Actually pull-down menus were invented by Xerox. But I was referring to the window-bound menu bar. The Lisa had the global menu bar. When Microsoft put the window-bound menu bar in Windows it was a clear improvement. But even to this day you can't get that functionality on a Mac.
I'd say it probably has more to do with Apple's "not invented here" attitude than incredible foresight. Even today you still have to manually enable the right click on their mouse. The menu bar might stay in the same place, but the whole point of resizable windows is that you applications don't. Instead you have to track across today's huge desktop screens to access features, and it also screws up windows focus.
Apple won't be suing Nokia. They have cross-licensing deals with them and with Microsoft. Their beef is with Android, so they chose "safe" examples to not weaken their case in other lawsuits. If Samsung were making MeeGo phones they'd probably still be suing them, the icons and app screen look a lot like Android.
OK, now I realize you were just using new words. The 677 patent is what's called a design patent. "Look and feel" is too reminiscent of Apple 90s lawsuits.
Nokia is fine. Apple keeps using them as an example of a company that's not infringing.
Apple's words are very strategic, don't be fooled by superficial decency. If Nokia were their main competition they'd be suing the pants off them too. Anyway, to be more specific: Nokia uses coloured anodized Aluminium cases with a flat top and bottom. I don't know of anything before the iPod mini which had something like that, and it's certainly way more original than the iPhone designs.
Given that the lawsuit also involved actual emails from Samsung talking about the iPhone, the judgement was based on more than the two links you provided.
Well, kinda it does. It was just one of the claims. The 677 patent was only part of the trial, but that part had to be tested by itself without any other considerations. As things stand now Samsung can change their UI, icons and trade dress all they want, they won't be allowed to make phones shaped like that any more.
You're doing what all Apple supporters are doing and referring to the side-by-side photos of Apple's trade dress arguments. While these may or may not have merit, they aren't supposed to affect the more important patent issues. The jury is, at least in theory, supposed to differentiate and be able to decide something like "the trade dress was violated, but rectangles aren't patentable". Anyway, that's not the verdict they reached. Apple now have a monopoly on rounded rectangular phones.
The fact that you misuse the terms shows that you don't really understand the issues. There's no such thing as an iPhone 3G trade dress. It's a single obsolete product. There's only an Apple trade dress.
Anyway, notice that we were referring to the 677 patent, not the trade dress issue. It doesn't surprise me that you're confuused. Apple have based their case and their PR on it. With great success it seems, evidenced by you. Hardly anybody had even heard of the term trade dress until a couple of months ago.
There's no such thing as a "look and feel" patent, at least not outside the pipe dreams of Apple lawyers.
All the device which were found to be infringing have more than one button. In fact the Galaxy Ace is the only one with a physical button like the iPhone. All others are capacitive touch buttons. So your argument doesn't hold any water.
By the way the Lumia phone cases totally look like the old iPod minis. Just sayin'.
No it's not. Read the verdict and read the patent. All it comes down to is the shape.
The link you posted is about Apple's trademark claims. This kind of claim is completely unprecedented, and the fact that they won it is maybe even more fucked up than the patent on rounded rectangles. Then again nobody really expected the guys on the jury to know much about IP law. I guess it really just highlights how completely inappropriate a jury is for cases like these.
Both factors play a huge role. The difference is that Samsung is competing fairly, whereas Apple sues people to intentionally to harm the long-term prospects of the company.
Hardly matters. Apple thinks they infringed, and you don't want to be on the wrong end of a court case trying to argue that your phone is totally more like the Galaxy Ace than the Galaxy SII. The only real choice is to pay Apple or steer clear from the rounded rectangle.
Curiously enough one of the phones that most resembles an iPhone. Probably because the corners aren't rounded vertically. But there again the same goes for the Mesmerize. If you can explain what makes the Ace so different then you'd be better than every patent lawyer and tech journalist out there.
Truth is however that the jury don't have to say why or defend their decision. They weren't really qualified and reached a completely one-sided decision by racing through the multiple-choice forms. Even the most ardent Apple fanboys need to admit that the verdict lacks real consistency.
The only phone found not to infringe upon the '677 patent was, curiously enough, the Galaxy Ace. I challenge you to explain what makes this phone so different.
In reality the differences are marginal at best, and with this enormous precedent on their side Apple will be able to pressure every company that comes close to any of the phones on the list. Say hello to Google Nexus look-alikes (well, truth be told, all major manufacturers have switched their flagship design to Nexus clones by now anyway).
Apple has sued EVERYBODY. Motorola, Nokia, HTC, you name them. HTC is particularly sad because they made some of the nicest smartphones, but it looks like they might be dead a year from now, in a big part thanks to sales bans credited to Aplle's legal team.
YOU read the verdict. The '677 patent was upheld. It is about Apple patenting the rectangle. Anybody arguing otherwise is an Apple shill or misinformed fanboy, and that's the truth.
It is true that there are other aspects that were ruled to be infringing, but the patented rectangle now stands strong and on it's own.
The car industry cross-licenses their inventions. That's how the phone industry really works too, at least until Apple came along and started saying that their frivolous UI patents were a hundred times more valuable than everything else.
