 25, 2012: Magistrate Grewal informs the jury that they could take into account that "spoliation" of evidence occurred when Samsung destroyed evidence that could have been used in the Apple lawsuit; Samsung had a policy of automatically deleting emails that were two weeks old and should have suspended that policy between August 2010 (when Apple informed Samsung of patent infringement) and April 2011 (when Apple initiated the lawsuit).
        August 24, 2012 a jury returned a verdict finding Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple's trade dresses related to the iPhone. But Samsung continues to fight the ruling, and continues in their copying behavior.
        Dec 2012: EU issued a Statement of Objections (SO) against Samsung for abusing its Standard-Essential Patents in not providing FRAND rates. Samsung withdrew all SEP-based injunction requests against Apple in Europe days before the SO was issued, but to no avail.
        April. 2013, Samsung is accused of and admits hiring people in several countries to falsify reports of HTC phones "constantly crashing" and posting fake benchmark reviews.
        October 2013 Samsung in confirmed reports from independent and objective testing, found to be intentionally falsifying performance benchmarks of its flagship products: the Galaxy S4 and Note 3.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really care who wins the smart phone war, but it's pretty clear that Samsung is just as evil and corrupt as every other large corporation. Let the smack down begin.

The patent system, especially one where the terms of licensing deals are kept a secret, is completely antithetical to American ingenuity. I say fuck patents, and good for Samsung for waving it in Apple and Nokia's fat faces. If you need to keep the terms of your patent licenses a secret, you are doing it wrong.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Sponge Bath]

Samsung are one of the least ethical companies around.

Anonymous Coward has denounced you. (you are not at war)

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[NatasRevol]

Samsung is a great example of unregulated capitalism.

And it's not a good example.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[morgauxo]

I don't intend to defend Samsung as being good or evil (all I really know about them in terms of cellphones is that my Samsung Stratosphere really sucks!)

But.. how does THIS event make them corrupt or evil? Because they broke a law? Because they broke the terms of someone else's contract? How is it morally wrong to know what someone else paid for the same 'product'? Isn't that how we all shop for anything which doesn't already have a price tag on it? Do you buy a house without looking at comps? If you go to an open market and you hear someone else haggling for one of something you want is it wrong to then offer the vendor the same deal? Or are you supposed to pretend you heard nothing and start the haggling from scratch?

Why should our legal system be helping to enforce these secrecy clauses on contracts? How is it in the people's intrest to enforce them? All I can see it being used for is to jack up the price of goods as well as to keep new and smaller players out of markets.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Solandri]

Samsung are one of the least ethical companies around. Do your research. Bribery, corruption..

Unfortunately, those are required to survive in business in Asia. Many other places too (e.g. Mexico, Chicago), but it's particularly bad in Asia. If you take a "I will never give nor accept bribes" stance and try to run a business in Asia, you will be bankrupt within a week.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[KiloByte]

How is it morally wrong to know what someone else paid for the same 'product'?

To the contrary: it is morally wrong to hide that data. This is known as "price discrimination".

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it does because... Apple!

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's a fucking idiot.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, don't you know: only boys who like girls are allowed the privilege of being whistleblowers, dude!

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

By filing lawsuits and seeking injunctions against Apple over FRAND patent licensing issues, Samsung was hoping to establish itself as equivalent to Apple, but knowledgable people are fully aware of the different types of patents out there, that there are differing degrees of evil among corporations, and that Samsung is near the top of evil.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[jd2112]

There are large evil corporations and there are small non-evil companies that are crushed and/or absorbed by large evil corporations.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[GumphMaster]

Makes perfect sense. If the details of the terms and conditions obtained from Apple by one party become known to other parties then Apple's ability to extract "better" terms from those other parties is diminished. All royalty seeking behaviour is cloaked in non-disclosure conditions to avoid the situation where the consumers could possibly bargain from a position of knowledge. This is not unique to patent licensing or Apple.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[boorack]

I tried to a film on deaths in Samsung factories I've seen a while ago on YouTube. It was virtually impossible. Only after I've found this on al-Jazeera pages, I was able to type in exact title and it showed up. Call me a tin foil hater but I suspect this is a modern form of censorship. Those fucks from Google are censoring bad stories on Samsung.

As much as I hate Apple and Microsoft for their business practices, I'm more and more confident that all of them are almost the same. They're all scourge of modern times. Both Google and Samsung aren't much better than Apple or M$. Googlers will sell you out to NSA in a heartbeat (albeit M$ seems to be always the first to do this). Samsung will exploit you to death in their factories.

I'm more and more confident that favorizing ones above others does not make sense. Getting rid of all of them is propably the way to go. No one needs a newest shiny gadget every few months after all. There are so many interesting things to do instead looking into a smartphone all the time.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying it's evil to talk about how much blackmail you've had to pay?

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[pla]

Slashdot--the only place where everyone celebrates Manning and Snowden because "all information should be free", but condem teh evil corporations for leaking information about teh other evil corporations.

If Samsung had released this information out of some desire to force more open negotiations on the whole industry, I would applaud them.

Instead, we have some weaselly Samsung exec bragging about cheating and getting away with it, solely for their own benefit in a specific contract negotiation.

If you don't see the difference between that and Snowden or Manning... You just won't.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it; lots of bad things. but you shot your credibility with your comments about the august 24 2012 case.
Samsung are a sack of dirt bags. But you are not helping by editorialising.

August 24, 2012 a jury returned a verdict finding Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple's trade dresses related to the iPhone. But Samsung continues to fight the ruling, and continues in their copying behavior.

How dare they appeal a court decision! They were convicted by a Jury no less! How could a jury ever be wrong!!

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[mcvos]

Manning was very naive, arguably stupid, but she's still a hero. That's what you are when you take immense personal risk in order to do the right thing.

As for the topic at hand: I applaud companies for being open about each other's evils. The more transparency, the better.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

She. Not he. Learn to address her properly.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[sproketboy]

Citations? Or are you just talking out of your ass?

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't break the terms of someone else's contract. They broke the terms of their own agreement with the a court/judge.

The judge allowed Samsung's legal team to see the documents on the condition that they will not be shared with anybody. This is standard procedure in court cases, the lawyers are always given permission to see stuff that they must not share with their client/employer.

There will be repercussions from this. The lawyers involved will be banned for life from practicing law, at the very least.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a citation try driving too fast and get your own. WTF do you think other people should do your work for you? You lazy ferking girl.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding, Samsung has a history of breaking the law. Go do some research. Yes, they are actually evil, but no more than any other evil corporation like IBM.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[recoiledsnake]

Your post would make more sense if Samsung made available their own secret agreements to other companies, for example, to Nokia.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[FirephoxRising]

post to correct moderation

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[rtb61]

It is a deceit that denies the end user the right to information about the impact upon them, as the ultimate payer of all patent costs. Technically speaking one company has no legal right to suspend the free speech rights of another company, regardless of illegal conditions of contract inserted in a contract. The judge is now caught in whether a ruling that allows bias in contractual conditions that goes against the spirit of patent law, anti trust laws (artificial distortion of competitive access to a market) and against free speech can stand especially when both players can push it right up to the high court.

I believe what you meant to say, that in keeping conditions of contract secret, Apple can decide which companies will be more competitive and succeed and which companies will fail when it comes to essential (often very very bad) patents. Most call this anti-competitive behaviour as it leads to collusion and cartels, basically companies working together to bankrupt and run other companies out of business.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[DNS-and-BIND]

False, false, false, wrong, wrong, wrong. I have been doing business in Asia for ten years now and have never paid a single bribe. You're a damn fool if you do because whoever you bribe will always either retire or go to jail, leaving you high and dry. The following quote is informative:

"One of the things I have always found troubling about Westerners doing business in emerging market countries is that they sometimes take an almost perverse pride in discussing payoffs to government officials. It is as though their having paid a bribe is a symbol of their international sophistication and insider knowledge. Yet, countless times when I am told of the bribe, I know the very same thing could almost certainly have been accomplished without a bribe."
--Dan Harris, chinalawblog.com

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[mrxak]

The legal system cannot work without officers of the court acting with honesty in the interests of justice. In this case, officers of the court (Samsung's lawyers) disobeyed a lawful order from the court in order to give their client an unjust advantage in that client's negotiations with a third party. This is called contempt of court, and it violates their obligation to act in good faith as officers of the court. It's similar to suborning perjury, or helping your client flee the jurisdiction to escape justice, or hiding evidence they have full knowledge of. On the prosecution side, it would be like destroying evidence that clears a suspect of charges. There will be severe penalties for the lawyers in question. They will likely not be officers of the court for much longer.

