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After Knocked-Down Damages Claim, Apple Again Seeks to Ban Some Samsung Phones
Bloomberg reports that after Apple's patent victory in court last week over smart-phone rival Samsung, Apple is
seeking a sales ban on several specific phones from Samsung; none of them are currently flagship devices. "The nine devices targeted by Cupertino, California-based Apple for a U.S. sales ban include the Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S2 Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, Galaxy S3 and Stratosphere." Getting the competition blocked from the marketplace over patent claims is something that Apple's tried before in connection with its beef with Samsung, and the company has had mixed results, depending on jurisdiction. Last week's decision in favor of Apple hints that the jury didn't think the company deserved the entire $2.2 billion it was seeking, awarding (a mere) $120 million, instead.
Ban the fruit company!
A new phone sold their company sells really well. So well, that it pulls some of our projected market share. Now, should we initiate a lawsuit? Take the number of our phones that we expect to not be able to sell, A, multiply by the revenue from a single phone, B, subtract the cost of a lawsuit, C. A times B minus C equals X. If X is a negative number, we don't file suit.
I see no problem in nuking Apple from orbit. They are nothing but a negative force in the freedom dimension.
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be honest, samsung *didnt* do that to apple though. swipe to unlock? my HP pocketPC did that in 2003 and no one with and sense of feel or sight would mistake a GS for an iphone.
I dont like the idea of nuking apple if for the only reason being competition. I believe android would become stagnant if they dont have any competition
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Be honest, if Apple were the one who had stolen physical designs and software innovations from Android, you nerds would ask nothing less than nuking Apple from orbit.
Eh. Their new ring-HQ-thing would make an attractive target from high altitude I suppose; but I don't think I'd be as worked up as you give me credit for:
As with so many things patent-and-tech-related, whatever ends up being the killer app always looks simultaneously brilliantly innovative and obvious in hindsight; but attempts to actually put your finger on precisely what is patentably special about it frequently run into trouble on some mixture of university research projects that just got shelved after somebody finished his PhD, stuff IBM did in 1980 but charged approximately a zillion dollars a month to lease and hid behind an interface designed to sell you consulting services through sheer pain, or assorted bits and pieces identifiably but unhelpfully introduced in prior products that were dragged down by mediocrity in other areas.
That's what I find most unsympathetic about Apple's protracted litigation on what are basically broad look-and-feel grounds. Were they the first ones to use a capacitive touchscreen to make a smartphone that doesn't suck? Sure, no problem. And look at the giant pile of first mover advantage and cash that they got for it. Does this entitle them to a monopoly on rectangular touch sensitive objects for two decades? Less impressive case to be made. And, much to their chagrin, less impressive legal payout. As much as Apple might prefer otherwise, nailing the execution is not a patentable achievement, and a great many elegant executions break down into a lot of substantially nonpatentable, or already commonplace, bits and pieces put together correctly.
Apple should open its own law school. They gotta be running out of lawyers by now.
Just make sure the new tables don't have round corners
What ever will Samsung do if they aren't allowed to sell their Galaxy S2 anymore? Their customers will have no choice but to get the latest model.
Last week's decision in favor of Apple hints that the jury didn't think the company deserved the entire $2.2 billion it was seeking, awarding (a mere) $120 million, instead.
The jury decision does not "hint" any such thing. It states as a finding of fact in a court of law. Dipshit.
Nah, he's a Tech-Vampire hunter, trying to rid the world of economic drains on society as a whole. Apple's whole business model is based on sucking the lifesblood from other businesses while stealing other company's tech and claiming it as their own. If Moses were alive today, he'd probably have smited Jobs for trying to steal his clay tablet / stylus as his own "invention". Apple hasn't had an original idea since the days of Woz. It's all been theft after theft after theft.
Just make sure the new tables don't have round corners
No worries there, still making them using old-style CREATE TABLE that has none of this fancy new CSS stuff like round corners.
