Slashdot Mirror
Samsung, Apple Agree To Try Mediation In Patent Disputes
An anonymous reader writes "The smartphone and tablet rivals will work with a mediator in an effort to settle their patent disputes in advance of a second trial on the issues scheduled for this spring, according to Bloomberg News. The agreement, filed in federal court in San Jose today, was in response to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh's request in November that both sides submit a settlement discussion proposal before trial. Senior legal executives at the companies met Jan. 6 to discuss 'settlement opportunities,' according to the proposal. The companies agreed to retain a mediator 'who has experience mediating high profile disputes,' according to the filing, which doesn't name the person. The chief executive officers and three to four company lawyers, but no outside lawyers, will attend the mediation before Feb. 19, according to the filing."
Apple will throw a temper tantrum, claim the sole rights to rounded corners and continue stealing ideas while condemning others for doing the same. They are like a child, in corporate form.
Why is there never any discussion about whether those patents are even valid in the first place?
Why not just *try* to hide your naked fanboism, just a little? People might take you more seriously and not dismiss you as a troll or unpaid Apple shill.
The Samsung IC business relationship between these two is an order of magnitude more important than any lost sales from competition. Whether or not they settle on silly frilly patent disputes will not change that fact one iota.
this pissing contest has waged for 3 years now. whenever a clear victor is decided the judgement is appealed, and appealed again upon the overturn. your circle-jerk is an affront to the concept of justice.
we gave you assholes your own legal system called the arbitration. we gave it to you so you could fuck customers and avoid the repercussions of class action, but im telling you to pack your shit and go. Find an "arbitrator" or whatever it is you need and figure this out on your own, but I have real court cases id like to preside over before i die from natural causes.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Put on the pop corn folks the shit is about to really hit the fan as Ballmer promised years ago.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
This is hardly news. Mediation is typically always strongly recommended by the judge prior to trial. Either party refusing to attend would make them look bad in the judge's eyes. So whether or not they actually think it is worthwhile, they both attend. And then there is no resolution. And then the trial goes ahead as planned.
Am I the only one who read "Samsung, Apple Agree to Try Medication in Patent Disputes"?
It makes sense, perhaps with medication they can control their patent madness. It is certainly sick.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Does anyone on Slashdot have access to some older engineering journals on touchscreens? I was under the impression that the Taipei geeks were fiddling with the touchpad and display screen markets, out of their niche in ATM touchscreen displays (which wealthy nations ignored), and that when they were contracted by Apple to make Ipads they said "hey, check this out, we put a screen on it. And you can attach at telephone". And Apple said "heck yah make that" but nothing kept Samsung from doing the same. But that's a general recollection, I don't want to be cited as a source.
But gee, I can spot a lot of lawyer history-rewrites on the internet. I just spent 10-15 minutes trying to track down the history of the development of "touchscreen" as it was attached to phones and tablets, and it's getting really hard to actually do any research on the web. The stakes in the legal patent claims seem to fan the rewriting of history on wikipedia and About.com (both with versions that I know aren't right, even if I'm not sure what IS right).
I'm not comfortable enough just from reading Digitimes for 12 years to be an expert in this, but when you read display news for 12 years you can at least spot bullshit in patent claims and wikipedia articles that are years out of sync. Anyone here have any real scoop on this that's not been rewritten by the Anglican Church? It's like all the "pagan" inventions are being turned into Christian patents.
Gently reply
So then you agree with this case as well?
Apple pays $60 million to settle China iPad trademark dispute
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-apple-china-idUSBRE86104320120702
They forgot they had agreed to binding arbitration
iOS world market share is shrinking towards single digit (do Google search for "wikipedia mobile operating system"). Samsung should just brush them off and let them suffer getting lower tier components from other sources and an inferior foundry for SoC.
So then you agree with this case as well?
Apple pays $60 million to settle China iPad trademark dispute
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-apple-china-idUSBRE86104320120702 [reuters.com]
Well yeah, why not? Apple wanted to sell a product called iPad in a country where another company already had a trademark on the name. That company reached a court-mediated settlement under which Apple agreed to pay that company 60 million dollars for the right to use the name "iPad" in the region where the name was already trademarked.
What's there to disagree with?
Many who tend to post on these types of threads are die-hard apple fans and any lawsuits where apple is not on the winning end are due to "countries where they want to punish apple".
Right, so you were trolling.
They stop wasting money in court and the patents are never checked for validity so they can stay in the war chest to crush any small upcoming competitors
Ah... That may work!
Oh... I got that wrong....
It said mediation...
More income for some overhead (legal dude) somewhere :(
Both the 5th grade school bully, and the 3rd grade victim are in the school Principal's office.
The principal has told the two to visit the school counselor, to attempt to force the two to apologize to each other.
The two have reluctantly agreed to follow the principal's command.
That doesn't mean the two won't be getting into another fight on the way to the counselor, or be beating each other down again, after the forced apology in front of the school official.
Why does this read to me like "Apple and Samsung agree to stage mediation as a way to openly collude on ways to effectively split the market and work to eliminate competitors."
It seems like they can both take their long-term business strategies to the table and figure out a way to split the market for smartphones between themselves. Apple agrees to let Samsung use some trivial design elements, which gives Samsung some advantage over other Android makers who aren't part of this bargain, and Samsung largely agrees to not try to hone in on Apple's narrow design-focused markets.
The real losers are the competitors of both companies who now face two giant competitors no longer focused on fighting each other and instead focus on their smaller competitors who might threaten their hegemony. LG and HTC remain also-rans whose Android products won't have Samsung's access to Apple's design elements and Apple can freely snipe at Windows Phone or any other up-and-comer who might try to break into Apple's niche.
I will be your mediator today. Will you gentlemen have a little hemlock to start with?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Apple's "deal" was "Let us pay less or we'll not pay you anything".
They wanted the FRAND deal done for the cash value only of deals others had made in cash AND "materials in kind".
If you were to PX your car for a newer one and got 50% off for the PX, would I be right to demand 50% off the same car for cash from me, even though I have no PX (well, I have a broken tricycle, they can have)?
No?
Then why is it fine for Apple?
Apple just needs to go the way of Blackberry - Their ways of making everything proprietary, including an OS that could've been amazing if they didn't require their own STUPIDLY overpriced hardware, need to die.
Always just presumed that legal fees spent on crap like this were just a way of swilling around the cash... It's an easy way for the two companies to endlessly exchange cash - by paying fines to each other and fees to lawyers that they own, no cash is really being generated but it is being shifted from one cost center to another.
I wonder if there is something on the horizon they have seen to do with patent trolling which is forcing them to attempt to change their seemingly childish ways and orchestrate a different swilling tactic.