Samsung, to be fair, didn't violate any such obligation. We don't know if they encouraged lawyers to do this or not, but we do know that they took unfair advantage of it. A company acting in good faith as part of a legal process would have put a stop to it immediately, fired said lawyers, and informed the judge and made whatever efforts they could on their end to limit the damage. We know Samsung didn't do this, and in fact bragged about their corporate espionage. It's a murkier issue as to Samsung's actual liability or criminality in this, but if it is determined they induced this contempt of court by their lawyers, I imagine the consequences will be severe for them as well. Certainly Nokia has cause to sue Samsung's lawyers, if not Samsung directly. Apple will no doubt use Samsung and their lawyers' actions in this matter as argument for further limiting of their confidential information in current and future cases, and I imagine courts will agree. The fact is Samsung persuaded a judge that Apple should give up certain confidential information, that judge gave an order that only Samsung's lawyers would be allowed to see this information and no one else, but Samsung's executive team got the information anyway after their lawyers took this confidential information and sent it to Samsung in violation of court order.

At a minimum, Samsung got caught not reporting unethical behavior by their legal counsel, and taking advantage of it for their own gain, likely in the many tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Considering Samsung's history of destroying evidence and other legal shenanigans, I don't think it's such a stretch that they somehow induced their lawyers to commit contempt of court. Logically, the lawyers would need such inducement, as why would they risk being disbarred if they weren't being pressured or incentivized in some way by their client?

The nature of the court order that was violated is not the issue here. The issue is a serious breach of obligations by Samsung's lawyers, and Samsung subsequently having an unfair advantage in their negotiations with Nokia, and an unfair competitive advantage in the marketplace with Apple.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[dbIII]

Funny thing is nobody has mentioned the semi-slave labour industrial park just inside North Korea. You'd think that would top the list of unethical behaviour of Samsung if they are involved in that.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you are completely wrong. I am ex-pat techie. I run my own small business and have have worked in Hong-Kong, mainland china, Tokyo, Mumbai and Bangalore.I have never paid a bribe, and it has never been suggested in any way by anyone either. Stop reciting tropes from the 1950's. Time to actually learn about what goes on in the rest of the world instead of spewing nonsense.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nopes you don't pay bribe if you are a westerner, but you do if you are a local, if you did not get that, then you don't know enough about asian countries.

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[SenseiLeNoir]

Even in the USA there are "bribes" paid by businesses. Its called campaign donations, political sponsorship, etc and is quite legal.

Find out how much the companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Exxon, Big Cigarette, Media, etc pay as political donations... Bet your bottom dollar there are strings attached.

It is corruption, for in a true DEMOCRATIC government it should be the desires of the voters that dictate the laws and governance moving ahead.

One person one Vote, and not One Dollar One Vote

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[MariusBoo]

What business? Did you need any environmental approvals or construction? Did you need to make business with the government? (i.e. contracts)
Not all business are equal. Bribes are sometimes necessary, sometimes optional and sometimes useless.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[drakaan]

Because Manning should have (at a minimum) gone through the AG and/or chain of command with concerns of abuses before doing anything so reckless as compromising the operational security of so many other soldiers. (S)he should have done what (s)he agreed to when being given the security clearance and rank that (s)he held.

I know there are a lot of non-military folks who think that doing so would be pointless, but I spent enough time in uniform (a few months shy of a decade) to know that there would have been plenty of interest in prosecuting the types of abuse Manning's leaked documents made so very public.

Snowden is a completely different story

Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't count until Private Manning leaves prison. Military will not recognize the change.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anubis IV]

Uhh, if you were to put this in terms involving Snowden, it would have been roughly equivalent to Snowden heading into a job interview and telling the interviewer, "Before we start, let me tell you what you said on the phone last night to your mistress." Samsung's lawyers illegally provided its executives with the terms of a confidential agreement that was only disclosed to them for use in ongoing litigation, and then, rather than either making it public out of a moral obligation (anyone who knows anything about the massive corruption, nepotism, and bribery of government officials going on at Samsung is likely laughing right now at the notion that they have any idea of what morals are) or shutting up and refusing to do anything with it, they decided to blatantly hold it over their competitor during negotiations and used it to try and extort better terms out of them.

I'm not in the "all information should be free" camp, but even if I was, I don't see how you can suggest that something like this is justifiable, since the information wasn't made free. Rather, they were using the fact that they had illegally gained access to the information to procure an illegal advantage over someone else during a negotiation.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The legal system cannot work without officers of the court acting with honesty in the interests of justice.

The US legal system doesn't work particularly well, doesn't have much honesty, and isn't particularly concerned with justice (in practice, justice is a marketing term that has little to do with actual law). There are massive conflicts of interest inherent in the system, working to the advantage of the legal profession as a class in society, a point that has been discussed numerous times on Slashdot and need not be repeated further here. If we were to assert as a fundamental right the right to ethical practice of law, where even the appearance of conflict of interest would have to be avoided whenever possible, we would have to get rid of most of the legal profession.

Most of the USA courts are worthy of considerable contempt, as they've been part of the problem and not part of the solution for decades (arguably far longer: the "separate-but-not-actually-equal" system could only have existd if large numbers of legal professionals closed their eyes to the violation of fundamental rights on a massive scale).

Did you think it was an accident that the USA is known world-wide as the Land of the Lawsuit? Is it an accident that the USA has laws that are hundreds or thousands of pages long (Patriot Act, Obama Health Care), thus making impossible any meaningful public oversight over government? Is it an accident that the USA has hundreds or thousands of laws that contradict explicit and clearly stated rights in the most fundamental legal document in existence, the Bill of Rights? Is it an accident that the legal profession has attempted to make shrink-wrap licenses filled with language incomprehensible to the majority of human beings (and often infringing fundamental rights) nevertheless binding on the majority of human beings? Did you think it was an accident that there are loopholes galore in the law allowing government agencies to abuse their authority and infringe fundamental rights on a routine basis?

None of these things are accidents: they are symptoms of a cancer within the legal system that is slowly destroying the country. The US legal profession has figured out that all kinds of tricks to artificially increase the demand for the services of legal professionals, and they've been busy building this stuff into the law for decades.

The patent system is an example of an area of law where any rational person fully familiar with the facts will conclude the US legal system is a disaster, another point that has been endlessly discussed here. Expecting any form of competence or integrity from the legal professionals working in this area of law is absurd. No intelligent person can make it through law school without getting a pretty good glimpse of how bad the system is (and how riddled with ethics problems it is), so we must necessarily conclude that those who choose to profit from it are completely lacking in integrity.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[zieroh]

It is a deceit that denies the end user the right to information about the impact upon them, as the ultimate payer of all patent costs.

The consumer can either buy the product or not buy the product. The retail price is the only thing that ultimately matters, i.e. is the product appealing enough to warrant the cost. Everything else is just noise.

Technically speaking one company has no legal right to suspend the free speech rights of another company, regardless of illegal conditions of contract inserted in a contract.

Technically speaking, you're wrong. The so-called "free speech rights" of the company are orthogonal to contract law. In fact, go look up the first word of the first sentence of the First Amendment. Come back and tell us what that word is, and how you think it applies in this situation.

Nondisclosure agreements as a matter of contract law are completely legal and widely understood to be so. This point is not up for debate.

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[morgauxo]

Spoken like a true lawyer.

My point is that unethical and unlawful are two very different things. Did the lawyers involved go against what a judge told them to do? Certainly. Should there be reprecusions? Yes, the legal system would not function if it's rules were not enforced. Is it unethical?

I would argue that the non-disclosure agreement is unethical in the first place. The only possible value I can see in such an agreement is to facilitate price fixing and shutting out competition. In the end consumers lose out as prices are driven up and newcomers cannot bring their inovations to market. Where is the positive side of this? Is it so a greedy few may make a larger profit? Is that what the people built a legal system to do?

I could understand a hands-off approach.. it's companies own busniess if they want to inform others of their deals or keep them secret... let them enforce it themselves. If a partner company leaks your secrets stop dealing with them.

Or.. I could understand a pro-active, pro-consumer approach that would outlaw such agreements altogether and go after them as a form of price fixing. Keep the playing field level so that anyone may make a product and everyone may compete. Keep the innovations moving and the prices reasonable so that everyone may benefit.

I cannot accept that the courts enforcing these things are acting ethically. Thus when one goes against it I don't think they are acting unethically. Maybe they are acting uninteligently.. as you pointed out the lawyers will probably never practice law again. But... maybe they were secretly paid enough to retire?

So my question.. how was Samsung unethical (in this specific case)?