I definitely don't like the idea of nuking Apple. Let the market do that for us. But Apple needs to stop using our tax dollars to defeat their competitors outside the market. They've done so since way back in the Apple II days.
We wouldn't be stuck using Windows, either, if Apple hadn't killed the competetive GUI market on the PC. They drove the GEM Desktop and GeoWorks out of competition, and set a tone where no third parties could produce windowing environments. It's Apple's fault for clearing the market entirely which made way a deep pocket competitor like Microsoft the ultimate winner.
How about if nobody has stolen anything?
I don't think anyone objects to Apple also using the obvious designs, they just object to them claiming an exclusive right to the obvious.
If? You mean notification center? Quick settings?
I guess today is expired certificate day.
Way to go, Apple. /sigh
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
both were "stealing" them. neither had new concepts.
(what was new was that the chip fabs for cheap capacitive touch screens were coming online.. and no those chips don't have an apple or samsung logos on them.. which sucks a bit because the current resistive tech can be really, really good)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
As much as Apple might prefer otherwise, nailing the execution is not a patentable achievement, [...] (emphasis mine)
Also, Pontius Pilatus might claim prior art...
If Apple is indeed competitive, because it has more lawyers than engineers.
Were they the first ones to use a capacitive touchscreen to make a smartphone that doesn't suck? Sure, no problem. And look at the giant pile of first mover advantage and cash that they got for it. Does this entitle them to a monopoly on rectangular touch sensitive objects for two decades? ... As much as Apple might prefer otherwise, nailing the execution is not a patentable achievement, and a great many elegant executions break down into a lot of substantially nonpatentable, or already commonplace, bits and pieces put together correctly.
You're wrong, there - nailing the execution of something frequently requires additional invention. It's not just putting together bits and pieces that already exist, but adding on an intuitive user interface or other feature that makes them easy to use. But, any patent only covers that new invention - the bits and pieces that already exist are, by definition, in the prior art, and making them wouldn't be infringement. However, making that intuitive user interface or other feature would be. The monopoly wouldn't be on any rectangular touch sensitive object, but on the specific features that weren't in the prior art.
Apple is patent trolling so that they don't have to make better products
It seems Apple is trying to be to phones, what Microsoft was to PCs, right before the DOJ went after Microsoft for antitrust *irritated sigh*
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Speaking of tax dollars Apple pays 1.9%
Things only ever seem obvious AFTER someone else has done them.
Before iPhone, Android looked like Blackberry. There was nothing obvious about Apple's design features to them then. They were too busy copying Blackberry's "obvious" design.
Sure, but is "intuitive user interface for capacitive touchscreen device" actually patentable? If it is, then Apple's got a case and the patent system is even worse than I thought. If it's not, then Apple's just scum trying to manipulate the legal system to win what they can't win in the market.
As for nuking Apple from orbit? I'd happily do it even if there was no such thing as iOS, Android or even cell phones. I'd nuke them even if I had to give the launch order over a landline with a rotary phone.
There was also the issue of capacitive touchscreens getting to a reasonable price point. The less obvious aspect would be the public liking the fondleslab style, but fashion isn't subject to patent or copyright. The basic design appeared in sci-fi for decades including 2001, Space 1999, and Star Trek.
For that matter, consider the Palm Pilot. It used a stylus (commonly) due to the inferior touch screens available at that time, but I did see people occasionally use their fingers.
The basic design appeared in sci-fi for decades including 2001, Space 1999, and Star Trek.
That's becoming a bit of a meme. 2001 had a flat video screen on a table, about the same dimensions as an iPad. No indication of it being any kind of computing device though. Indeed it was a basic plot point that the computing was done by centralised mainframe like computers like HAL. HAL was the vision of computing in 2001, not tablets, let alone smartphones,
Likewise Space 1999 did all their computing on wall panels or desk bound keyboards.
Star Trek TOS had some electronic clipboard devices, About 2 inches thick with coloured lamps on top. But the phone design was decidedly both flipphone and analogue. There was also tricorders and some sort of memory stick. Their model of computing was again a central mainframe with voice access from anywhere, and some fixed viewscreens. Again, nothing like iPhones.
Star Trek Next Gen had the PADD, but it consisted of a screen covering about half of the device, with the controls below the screen. Again, nothing like an iPad or iPhone.
Yes it was possible to use a fingernail to operate the Palm Pilot. But most of the controls were too small to make even that accurate enough, let alone a finger. Remember? Small menus, small scrollbar. Part of Apple's innovation was making a UI that was still useful when poked with sausage fingers rather than the accuracy of a stylus.
Now all of these things also predated Android. And yet I repeat, they chose to copy Blackberry's design until the iPhone came out at which point they changed to copying the iPhone. So even if those things you mentioned were pre-cursors, the Android team either didn't recognise them, or didn't want them.
Be honest, if Apple were the one who had stolen physical designs and software innovations from Android, you nerds would ask nothing less than nuking Apple from orbit.
Oh, you mean like all the stuff Apple blatantly stole from Xerox Parc in the 80's? Corporations routinely steal from each other.
In Space 1999, future Earth (when they passed by it) had devices looking a lot more like fondle slabs. All of Apple's patents are based on look and feel, so the 2001 device applies just fine. The Palm pilot had the form, but not the function due to the technology available at that time. Had capacitive touch in appropriate resolutions been available, the resemblance would have been striking. The design was obvious then, but the tech wasn't there yet.
It's funny how minor differences are enough for you to excuse Apple of copying, but not enough to excuse Samsung.
We wouldn't be stuck using Windows, either, if Apple hadn't killed the competetive GUI market on the PC. They drove the GEM Desktop and GeoWorks out of competition, and set a tone where no third parties could produce windowing environments.
Now that was a good one. Apple killed the Windows competitors.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
There was also the issue of capacitive touchscreens getting to a reasonable price point.
And that's why the second one was available, Apple had a system ready to announce. While Android had to wait another 9 months to hobble together a demo that didn't even use the touchscreen for much.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
A lot of that was a matter of the threshold of pain. Apple was more willing to go with an expensive phone.
Oh, you mean like all the stuff Apple blatantly stole from Xerox Parc in the 80's? Corporations routinely steal from each other.
Argh! There is no "stealing" of things like that, for fuck sake it's "stealing" when it suits the anti-Apple crowd but oh when it is software and content piracy that isn't "stealing" and you will get a torrent of response for suggesting it.
devices looking a lot more like fondle slabs.
Why the fuck are you so obsessed with "fondling"? It's a touchscreen for god sake, do you call your keyboard a "fondleboard"? Or your non-touchscreen phone a "pocket fondlebox"?
When you're using your computer I suppose you just sit there staring at the screen while rubbing your mouse and fondling your keyboard all day right? And you must love fondling the trackpoint on the thinkpad laptops!
Because it's a funny name for them and seems more in line with many of the users actual purpose in owning one.
I didn't coin the term BTW.
so much different from the way you are with your keyboard and mouse i suppose.
Apple "stealing".. Check it out for yourself...
http://visual.ly/braun-or-apple
Minor differences? You haven't presented a single computer in the same form factor, let alone a smartphone. That's before we even start looking at the UI.
You're clutching at straws.
I have presented examples going back to the '60s.
What was it, then? I didn't see anyone with a mahl stick and beret, so it wasn't an easel. Perhaps it was for frying bacon on...
It was only pretend, so I don't see how you can come to any conclusion about how it worked.
I like how you tried to move on from that. Not fast enough, I'm afraid.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Argh! There is no "stealing" of things like that, for fuck sake it's "stealing" when it suits the anti-Apple crowd ...