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Plumpaquatsch]

How is it morally wrong to know what someone else paid for the same 'product'?

To the contrary: it is morally wrong to hide that data. This is known as "price discrimination".

So why didn't Samsung publish any of their own licensing deals? If only to actually compare the data?

Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now?

[Plumpaquatsch]

The judge is now caught in whether a ruling that allows bias in contractual conditions that goes against the spirit of patent law, anti trust laws (artificial distortion of competitive access to a market) and against free speech can stand especially when both players can push it right up to the high court.

That sounds almost like you just claimed the fact that "free speech" exists makes all wiretapping legal. Because if its free, its open as in can of beer.

why do people care about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

corporations have been business partners and competitors for many decades. they have collaborated on products while suing each other in dozens of lawsuits for the last hundred years.

US states and cities are always suing each other and the federal government. the government and lots of companies are always involved in thousands of lawsuits. its how democracy works. we have laws and when there is disagreement about the law or you believe you have been wronged you sue.

Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Rightwing, you hate me, but let's put that aside.

If you want to rein in the power of big business, don't do it through tons of stupid regulation and taxes, do it with one simple regulation: businesses should not get to lie or keep secrets.

It's a fundamental assumption of "perfect market economics" (no information asymmetry) and what everybody thinks are the wonderful benefits of free markets are actually the wonderful benefits of perfect markets. If you don't have perfect markets, you don't get the benefits.

This is how to make the free market work, and it's a regulation any pinko could love.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[h4rr4r]

How exactly do you enforce that?

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

With regulations, of course.

Libertarians live in rainbow-and-pony-filled imaginary worlds of wishful and magical thinking

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly do you enforce that?

By putting a law on the books that says you can't sign away your right to free expression (much like a contract can't make murdering you legal). This would make NDA's unenforceable.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

With regulations, of course.

Libertarians live in rainbow-and-pony-filled imaginary worlds of wishful and magical thinking

As opposed to being filled with hope and change?

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

Anarchists live in rainbow-and-pony-filled imaginary worlds of wishful and magical thinking

FTFY.

Libertarians believe in government action against force or fraud.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[HornWumpus]

Can't be a right winger. Right wingers know a free market doesn't have to be perfect to function. There are no perfect anythings.

This is a left winger setting up a strawman. Most likely H4rr4r.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[h4rr4r]

That does not mean they can't keep secrets it just means they can't use the court to enforce it. So I just offer all my employees $X bonus if no leaks occur.

Re: Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

There are legitimate reasons to have NDA in place. I worked on a project for a large jeweller, and had access to shipping data.
Let's just say some items rely on security through obscurity , and if I revealed the data, it would expose them to crime,and force them to use more secure (and expensive) shipping, making their products less competitive, and more expensive for Joe Average who wants to buy an engagement ring for his sweetheart.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Arker]

Negative, we live in the real world, where 'regulation' has been perverted and redefined to mean 'hiring an army of bureaucrats and letting them run amok.'

There's no need for regulation in the modern sense, just application of good old fashioned criminal and civil law.

But more than that, there needs to be a bit of a cultural shift. Right now it's way too acceptable to write off all sorts of corruption as 'just the way the world is' and tolerate it rather than digging it out and exposing it to the light.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The general corrolation between economic freedom, a central subset of general libertarian (small L) concepts, and advancing plentitude is well-established.

The best an honest leftist can claim is riding on this untamed and unparalleled wealth and advancement engine to take off the rough edges.

However, the traditional leftist tenet, that government should be in charge of everything throuch central planning has, by the exact same human history, been found massively lagging comparatively, at best (old China, USSR), and murderously retrograde at worst (North Korea).

No national politician in the US even goes near that anymore, for fear of, correctly, being thought a fool. They sing the praises of freedom, including economic freedom, which new China is proving yet again.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

I have wings and as such I propose Samsung to use Chinese and Eastern European hackers to discover confidential business information of their competitors like normal companies do.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Rightwing

oh boy, this should be interesting

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[lxs]

Hi Rightwing I am Leftwing. If we work together I'm certain that we can get this bird off the ground.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

No, most Leftwing people don't hate anybody, not even you, but we really do hate stupid accusations and ridiculous fallacies.
Secrecy and bureaucracy aren't in the Leftwing agenda, they are carried forward by private interests and lobbies (immoral, and in many countries illegal), and not-so-very-rare by self-entitled "conservatives" (what, whether you like it or not, are the majority of said Rightwing Parties. Libertarians are minuscule minority).

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

Most rightwingers I know are stupid, so no other explanation needed. BTW you're getting there, too: how free a "perfect a free market" has to be to be a "free market"?

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

how do you enforce "corporations must always tell the truth"? same way we enforce anything else. civil, criminal, felony, misdemeanor , administrative sanctions, commensurate with the offense.

how do you enforce "no secret contracts"? same way...

right now, staff inside companies can have meetings where they craft carefully worded PRsmog. If there were sanctions against secrets and dishonesty, if asked at a press conference "was the real goal of this change in policy to gouge the customer?", then if staff at the meeting discussed gouging the customer, the answer would have to be "yes". Whistleblowers and disgruntled employees would help enforcement. The only way to stay out of hot water would be to not have meetings where people suggest gouging the customers, or companies should admit that's what they're doing. Anything else is false advertising, which leads to deviations from the market clearing price.

Wouldn't this hurt profitability, you ask? Yes it would. That's another often ignored fact about perfect market competition: profits go to zero, that's the whole point of free markets.

I'm not a libertarian, nothing about what I'm suggesting is libertarian. Nor am I left wing, none of what I am suggesting does anything except drive the free market price toward the market clearing price, the opposite of what the left always encourages.

and my offtopic modding, that's stupid, this is entirely on the topic, it would moot the case behind this dispute between apple, nokia and samsung.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[dbIII]

The Chinese milk poisoning scandal and the Bangladesh building collapse are very major reminders of what your unregulated society would look like. If you want a few more try talking to someone over thirty. If you want a vast amount more try talking to someone over 70 who lived in a company town. They were living inside the "libertarian dream", just as workers in "illegal" Chinese coal mines are doing now.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Arker]

Negative. The Chinese system has little resemblance to a system of common law and strict liability. It looks much more like our current system of privilege and regulation, in fact.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[dbIII]

That's correct - it's "might makes right" which is the obvious outcome of your suggestion.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Arker]

"That's correct - it's "might makes right" which is the obvious outcome of your suggestion."

My suggestion was application of criminal and civil law. How that equates to "might makes right" is a sheer mystery. You appear to have some sort of mental difficulty.

Re: Dear Leftwing People

[CaptSlaq]

There are legitimate reasons to have NDA in place. I worked on a project for a large jeweller, and had access to shipping data. Let's just say some items rely on security through obscurity , and if I revealed the data, it would expose them to crime,and force them to use more secure (and expensive) shipping, making their products less competitive, and more expensive for Joe Average who wants to buy an engagement ring for his sweetheart.

"Industrial grade diamonds". Check.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[h4rr4r]

Because might aka money can afford more civil law time than you. Thus might makes right.

You cannot afford to spend years in court, $BIG_COMPANY|$RICH_PERSON can. This means they can infringe on your rights and then tie you up in courts for years. They do not need to win the court cases only drag them out long enough that you are too poor to continue.

You have the mental difficulty of not seeing what is already happening and would continue to happen.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[h4rr4r]

Economic freedom requires functional markets. This includes the need for basic regulation. If only to address the lack of perfect information. For instance unregulated meat would be a nightmare. Companies can change names quickly enough you would never know what the quality of the product was.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[h4rr4r]

They would simply ban words like that from meetings. It would be to improve customer premium experience or some similar horseshit.

The lack of a decent way to create perfect market competition is what drives me to support what you might call leftist policies. Simply as a way to address needs that our non-perfect market fails to.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Arker]

The advantage the richer man holds in a common law court is significantly less than in a situation of regulatory capture.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[h4rr4r]

Says someone who has never been in this situation.

If you can't even get recourse the risk of regulatory capture is better.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[dbIII]

I very strongly disagree and suggest you look at what happens in places with few regulations to see why I disagree. Once again I suggest you speak to elderly people so you can understand that what I'm writing about was happening in your own backyard and that bringing it back is undesirable.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Arker]

You are citing areas that combine arbitrary "regulations" with a severe lack of the sort of common law that I am talking about, as an example of what I am talking about? You are completely upside down and backwards. Talk to elderly people? Yes, you should. My grandfather is dead now or he would be well over the century mark, and his ghost is at my shoulder laughing at you right now.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[dbIII]

Perhaps talk to your parents then and learn some things you never managed to pick up when younger. Mine are in their late 1970s so got to see the excesses of quite a few political systems and a few "robber barons" in business. They recall the famous quote "you can't run a coal mine without a machine gun" coming from the sort of environment you are advocating.

You are citing areas that combine arbitrary "regulations" with a severe lack of the sort of common law

You just seem to be too naive to understand that liberty requires a bit of effort, and some of that is regulation, otherwise all power concentrates into a very small number of hands and the current common law only applies to a select few. Google "company town" and I'm sure you'll find something, but of course you've totally ignored the two examples I gave above (food safety and building safety regulations) so it appears you don't want to consider anything that tests your simplistic naive viewpoint.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Arker]

" They recall the famous quote "you can't run a coal mine without a machine gun" coming from the sort of environment you are advocating."

No, they dont. They remember it coming from a very different environment. You can keep asserting black is white and night is day all you want, you're spitting into the wind.

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[dbIII]

Has your life really been that sheltered?

Re:Dear Leftwing People

[Anonymous Coward]

Has yours?

Cheater

[Anonymous Coward]

We call those cheaters Scheissung here.

Yawn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you again Florian?

The penalty is death.

[Anonymous Coward]

Death by giant hornet stings.

Re:The penalty is death.

[larry bagina]

ubuntu or death ... by ubuntu.

Re:The penalty is death.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like prequel to fan death.

PR Spin

[sgrover]

Why does this read like a PR document written by Apple to sway public opinion? Both parties have come close or outright crossed the ethical lines in their various legal battles. Finger waving or sanctioning a lawyer here or there does not change the core issues. Rather is distracts from the core issues and gains sentiment (or attempts to).

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the author of the article is Florian Muller, known paid shill.

(spoiler alert: he's also the "anonymous submitter" that got this crap on the front page)

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Because everything a company does has a PR spin to it?

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you ask the same questions when the same kind of thing is posted by Fandroids over articles that beat on Apple about Samsung's legal dickerings? Answer that question honestly and you may find an answer to your own questions.

Re:PR Spin

[Space cowboy]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ? You may disagree with their case, but I don't recall anyone claiming their lawyers were unethical in prosecuting that case ...

As for Samsung, they're just scumbags who don't respect the law of any land...

(Taken from Fortune ...)

• July 7, 2004: Jury advised of adverse interference when Samsung allowed emails to be automatically deleted even after it was told to retain relevant emails. After Samsung's appeal, Judge William Martini found "Samsung's actions go far beyond mere negligence, demonstrating knowing and intentional conduct."
• October 17, 2005: The U.S. Department of Justice fined Samsung nearly $300M for memory price fixing within the U.S.
• Feb. 7, 2007: U.S. government fined Samsung for $90M for memory chip price fixing for violations in 2006.
• Jan.15, 2008: Samsung's offices in Korea were raided after evidence showed that a slush fund was used to bribe government officials and other business leaders.
• July 16 2008, Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-He was found guilty in Seoul of financial wrongdoing and tax evasion. Despite prosecutor request of seven years in prison, sentence was reduced to three years followed by a pardon by the South Korean Government in 2009 to allow him to help with its successful bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. He is now a member of the International Olympic Committee and this 'pardoned criminal' returned as Samsung's Chairman in March 2010.
• May 19, 2010: The EU Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that shared confidential information and fixed memory chip prices (along with eight other firms).
• Nov. 1, 2011: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that fixed prices and reduced output for TFT-LCD screens between 2001 and 2006.
• March 15, 2012: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for a mobile phone price fixing scheme and consumer fraud whereby consumers would be paying more than what the discounted prices advertised.
• July 25, 2012: Magistrate Grewal informs the jury that they could take into account that "spoliation" of evidence occurred when Samsung destroyed evidence that could have been used in the Apple lawsuit; Samsung had a policy of automatically deleting emails that were two weeks old and should have suspended that policy between August 2010 (when Apple informed Samsung of patent infringement) and April 2011 (when Apple initiated the lawsuit).
• August 24, 2012 a jury returned a verdict finding Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple's trade dresses related to the iPhone. But Samsung continues to fight the ruling, and continues in their copying behavior.
• Dec 2012: EU issued a Statement of Objections (SO) against Samsung for abusing its Standard-Essential Patents in not providing FRAND rates. Samsung withdrew all SEP-based injunction requests against Apple in Europe days before the SO was issued, but to no avail.
• April. 2013, Samsung is accused of and admits hiring people in several countries to falsify reports of HTC phones "constantly crashing" and posting fake benchmark reviews.
• October 2013 Samsung in confirmed reports from independent and objective testing, found to be intentionally falsifying performance benchmarks of its flagship products: the Galaxy S4 and Note 3.

If Apple tried to pull that shit, all hell would break loose. And rightfully so. For me personally, it's enough that I don't buy anything with a Samsung brand on the outside any more. They're the only company for which that's the case.

Simon.

Re:PR Spin

[sjvn]

Why does this read like a PR document written by Apple to sway public opinion? Both parties have come close or outright crossed the ethical lines in their various legal battles. Finger waving or sanctioning a lawyer here or there does not change the core issues. Rather is distracts from the core issues and gains sentiment (or attempts to).

It reads like PR because it's written by a known Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle patent shill.

Steven

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't even click through to TFA.

Then I did.

I fixed the bio:

Florian Mueller is a douchebag-turned-shill with 25 years of software industry brown-nosing spanning across different market segments (games, education, productivity and infrastructure software), diverse frauds and a variety of technical and commercial areas of ass-hattery, enabling any twisted perspective you're willing to pay for. Florian shills for clients on the patent wars surrounding mobile devices, and on their economic and technical implications and will spread FUD as far and wide as the client's funds will allow. His shilling services are available directly (contact form, LinkedIn profile) as well as through two primary marketing firms.

Florian has been known to call himself the Ralph Spoilsport of technology and take it seriously.

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Paid shill, but not paid shill by either Apple or Nokia. He gets paid by Oracle and MS.
Anyway. Facts are facts. Even if they come from a shill.

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he gets paid by anybody.

Florian is like Robert Enderle, or John Dvorak, but without the integrity.

Re:PR Spin

[sgrover]

That's a pretty one sided summary. Where's the comments that the auto-deleting emails was done by apple as well? Where's the comments that apple was investigated for price fixing wrt ebooks? Or the details that the jury that awarded billions to Apple is under scrutiny for improprieties. This response is so one sided it has to be an Apple fanboi (at best) or an outright shill that wrote that article. BTW, if it is Florian Muller, then yes a known and outright shill for the anti-open source agenda. The truth is not found at the extremes of a topic like this.

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Well for me personally, Samsung has a better quality product than Apple and has had for years.

You may say that you don't buy anything Samsung... but if you buy Apple anything or a host of other computing devices,
you will find Samsung inside. Get over it.

Re:PR Spin

[Gravis Zero]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?

- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn
- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland
- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents
- false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)
- overpricing all their stuff
- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy
- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware

Re:PR Spin

[Flere Imsaho]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?

How about posing as police to search someone's home?

Re:PR Spin

[evilviper]

Hmm... Lots of those are about memory price fixing. Many memory manufacturers were found guilty of the same, and Apple isn't there because THEY DON'T MANUFACTURE MEMORY. Ditto for TFT-LCDs.

Samsung is ripe to get in more trouble than Apple, because they're a vastly larger company, with interests in innumerable diverse industries that Apple doesn't care to be involved in.

Besides, why are you giving Apple a free pass, when THEY BUY SAMSUNG PARTS for their own products, and apparently don't care about all of the above?

 

Re:PR Spin

[wavedeform]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?

- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn

You mean just like every other major manufacturer? The Foxconn jobs are highly desired, anyway.

- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland

Don't most major US companies hold a lot of assets in overseas subsidies?

- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents

You mean just like every other major manufacturer? If you're arguing that the patent system should be reformed, I totally agree with that. Until that time, shouldn't they play the game?

- false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)

If you say so.

- overpricing all their stuff

Well then their sales will suffer, right? Oh... wait...

- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy

What is "compatible hardware" in this case? Are you talking about the 1990s clones?

- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware

This is a moot point now, as there is no distribution of the OS other than the Apple store. It's been an "upgrade" market for the OS rather than a "purchase" market for a long time.

Re:PR Spin

[tyrione]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?

- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn - dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland - suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents - false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar) - overpricing all their stuff - suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy - putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware

Legal on all counts. The taxes is par for the entire course of all corporations and non-profits, if legally available to them. The rest of your stuff is hilarious, especially the Design Patents for clone hardware and OS X only on Apple hardware.