So is it stealing when Steve Jobs readily admits that Apple steals all the ideas they can. [[http://www.geek.com/apple/steve-jobs-admits-to-shameless-idea-stealingin-1996-1363073/]]
Now all of these things also predated Android. And yet I repeat, they chose to copy Blackberry's design until the iPhone came out at which point they changed to copying the iPhone. So even if those things you mentioned were pre-cursors, the Android team either didn't recognise them, or didn't want them.
Does that matter? At the time the popular smartphone approach was what RIM was doing with the Blackberry so that's the way Android went, to try and get into that market. Apple changed the game by taking pre-existing ideas, concepts and demos and built their product around those, it was successful, they profited massively from it and owned the market for quite some time. So what's the problem?
LG Prada
The LG KE850, also known as the LG Prada, is a touchscreen mobile phone made by LG Electronics. It was first announced on December 12, 2006. It was the first mobile phone with a capacitive touchscreen when LG started selling it in May 2007 (iPhone first gen was released at the end of June 2007).
Samsung SGH F700
The SGH-F700 was a mobile phone manufactured by Samsung. Using Vodafone as its network provider, the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007. Sales to the European market started in November 2007.
The phone had a 3.2" color display and incorporated a touch screen/touch pad interaction system and a slide-out QWERTY key pad. The phone contained a 3 megapixel camera. Furthermore, the handset is HSDPA and Bluetooth 2.0 compatible and possessed mini-USB and microSD memory slots. A Korean design patent for this black, rectangular, round-cornered phone was filed by Samsung in December 2006 prior to the release of the image of the iPhone but after the release of the HTC TyTn which it resembled with its rectangular design and slide out keyboard.
I actually had this phone (got it in Dec. 2007) and while it had a resistive touchscreen instead of a capacitive one, it did not have any tiny icons.
Also of note here should be HTC Tytn which HTC released in June 2006. Looking at this phone, I think HTC T-Mobile G1 (which I purchased and had to unlock to use on the network I was on at the time) is a pretty linear progression of this design.
It is pretty obvious that touchscreens were the way the industry was moving in. Apple had nothing to do with the development of the underlying technology which made the shift to capacitive touchscreens possible and they weren't even the first company to release a phone with a capacitive touchscreen.
Oh and before you throw around what Android looked like in 2005, have a look at this collaboration between Motorola and Apple from 2005, the Motorola Rokr, a phone with a candybar form factor with physical keys on the front (where the physical keys are the num-pad) and here, you have Steve Jobs unveiling the phone.
Seems your memory isn't too good.
What was it, then? I didn't see anyone with a mahl stick and beret, so it wasn't an easel. Perhaps it was for frying bacon on...
It was at the breakfast table. A device they were staring at whilst eating. No interaction. I already said what it was presented as: a video screen. And it's context was a newspaper replacement.
"But the [Star Trek TOS] phone design was decidedly both flipphone and analogue."
It was only pretend, so I don't see how you can come to any conclusion about how it worked.
All Sci-Fi is only pretend. It doesn't mean they aren't presenting certain technologies by what they do with them. With the ST communicator, when atmospheric conditions were bad, James Kirk would turn a little dial on the communicator and all he'd get is static. Which is a presentation of what happens with analogue radio, not digital.
The ROKR was very much a Motorola phone, that had licensed the ability to play DRMed tunes from the iTunes store. It's physical form and UI had nothing to do with Apple.
I'm well aware what direction the market was moving in. I'm in Europe and I already had a touchscreen phone in 2002. The Sony Ericsson P800. But since that's not the specifics of the Patent dispute it's not relevant.
Wrong, the ROKR was a collaboration between Motorola and Apple. If not, explain why Steve Jobs was unveiling the phone?
Neonode N1M
Did you mean the patent with prior art in an actual product? Here's someone sliding to unlock their N1M. Please note that this phone was launched in Q1 2005, well before the iPhone 1st Gen. Neonode N1m ran a custom GUI (called Neno) on top of WinCE 5.
Also, please note that the iPhone 1st Gen wasn't that much of a smartphone, my Nokia 6600 from 2003, running Symbian, could multitask while the iPhone 1st Gen could not. Also, the Samsung F700 had 3G while iPhone 1st Gen did not.
Maybe iPhones should be banned from the market because Apple infringed patents that put the phone in the iPhone, just sayin...
Wrong, the ROKR was a collaboration between Motorola and Apple. If not, explain why Steve Jobs was unveiling the phone?
I didn't say it wasn't a collaboration. The collaboration was the licensing and commercial secrets required to implement it. But if you think that Apple designed the hardware or the UI of it, you're smoking crack.
Why did Jobs unveil it? Because both companies saw that as advantageous for whatever reasons. (Motorola because having Jobs launch it would make big news, as it did. Jobs maybe wanted more licensees, or had something to prove to record companies)
Did you mean the patent with prior art in an actual product?
I mean the patents that they won with in a court of law. Leaving your opinion worthless.
Also, please note that the iPhone 1st Gen wasn't that much of a smartphone, my Nokia 6600 from 2003, running Symbian, could multitask while the iPhone 1st Gen could not.
The G1 iPhone wasn't even a smartphone. As it didn't have third party apps, there was no such thing as a bar on multitasking. iOS certainly was a multitasking OS even back then, and the in-built apps certainly multitasked.
I'm very well aware of what the Symbian phones could do as I was a Software Engineer for Symbian. I didn't have any connection with that particular phone as I'd left by then, but I know the software that went in it. All Symbian phones were outclassed by iPhone from the iPhone 3G. Which is why neither Symbian nor Nokia exist anymore in any real sense. Symbian (as EPOC32) was designed for low spec devices of the mid 1990s with little power or memory, and took very much an embedded approach. By a decade later, mobile computing was powerful enough that they could run a mainstream OS instead. And the outcome was would take maybe 10 times as long to crate an app on Symbian as iOS. And it still wouldn't be nearly as good.
Symbian had some great ideas in it. But it's time was over by the mid noughties.
What was it, then? I didn't see anyone with a mahl stick and beret, so it wasn't an easel. Perhaps it was for frying bacon on...
In the movie it's used to display the same video on both devices at the same time. A video that starts with a BBC logo. It has a row of buttons at the bottom. It's a TV.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Also, please note that the iPhone 1st Gen wasn't that much of a smartphone, my Nokia 6600 from 2003, running Symbian, could multitask while the iPhone 1st Gen could not. Also, the Samsung F700 had 3G while iPhone 1st Gen did not.
And the Nokia 6600 didn't have 3G, and the F700 couldn't multitask.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Apple claim that they had already started working on iphone concepts in 2005? If so, what were they doing looking for licensees? Also, what did Jobs have to prove to the record companies? By this point in time the ipod was almost synonymous with music players.
Oh you mean like in Netherlands where the Dutch Supreme Court limited the applicability of that design patent, claiming prior art? Or maybe you meant UK where as a result of a High Court ruling Apple had to run ads saying Samsung had not infringed its rights? Apple's claims were also denied in several other courts across the globe but I'm not feeling like looking up all the references for you. The only courts which have ruled in favor of Apple are German and American (tbh that particular fiasco should have been classified as a mistrial what with the jury foreman's vested interest and the jurors getting manipulated). So which court of law were you talking about? I think I'll go with the British court, if that's alright with you.
If the iphone 1st gen wasn't a smartphone, how did it set the bar for smartphones like so many Apple fans continuously claim?
There definitely was a bar on multitasking for 3rd party apps and the only apps exempt from this bar were the pre-installed apps. While the OS itself supported multitasking just fine and jailbreaking an iphone gave it the ability to multitask, officially the bar on multitasking was lifted with the release of iOS 4.0 and iPhone 1st gen and iPhone 3G never had multitasking for 3rd party apps.