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, they do illegal things.

Re:PR Spin

[Dixie_Flatline]

The labour at Foxconn is actually fairly well paid. The suicide rate at the factory is LESS than in the general populace. Many workers were upset when their hours were reduced because they're only working there so they can make some money now then leave in a year or two. A lot of these people are sending money home to their farming families. There are lines outside the company of people wanting to work there. AND Apple is working to improve conditions and clamp down on working violations.

Dodging taxes is legal, though of dubious ethics. But no other large company is playing by any different rules.

Everyone is suing everyone. You think Samsung isn't also on the suing end of courtroom as well? In any case, the problem is the patent system that allows those patents in the first place; once the patent is actually accepted, Apple legally has the right to defend it. You're looking at this from the wrong side.

That 'false advertising' claim is subjective. I've never had a problem at the genius bar.

By definition, their stuff isn't overpriced because people buy it at that price. If it were overpriced, nobody would buy it. It's what the market will bear, and people are perfectly happy to pay it.

I don't know who you're talking about on the compatible hardware front, exactly, but Apple isn't under any obligation to make software that allows OS X or iOS to run. That's not unethical, that's just a philosophical discussion. If you don't like it--and I'm sure you'll tell me you don't--don't run it.

Re:PR Spin

[Gravis Zero]

Legal on all counts.

"Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?"

invest in either a dictionary or glasses.

Re:PR Spin

[Karlt1]

"- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn"

The same company that a dozen other companies use

"- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland"

Do you take every tax deduction you are eligible to take?

"- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents"

Every company is suing everyone. Do you know that Motorola basically blackmailed Google into buying them by threatening to sue other Android manufacturers?

" false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)"

Example?

"- overpricing all their stuff"

There is no such thing as something being "overpriced" in a capitalist economy -- especially if it not an essential good.

"- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy"

????

"- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware"

How is that unethical? Is it unethical that I can't use GPL 3.0 license software in the method I want?

Re:PR Spin

[Gravis Zero]

you seem to have confused ethics with legality and the status quo.

"everyone is doing it!" does not suddenly make something ethical.

- overpricing all their stuff

Well then their sales will suffer, right? Oh... wait...

selling well != ethical

- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy

What is "compatible hardware" in this case? Are you talking about the 1990s clones?

no. try google.

- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware

This is a moot point now, as there is no distribution of the OS other than the Apple store. It's been an "upgrade" market for the OS rather than a "purchase" market for a long time.

incorrect. you can buy the full thing without needing a previous version to install it. check out this listing on amazon if you dont believe me.

Re:PR Spin

[Princeofcups]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?

- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn
- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland
- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents
- false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)
- overpricing all their stuff
- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy
- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware

- Foxconn is not owned by Apple.
- Common corporate tactics. Quite unethical!
- Suing anyone who copies their pretty processes. Spiteful, but unethical?
- Biased opinion.
- In a free market? Get serious.
- Not sure what cases you are talking about. They generally license 3rd party hardware, but you have to pay a fee.
- They are a hardware company. Why should they support other hardware? Idiotic.

Except for the taxes, this is just more biased gibberish.

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia IS Microsoft.

Re: PR Spin

[MachineShedFred]

Samsung is more likely to get in trouble with the law, because they have shown a 20-year pattern of not giving two shits about the law. Multiple price fixing convictions, collusion, and now what amounts to industrial espionage while making a Federal Court an accomplice.

Yeah, that's brilliant. No judge will ever kick the shit out of you for that.

Re:PR Spin

[harperska]

- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland

"Dodging taxes" implies moving hiding income so that it is never taxed, such as when corporations claim to operate out of the caiman islands. Apple does not 'claim residence' in Ireland. They claim residence in Cupertino, California. All sales in the US pay US sales tax, and there is no dodging there. They own a subsidiary in Ireland where they aggregate revenue from sales outside the US. But for all of those sales, they already pay sales tax to the countries in which the sales were made. They just hold that money in Ireland, because the US has very high repatriation taxes, in effect causing all foreign sales to be double taxed. Is it unethical to keep money outside of the US that never originated inside the US to begin with just because the feds want an extra slice of the pie?

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty one sided summary. Where's the comments that the auto-deleting emails was done by apple as well?

There was never any evidence that Apple auto-delted emails. Samsung had in a previous case been sanctioned for auto-deleting emails and they did it again with the Apple trial. Their only argument about it was that since they didn't have many emails from Steve Jobs (a guy who had a few months to live and just maybe had more important things to worry about) and somehow the judge decided to err on their side.

Where's the comments that apple was investigated for price fixing wrt ebooks?

If Apple was actually price fixing, they likely would have just paid a fine (like the publishers did) rather than fight the case. Interesting to see how the appeals go on this one.

Or the details that the jury that awarded billions to Apple is under scrutiny for improprieties.

It was pretty low for Samsung to hire detectives to dig through the past of the jury members. The judge rightly chastised them, though she should have gone further.

This response is so one sided it has to be an Apple fanboi (at best) or an outright shill that wrote that article. BTW, if it is Florian Muller, then yes a known and outright shill for the anti-open source agenda. The truth is not found at the extremes of a topic like this.

Doesn't really matter if you found the info in a Muller blog post - just google for the judge's actual decree. The lawyers and/or Samsung really violated their responsibilities.

Re:PR Spin

[coolmadsi]

"- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn"

The same company that a dozen other companies use

Just because "someone else does it!" doesn't make it ethical. Everyone else who does it is also behaving unethically.

Re: PR Spin

[evilviper]

Samsung is more likely to get in trouble with the law, because they have shown a 20-year pattern of not giving two shits about the law.

Unless you can show examples of Samsung breaking the law in the same industry as Apple, there's no reason to believe Apple is any better. And going with Samsung's copying of Apple's "rounded corners" will just get you laughed off of /.

and now what amounts to industrial espionage while making a Federal Court an accomplice.

Except that's not at all what happened here. Plenty of law firms have mixed-up paperwork in the past, on far more important matters than this. If Samsung was at all guilty, they wouldn't have blatantly admitted to it, openly and completely unnecessarily.

Re: PR Spin

[MachineShedFred]

Unless you can show examples of Samsung breaking the law in the same industry as Apple, there's no reason to believe Apple is any better.

Samsung, LG, Pantech fined over phone price fixing in Korea Google is your friend.

Re:PR Spin

[david_thornley]

Where do you get the idea that overpricing is unethical? Are you claiming there is some divinely ordained price or price range? Or that you should have authority to set prices? From my point of view, a price is something that is mutually agreeable to buyer and seller, to be determined empirically, and an overpriced item is one not worth the price to the buyer.

You can make an argument that overcharging (in some sense of the word) for necessities is immoral, but Apple doesn't make anything actually necessary, and has plenty of competition for everything it sells. If you think Apple overcharges for something, you can easily buy something more or less equivalent from somebody else.

Therefore, people buy Apple products because, to them, the product is worth more than the money they spend on it. In an unforced market with sufficient available information and no compulsion to buy any given thing, like every market Apple is involved in, a sale is a win-win transaction at the time it is made.

The fact is that Apple does a very good job in most (not all) of the things it does, and this is valued by enough people so that Apple can sell a whole lot of stuff at the prices they set. Their prices may be more than you want to pay, and that's fine. Buy something else. You may value different things than most Apple customers, and that's fine. Buy something else. Just don't pretend that your preferences are universal, or even uniquely privileged.

Re: PR Spin

[evilviper]

Okay... Allow me to counter with:

Apple Guilty of Price Fixing

Re:PR Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ? You may disagree with their case, but I don't recall anyone claiming their lawyers were unethical in prosecuting that case ...

In this day and age, it's not even remotely possible to be involved in patent law and not engage in unethical conduct. The US legal system has been rigged by legal professionals for decades to create an artificial long-term demand for the services of the legal profession. The problems with the patent system (which ultimately come down to violations of fundamental rights, a point endlessly discussed here on Slashdot) have been public knowledge for decades (see the 1991 position paper by the League for Programming Freedom), and the US legal profession has chosen to do nothing about these problems, because they have a conflict of interest between fixing the problems (as required by the oaths they swear to uphold the Bill of Rights, which, in providing for rights "retained by the people", is open-ended in its protection of fundamental rights) and making huge amounts of money from the system (by engaging in the practice of patent law). In short, everybody in the system is now tainted, as are those who use the services of these people. The judges, the patent attorneys, and the corporate executives using their services are ALL unethical. Even the patent examiners benefit from the problems with the system, and thus have ethical conflicts of interest of their own between trying to do something about fixing those problems and just stamping approved.