As for all Symbian phones, you yourself claim that Symbian was almost an embedded system with huge constraints wrt power and memory, with powerful hardware getting cheap enough and becoming a viable alternative as it did, the direction the industry headed in was inevitable. Apple releasing the iPhone was irrelevant since Apple wasn't the only one learning from the mistakes and missteps of every phone manufacturer on the planet, most phone manufacturers were learning and their designs were evolving in pretty much the same direction or did Apple design the iPhone in a vacuum with Jobs pulling a 'let there be light'?
Symbian definitely had some great ideas, every phone manufacturer (including Apple) learned a great deal from the experiments in UI design that went into making smartphones in the late 90s to the mid-2000s, Symbian, WinCE (with all its custom OEM skins) and Blackberry were all pioneers. Learning from others while you sit on the sidelines and then trying to push everyone off the playing field through legal shenanigans when they were the ones who did all the pioneering work is downright skulduggery but since it's Apple doing it and apparently Jobs' reality distortion field is still alive and kicking even after Jobs kicked the bucket so lets cheer the douchebags on!
So the Nokia 6600 should have implemented a technology that had not been developed yet? If it was implementing technology that hadn't been developed, I would have much rather Nokia had pulled all the stops and just added a teleporter to the 6600 instead, that would have been far more useful. But let's be realistic, shall we?
I never thought of the Samsung F700 as a smartphone, it was a glorified feature phone with a pretty nice interface and the convenience of a slideout qwerty keypad. It was a decent enough phone. For the record, it did pretty much everything the iphone 1st gen did (somethings better, somethings worse) but unlike partisan ifans, I am not claiming that the F700 set the direction the smartphones went in so I fail to see your point.
Oh you mean like in Netherlands... Or maybe you meant UK...
You're confusing cases for the design patent, with a case about the patents for elements of the UI.
the direction the industry headed in was inevitable.
There was nothing inevitable about the iPhone UI. Android changed from looking like a Blackberry to looking like an iPhone because of a change in the source of their design plagiarism, not inevitability due to increased hardware power. If Windows Phone had been the big success at the time, Android would be a copy of that instead.
Hey, you said what a real smartphone should have.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
What was not inevitable about the iOS UI? Once the shift from a stylus-centric user interface to a finger-centric interface started with the reduction in the cost of capacitive touchscreens, icon-based interfaces were bound to replace the menu based interfaces found in WinCE and Symbian touchscreen devices. The LG Prada had an icon based interface and the icons were arranged in a grid (how was that particular patent granted? Even Windows 95 had icons arranged in a grid, was it just because the patent had 'on a phone'?) This patent seems to have been invalidated in Europe.
The unlock gesture patented by Apple clearly had prior art (on a phone, no less) and Dutch and German courts agreed with Samsung and invalidated that particular patent.
The only patent that was accepted and for which a couple of Samsung devices were banned was the bounce-back effect in the gallery app, I don't know why this patent claim was upheld but the bounce-back effect on overscrolling has been around for a while in terms of UI design (maybe it had something to do with 'on a phone'.). The rubber banding patent itself was apparently partially invalidated by the USPTO based on similarities to another patent filed by Apple itself and an even earlier patent filed by AOL.
So again, which court of law were you talking about?
Why claim that Android changed from looking like a Blackberry to looking like an iPhone when the LG Prada predates the iphone and had a similar interface? Plus there were substantial differences between the iOS UI and the Android UI.
1. Where upon unlocking the device in iOS you end up in the app screen, on Android you have multiple homescreens with app shortcuts and widgets and to get to the app drawer, you have to click an on screen icon (Huawei is the only Android OEM with a UI lacking a homescreen that I am aware of).
2. iOS lacked a notification drawer until recently while on Android, the notification drawer was always a central UI element.
3. iOS also seemed to try bundling 3rd party apps' settings in the settings app whereas on Android, you'd access app settings by pressing the menu button (initially a physical button replaced by a capacitive button in later incarnations) while inside that particular app (I found the iOS way confusing tbh when I got to play with a mate's iPhone 4 back when it was released, things might have changed in more recent versions of iOS).