The lesson of Nuremberg, namely that individual responsibility to not violate fundamental rights is just as important as whatever may be found in the letter of the law, is a hard lesson to learn, and, with a few exceptions, one that the US legal profession has chosen to ignore for most of the past century.

Re:PR Spin

[drrsmorgan]

So in those cases they made a mistake, but here it was their attorney's who certainly never would have been hired had Samsung even suspected that they might possibly break a rule or violate an order, confidence. So they had a few minor incidents in the past.. no reason to color them with those errors and omissions.. surely a firm with their size and history would never knowingly or wantonly violate such a confidence... ha ha ha ha.. except for the fact that is the first rule.. .. they have a near perfect history.. in business they're unmatched at ... just accidentally bending a rule or two .. when it can't be done with a strategy involving an accident or their special brand of concrete swim fins..

Re: PR Spin

[MachineShedFred]

So I have to show a case of Samsung breaking the law in a business that Apple is in, but you don't?

Please show me to where Samsung is in the e-book publishing / distribution business, or take your silly restriction off and own up to the fact that Samsung has repeatedly used bribery, collusion, price fixing, and other customer-surly business practices in order to get ahead. Thanks for playing.

Re: PR Spin

[evilviper]

A little effort on your part would prevent your statements looking quite so stupid:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/samsungs-big-move-into-ebooks/

Re:PR Spin

[Plumpaquatsch]

Samsung is ripe to get in more trouble than Apple, because they're a vastly larger company,

Yeah, it has nothing to do with them being scum-buckets.

Re: PR Spin

[Plumpaquatsch]

Okay... Allow me to counter with:

Apple Guilty of Price Fixing

Where did that goalpost go? The one with "breaking the law in the same industry" written on it?

And that's not even going into Apple not actually setting prices like Samsung did.

Re: PR Spin

[Plumpaquatsch]

A little effort on your part would prevent your statements looking quite so stupid:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/samsungs-big-move-into-ebooks/

So does Samsung sell ebooks yet? Answer: despite several announcements, still not quite yet.

I wonder if you will shut up once they find a way to break the law there too.

Who can Samsung pay off now?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can Samsung continue its tremendous innovation if it hasn't enough money to pay off all the people it needs?

Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[viperidaenz]

So Apple gave Samsung's lawyers a document and told them not to give it to Samsung, the company they're working for?
Did the lawyers all then get in a circle and jerk each other off?

Lawyers are supposed to work for their client, not hide information from them.

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[gstoddart]

Lawyers are supposed to work for their client, not hide information from them.

Except, as TFS says, there are strict rules in place for some things.

Sometimes, a lawyer is needed to be a buffer between you and something else you're not legally allowed to know. If this was the case, then the lawyer has either broken the law, or the standards of the Bar. Those are the kinds of things that can get you in trouble.

Whether or not this is true is a different story, but if it is true, there could be some serious consequences.

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when a Judge tells company 1 to give the documents to Company 2's lawyers and that said lawyers are NOT to divulge the contents to their clients.
If this is the case and Samsung's lawyers have goofed here then Apple will have precident on their side to present to a judge in the future in order to stop it happening again.
IMHO, IANAL, if true, those lawyers are toast. They'd better be preparing to start work flipping burgers for the rest of their working life

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[drolli]

Lawyers are also a part of the legal system. While they may work for their clients, they are granted special rights in many crountries, inclusding the US aince they agree to the normal proessional ethics. It is very possible that a lawyer must retain knowledge from the client under specific circumstances. Lawyers are paid by the client for a very specific service. They got access to the licensing condition so that they could judge if these touch their clients interest. while i would liek to see patent swaps/licensing deals more transparent (I would think of a "stock exchange model" for licenses) , i have to recognize that currently these are view as a kind of private contract.

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[jbeaupre]

Heck, I was involved in a lawsuit where the plaintiff company obtained confidential information about the defendant company before the lawsuit (industrial espionage, anyone?) and managed to get a judge's order to restrict that knowledge to the lawyers. The result was defendant's lawyers were not allowed to show the defendant their own documents.

How do I know? During a deposition, plaintiffs showed me (on the defendant side) one of defendants documents marked confidential, but also marked as produced by plaintiff in discovery. And STILL defendants' lawyers were not allowed to tell the defendants that plaintiffs confidential information in their possession.

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[viperidaenz]

Patent deals shouldn't be a private matter, since a patent is an agreement between the patent holder and the public, dealings and licensing of patents should also be public.

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[drolli]

That is my opinion, and i would vote for a political party which likes to implement this, but currently the law says otherwise.

Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer

[Plumpaquatsch]

Patent deals shouldn't be a private matter, since a patent is an agreement between the patent holder and the public, dealings and licensing of patents should also be public.

So why doesn't Samsung re.lease any of their patent deals?

because the company's LAWYERS had provided it

[themushroom]

Not Samsung. The legal firm, the only ones privvy to the terms. Samsung itself only received the information, and stupidly let on knowing the information, but ultimately it's the legal firm that screwed up. Not Samsung.

Re: because the company's LAWYERS had provided it

[Yehat]

You know what? Stick that Samsung in your ass.

Re: because the company's LAWYERS had provided it

[gstoddart]

but ultimately it's the legal firm that screwed up. Not Samsung

If they accepted it with the knowledge that the judge had forbidden them from having it, and didn't tell anybody about it, then Samsung may well have crossed a line.

The reason these things are intended to be kept only by the lawyers is so that neither party can gain an advantage by using information they're not legally allowed to have.

To then take the information you're not legally allowed to have and then use that to gain leverage in a contract negotiation would be illegal. And it sounds like Samsung went into negotiations with someone and said "well, I know the terms of this deal with these people, and I want better".

It's like SEC regulations on insider trading -- they're designed to keep people from profiting from information which isn't public. And there are cases where you could be told something as part of your job, and warned sternly that, for that issue you are now an insider and can't act on that. (Which is why many of us try very hard to not actually know the specifics of some of the systems we work with. It's just easier to keep some information at arms length.)

Having that information may be illegal. Using the information may certainly be illegal. I'm not so sure that Samsung would be blameless here.

Re: because the company's LAWYERS had provided it

[intermodal]

Always. The more sensationalized this can become, the better Apple and Nokia will get from the courts and/or settlement.

Re: because the company's LAWYERS had provided it

[nytes]

That Samsung received the information is the lawyer's fault. But then Samsung, knowing fully well that they had information they were not supposed to have, distributed it further and utilized it in negotiations with Nokia.

It's obvious that Samsung knew they had information they weren't supposed to have, from the statement alleged to have been made to Nokia by a Samsung executive: "All information leaks."

Re: because the company's LAWYERS had provided it

[Anubis IV]

Not to mention that if they actively encouraged the lawyers to provide that information to them, they may have been acting criminally.

Only acceptable when USA does it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well every country spy on each other and every company spy on each other. But since might makes right, it is only acceptable when the american government does it to foreign companies for the benefit of american companies.

Who is Dr. Ang?

[Arker]

He doesnt seem to be notable enough for wikipedia but there's a cite in an IBM press conference from two years ago as "Dr. Seungho Ahn, Executive Vice President and Head of the IP Center, Samsung Electronics."

He may become an overnight celebrity of sorts.

Public knowledge

[fredprado]

All legal settlements should be public knowledge. It is a reversal on the basic ethic principles of our society when public entities, like the NSA, can spy upon private affairs with impunity, and individuals and private entities are denied what should be public knowledge.

Re:Public knowledge

[gstoddart]

All legal settlements should be public knowledge

Except many settlements are essentially a contract between two private parties, enforced and accepted by the court. Often time, the settlement is made to allow anybody admitting any legal responsibility while making the issue go away -- like Michael Jackson't settlement with the kids he allegedly molested.

There's lots of occasions where some of this stuff remains private information, because it's an agreement between the two entities, and spares them having it discussed in court and going on the record.

This isn't something where the court has ruled, this is a case where the two parties agreed to stop the court proceedings and come up with a settlement. Since this can involve information which can affect stock prices and the like, it sometimes needs to be confidential.

Re:Public knowledge

[fredprado]

Sorry but no. If it reached the courts it should not be private anymore.

If you want to set them privately don't use public institutions to arbitrate your problems in the first place.

And even if you do not involve any public entity in your dispute keeping your secrets should be your problem, not mine, the government's or societys.

Re:Public knowledge

[bws111]

That makes no sense at all. First, you have stated zero reasons why agreements between two private parties (any agreements) should be made public. Second, you somehow manage to drag goverment spying into it, as if that has anything at all to do with it.

There are good reasons why such things should be kept private. Let's say I file a claim against you, claiming your slightly uneven sidewalk caused me to stub my toe. You go ask your friendly lawyer what to do, and he says 'well, you could fight it but that could be expensive even if you win, but I talked to the guy and he is willing to settle for $100'. You accept the settlement. According to you, that should now be public information, thereby inviting everyone and his brother to file a claim against you, knowing that not only will you settle, but you will settle for at least $100.

The only thing your idea would do is eliminate settlements altogether, which is pretty much the opposite of the ideal situation.

Re:Public knowledge

[Just Some Guy]

That's an interesting topic of conversation, but how could you possibly enforce it? Suppose I sue you. We go to lunch, sit down, and hash out our differences: "Tell you what, fredprado. Let's just end this. If you promise not to build that fence and quit yelling at my kid for walking down the sidewalk, I'll drop the suit. Can we make a gentleman's agreement?" We shake hands, go our separate ways, and both follow through on the agreement.

First, how would you craft a law enforcing that our private negotiations have to be part of the permanent record? Second, how would you square that with our 1st amendment right to publish (or not publish) the terms of our agreements?

Re:Public knowledge

[bws111]

You do know that using the public institutions is not something the parties agree to, right? ONE party can take it to court, which according to you seems to me that the OTHER party loses all it's right to privacy. That is a pretty stupid idea.

Finally, the reasons the secrets were not kept secret is because the court ordered them to be shared with the other party. I fail to see why any of my secrets should be made public just because I was ordered to provide them to another party that happened to file suit against me.

Re:Public knowledge

[fredprado]

Easy, you "enforce" it by not enforcing at all. Secrets are the keeper responsibility to keep. If it leaked, bad luck to you.

Even if you decide to lie in court about the contents of your settlement I see no problem, as long as you do not come crying when someone discovers the truth.

Re:Public knowledge

[fredprado]

As soon as you go to court you should lose the ability to settle in secret. If you want to do it do it before going to court.

Furthermore any private content should be your responsibility to keep secret about if you so want, not the government's. If someone else found about your dirty secrets it is your problem and nobody else's. If you can prove your lawyer or anyone that has signed your contract broke it and leaked information he should not by all means go after him for any punishment contained in the contract, but you have no business going after someone who didn't sign any contract with you.

And no, I don't recognize your reason to keep settlements private as a good one.

Re:Public knowledge

[fredprado]

Sorry, but settlements are NOT unilateral and have nothing do do with the court ordering you to disclose anything. Whenever a court orders you to disclose something private against your will it should be responsible for helping to control how much it leaks in my opinion, as futile and irrelevant those attempts may be in the end..

Re:Public knowledge

[viperidaenz]

Except your secrets are being shared because you're the party taking the other one to court. This was Apple-Nokia trying to get Samsung to pay for their patents - which should all be public anyway, and so should all dealings with them, If you want it to be private, keep it as a trade secret and don't file a patent.

Re:Public knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to set them privately don't use public institutions to arbitrate your problems in the first place.

Where's the public law opt-out form? I can't find it.

Re:Public knowledge

[bws111]

I didn't say settlements were unilateral, I said going to court was a unilateral action.

What you seem to want to do is create a kind of legal extortion. If someone claims you have wronged them your choice is either agree to their terms, or lose your right to privacy. The plaintiff can demand absolutely anything, and there is nothing you can do about it. Plaintiff can claim he injured himself and demand $1000. What are you going to do, just pay it? If you refuse, and the plaintiff sues, it is now 'in court'. Now the plaintiff can offer to settle for only $100. If that fact will be kept secret it is probably better for you to just pay the $100 rather than pay legal fees, etc. However, if the terms of the settlement will NOT be kept secret then it is a lousy deal for you, as everyone knows you are an easy target for $100. How is that fair to the defendant, whose only options would be pay the initially requested amount, or let the whole world know what you are willing to pay?

Re:Public knowledge

[bws111]

And you still have provided zero reasons why this information should be public.

Re:Public knowledge

[fredprado]

On the contrary, what I want to create is a system where legal extortion does not exist. Where settling when you are in the right does not pay off, and where people that have real interests in settling will try to do it without involving courts in the process.

Re:Public knowledge

[fredprado]

Because you are using the public to arbitrate it, and it is the public right to know EVERYTHING their representatives are doing in their name.

Re:Public knowledge

[Solandri]

Except many settlements are essentially a contract between two private parties, enforced and accepted by the court. Often time, the settlement is made to allow anybody admitting any legal responsibility while making the issue go away -- like Michael Jackson't settlement with the kids he allegedly molested.

In general I agree with you. Two parties should be allowed to come up with whatever agreement they want to, including keeping it out of the eyes of the public.

However, patent and copyright issues are not "natural". They're artificial property constructs imposed upon society by the government ostensibly to serve a greater public good. Consequently, in the interest of making sure they are serving a greater public good, I believe their licensing terms should be mandated to be open and public.

In other words, any time a patent or copyright is licensed or transferred, it's not strictly between two parties. It's between three - the licensor, the licensee, and the general public. If a license or transfer of one of these artificial properties is not in the best interest of the public, the public has a right to know about it.

Re:Public knowledge

[gnasher719]

Sorry but no. If it reached the courts it should not be private anymore.

That seems like a rather ridiculous and idiotic opinion to me. But I'm sure you'll be able to give some argument to support your opinion.

Re:Public knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what? FUCK contracts. A contract should be an agreement. Unfortunately it never is. It is always extortion. That's why I feel so damned great when I pirate stuff. I would actually love to sell pirated stuff. Unfortunately I'm too worried to get caught. But I would actually love to sell the stuff that the big corporations cram down others throats for a much cheaper price - not because I want to earn money but because I want those bastards to loose money. I fucking hate the corrupt "justice" system.

Re:Public knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

All legal settlements should be public knowledge.

In theory you're right, but in practice it doesn't work. Simple example:

  * somebody is accused of murder
  * they tell their lawyer that they were having sex with the boss's wife on the night
  * the boss's wife confirms the story, and has photographic evidence
  * the judge, jury, and lawyers on both sides are allowed to know this. the general public is not, and should not be
  * the person is cleared and found innocent, with specific details of their alibi redacted on the public record, to protect everyone involved from embarrassment

It's even more important with corporate lawsuits, since every major corporation in the world defends themselves in court every day all day long from frivolous lawsuits. They need their confidential information to be kept confidential.

Re:Public knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

Except in the above circumstances, Apple was compelled by a court to release said secrets to a law firm. They had no choice in keeping the secret, so no leak happened.

Your logic shows a misunderstanding of business, there are many, many, many times where the court may be involved in negotiations that must remain private to avoid significant consequences. Most of them would be considered completely regular business (consider SEC actions, that depend heavily on third party legally binding confidentiality to avoid manipulating the stock market).

Re:Public knowledge

[Anubis IV]

All criminal proceedings should be public. Maybe not all of the evidence, since there are cases where revealing it publicly would further harm the victim, but what's going on at trial should always be a matter of public record.

But if two private parties want to settle matters between themselves and dismiss their civil proceedings against each other, then we've already seen the benefit, and we shouldn't have a need for the terms of that settlement to enter the public record. It's just a contract between two private parties, and unless you're also suggesting that we should make ALL contracts public, I don't see how you can logically suggest that we should make the terms of confidential settlements in civil court public.

Re:Public knowledge

[david_thornley]

Sometimes one side will skip the attempt-a-settlement phase and just file suit. Why should the second party be barred from seeking a settlement? A settlement means that neither side will have overwhelming legal expenses, and it takes a load off the courts. Remember that filing suit is a unilateral action, and I can "go to court" completely unwillingly.

Your second paragraph misses any point I can discern. Assuming the story is as presented, the leak came from nobody with a contract with Apple, and so contract law is inapplicable here.

Let's go through this slowly. A court ordered Apple's lawyers to provide certain information to Samsung's lawyers. In this case, it was patent deals. It could have been any confidential information. Apple's lawyers complied with the legal order. So far, Apple is simply complying with the law, and indeed not supplying that information to Samsung's lawyers would have been illegal. Since Apple has been legally compelled to reveal confidential information, the court system needs to have some way of protecting that information.

If we make Apple responsible for keeping its secrets, then Apple can avoid supplying any information it can reasonably describe as confidential. This means that civil suits are nearly impossible, as discovery simply doesn't work. If we make Apple hand over confidential information without protecting it, then no company can reliably keep confidential information, since anybody can file suit and ask for that information in discovery. The only way a company can keep information confidential while still allowing civil suits to go on is to have court orders to produce information and court orders to protect information. If you have a reasonable idea on how to avoid those problems, please let us know.

If you don't like that reason for private agreements, how about this one? Any business transaction that isn't the equivalent of cash-for-stuff involves a contract. A commitment for one side to do something in the future involves a contract. That includes things like magazine subscriptions and website subscriptions (contracts do not have to be particularly formal). Now, suppose you subscribe to Furry Porn Quarterly. If all contracts are public record, then anybody can ask for their subscription list. Alternately, imagine that somebody brings suit against FPQ, Inc., making claims relevant to the subscription list. Furry Porn Quarterly is therefore ordered to hand over their subscription list to the plaintiff's lawyers. With no restriction on them, those lawyers can then publish the list

Re:Public knowledge

[Plumpaquatsch]

Sorry but no. If it reached the courts it should not be private anymore.

Maybe Samsung should begin releasing the court papers they demand be kept a secret first?

Re:Public knowledge

[Plumpaquatsch]

On the contrary, what I want to create is a system where legal extortion does not exist

- by making plain extortion legal. Yeah, we understand that.

Re:Public knowledge

[Plumpaquatsch]

Except your secrets are being shared because you're the party taking the other one to court. This was Apple-Nokia trying to get Samsung to pay for their patents

It seems even more obvious now that you have no fucking clue what was going on. "Apple-Nokia trying to get Samsung to pay for their patents"?

The real story

[ysth]

Ignoring all the florian-spew and articles based on it, it seems an expert report was accidentally insufficiently redacted, and Samsung has not been fast enough in their investigation of where all the information went, so the magistrate judge is setting a deadline and ordering some depositions. Yawn.

Re:The real story

[VortexCortex]

So... They didn't redact information, and distributed it. And now Samsung's on the hook?

Well, seems like the NSA could save a BUNCH of money by posting everything secret unredacted on Wikipedia.

Re:The real story

[StormReaver]

Ignoring all the florian-spew

That's an excellent visual, and highly accurate. Everyone can safely ignore this article, as it comes from fosspatents (Florian's anti-FOSS website). You can safely assume that nothing in the article is even remotely true; except, perhaps, that Samsung, Nokia, and Apple are real companies.

Re:The real story

[gnasher719]

So... They didn't redact information, and distributed it. And now Samsung's on the hook?

They were lawyers employed by and paid for by Samsung. If Apple's lawyers or Nokia's lawyers had stupidly sent this information to Samsung, Samsung wouldn't be in trouble. It was Samsung's lawyers.

Oh Quinn Emanuel...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is the same law firm that "leaked" the terms of the Facebook settlement involving the Winklevi Twins .... in their quarterly firm newsletter?

Go After the Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple and Nokia need to go after the lawyers for this violation. Ideally the court will sanction the lawyer including possible bar suspensions for any of the lawyers involved.

Present Company Excepted

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, in the present situation vis-a-vis secrecy and government snooping are you really going to get pissed over some lawyers over-share?

As a great man once said: "Privacy is dead, GET OVER IT!" ...Brought to you by your friends at Setec Astronomy...

Re:Present Company Excepted

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you all just die and leave me all your assets. Resistance to unjust demands is over-rated. GET OVER IT!

Crapple Fanboys Aside

[Anonymous Coward]

The article puts it a little differently. An expert wrote a report supporting Samsung's royalty claims and his report contained some information on royalties Apple was paying to other IP holders. At some point Samsung's law firm sent executives a draft of the report containing the Apple royalty info.

Shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked that Samsung, a company that was run by a CEO convicted of tax evasion and indicted for bribery and embezzlement, would do something like this.

Following government message

[gmuslera]

If you did nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide. Why not embrace that culture of transparency giving the example?

Re:Following government message

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us your bank account numbers.
If you did nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide.

gee, that makes sense

[slashmydots]

So ONLY the lawyers can see the agreement between the two companies? Not the executives? So in other words, an agreement occurred but it is completely impossible to comply with them because nobody at the company knows what the terms are. Genius!

Re:gee, that makes sense

[gnasher719]

So ONLY the lawyers can see the agreement between the two companies? Not the executives? So in other words, an agreement occurred but it is completely impossible to comply with them because nobody at the company knows what the terms are. Genius!

Both Apple's and Nokia's executives have seen this agreement between Apple and Nokia. Plus Samsung's lawyers. There was no need for Samsung's executives to see it; Samsung didn't have to comply with that agreement because it was between Apple and Nokia.

Re:gee, that makes sense

[ysth]

To be specific, Samsung's external lawyers; actual Samsung employee lawyers would not (or at any rate should not) have had access.

Death squads

[Overzeetop]

Summary executions of anyone *suspected* of keeping a corporate secret. We can sell licenses like we do for deer or elk during hunting season. Give 'em a name and a tag and make sure they register the body with the local game warden when they finish.

Guns, meaningless killing, and anti-corporatism - It's the perfect left-right-libertarian utopia

When you file the suit, you make it public

[Overzeetop]

By filing a suit, you have raised the stakes and any resolution should be public.

There are only two conditions where the settlement would want to be private - the defendant knows they screwed up and want to cover up any future liability or embarrassment, or the plaintiff was over aggressive and filed a questionable suit to force an issue with the defendant and wants to save face. Fuck that.

If you file a suit it has the MEAN something. Using it in any other way makes it easy to back down, undermining the system and either letting real crooks off the hook or giving bullies another tool to badger their opponents.

Re:When you file the suit, you make it public

[bws111]

No, those are most certainly not the only two conditions where the settlement woud want to be private. In fact, neither of those conditions are the most common one. The most common one is that the defendant, even though he does not think he is in the wrong, finds it cheaper and easier to settle than to have the enormous expense of a court trial. And those are the ones that the defendant most wants to keep private, because making them public puts a giant target for every scam artist on his back. Can you imagine what would happen if it became known that Ford would settle for $500 if you claim you pinched your finger in the door?

Re:When you file the suit, you make it public

[fredprado]

And that is a very bad outcome that stimulates legal harassment. The best solution is to make this third option unavailable, thus making any process go to its bitter end. Ford should not have its best interest settling for $500 if you pinched your finger in the door, and you shouldn't get a dime because of that.

Hum, guys? This is a Florian Mueller article.

[Brandano]

When has he ever been unbiased? Most important, when has he ever been actually right in his forecasts?

Re:Hum, guys? This is a Florian Mueller article.

[Shimbo]

So, skip the article and go direct to the order; note that this isn't just a motion from Apple but an order of the court. Samsung definitely have some questions to answer.

The employee was telling the truth?

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

So an employee at Samsung in negotiating with Nokia, tolled the Nokia employee that he knew the details of the Apple-Nokia deal. Which they were not supposed know.

I say hang Samsung out to dry for illegally obtaining proprietary information. We all know they did. After all why would an employee lie during negotiations?

make it all public

[stenvar]

Free and efficient markets require information. All legal settlements should be required to be public by law. The same is true for most contracts and other deals (including employment contracts).

Making that happen would also be very simple: if it's not public, it's not enforceable in a court of law.

it depends on WHERE they saw them

[sixsixtysix]

If it happened outside the US, US laws wouldn't really matter, right?

extortion price discrimination

[SpaceLifeForm]

More accurately, we are dealing with 'extortion price discrimination".

The extortionists don't want their new targets to know how much they extorted from prior victims.

This is why they always want the victim to sign a NDA.

Just another attack by the darkside, nothing more.

Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy Against Android

Barnes & Noble did not put up with the BS, and neither will Samsung.

all patent license terms should be public

[Anonymous Coward]

all patent licensing terms should ofcourse be public,
any nonpublic ones should be illegal and nonbinding.

Re:all patent license terms should be public

[YoungManKlaus]

I second this notion. How else does one actually want to guarantee FRAND?

Re:all patent license terms should be public

[Plumpaquatsch]

I second this notion. How else does one actually want to guarantee FRAND?

Yeah, this is why the non-FRAND-term patent license between Apple and Nokia should be forced out in the open, while Samsung can keep the actual licensing terms for different parties of the standard essential patents Apple supposedly violates a secret.

Florian has admitted that he is a paid shill

[walterbyrd]

The guy has less credibility that Enderle, if such a thing is possible.

US jurisdiction

[Anonymous Coward]

would be, the lawyers provided that information to Samsung execs in Korea - outside of US jurisdiction - and so there's nothing some US court can do about it

Typo

[dbIII]

"late 70s"