Both those companies sell one single product and represent a tiny fraction. The way to become dominant is to create a precedent and intimidate the other players. The only other major player is HTC and they'll probably be bankrupt by this time next year. Android might survive, but Apple have certainly done a good job in killing HTC.
That doesn't matter. The jury found that this phone infringes on this patent. No matter what kind of UI it uses, nobody is allowed to make a phone which resembles the iPhone drawing more than the Samsung does and nobody will want to test the boarders. Yes, it really is that bad. Apple has successfully patented the rectangle and defended it in court. This is a truly awful, awful result.
Microsoft tend not to axe popular features and make sure products are back-compatible. Their back-end may be shitty but most people like the improvements, even the ribbon interface. Apple has always had a problem with "not invented here" syndrome which is why users put up with tardy mice and keyboards, but you can't blame them for not being consistent. OSX looks practically the same as it did 11 years ago, and even that was remarkably close to classic mac OS. But they damn well make sure that the features and gimmicks they make work, that's a major part of OSX's wow factor. They don't just say "yeah we removed x and y but believe us it's so much better and more logical this way. In the process we also broke z, but that's not our project. Complain to those developers."
No, market share is the single most important % in the industry. When Macintosh's market share slumped people weren't interested in spending development time to gain a tiny market share and they lost bargaining power with strategic business partners like Adobe and Microsoft, not to mention the support of game developers. This legacy haunts the Mac environment to this day.
When Apple started selling the Macintosh John Sculley insisted on a price that would make a net profit for the company, whereas Steve Jobs wanted to sell it below cost because he anticipated the importance of market share. While Apple continued to sell profitable premium-range computers their market dwindled and dragged the products and the company down.
High profit margins come at the cost of competitiveness. The assumption that all is well as long as profits are high is misguided, demonstrated no better than in Apple's history itself. Where apologists see high profit margins, sceptics see slipping market share, high prices, desperate patent lawsuits and products which have lost their edge.
So? The F700 was released in December 2007, "many months" later...
But unveiled in Febuary, and in developed for many months before that. What you're trying is the typical Apple double standard. Old sketches and fanciful recollections are enough to establish Apple's originality and designs, but nothing short of a full product-release will do for any of the competition.
That's not being disputed.
Duh! Yes it is. You're turning the story around again into something that's arguably true, but not at all what Apple is claiming. If Apple were to say "yeah, a big touchscreen isn't original, we just made the UI somewhat better" then everyone would agree with them. But they're effectively saying "we invented slate-type touchscreen phones, we invented multitouch and all this other shit and you're not allowed to use it". Their arguments are either highly misleading or blatant lies.
They might have dropped it because of the builtin keyboard making it sufficiently different.
It seems you don't understand the issue. Apple's argument is that Samsung intentionally copied the external appearance after the iPhone was released. The functional aspects of a now obsolete phone are completely irrelevant. If OTOH Apple was relying on pixelated jpegs to determine infringement that just proves how clueless and chaotic their assertions are.
I think it's sad to not actually understand what the issue is.
It's sad that people can become so defensive of Apple to not understand what's at stake. Apple are claiming exclusive rights to designs they didn't invent, through trivial patents and overbearing trade-dress arguments. So stop trying to convince us of the "whole picture" argument with the "breakthrough UI". If even one of Apple's arguments is vindicated it could cripple the vibrant phone industry and set an awful precedent for manufacturing in general.
There's a long way between wishful thinking like drawing a few drafts based on an untested concept and actually building a product that works while betting the company in the process.
This is just another red herring argument. Patents are about inventions. You don't retroactively get favourable treatment for being risky, and Apple doesn't have a patent on making popular products.
No. They only sold a few individual electronic parts. The phones themselves were assembled by contractors, presumably beginning in early 2007. The iPhone itself was released in summer 2007, long after the F700.
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Actually pull-down menus were invented by Xerox. But I was referring to the window-bound menu bar. The Lisa had the global menu bar. When Microsoft put the window-bound menu bar in Windows it was a clear improvement. But even to this day you can't get that functionality on a Mac.
The global menu bar seems to absolutely go against that ideal. The average distance to the target is always increased and the menus buttons are tiny.
I'd say it probably has more to do with Apple's "not invented here" attitude than incredible foresight. Even today you still have to manually enable the right click on their mouse.
The menu bar might stay in the same place, but the whole point of resizable windows is that you applications don't. Instead you have to track across today's huge desktop screens to access features, and it also screws up windows focus.
The story says that only the 8GB version does. The flagship 32G phone is non-expandable.
Apple won't be suing Nokia. They have cross-licensing deals with them and with Microsoft. Their beef is with Android, so they chose "safe" examples to not weaken their case in other lawsuits. If Samsung were making MeeGo phones they'd probably still be suing them, the icons and app screen look a lot like Android.
OK, now I realize you were just using new words. The 677 patent is what's called a design patent. "Look and feel" is too reminiscent of Apple 90s lawsuits.
Nokia is fine. Apple keeps using them as an example of a company that's not infringing.
Apple's words are very strategic, don't be fooled by superficial decency. If Nokia were their main competition they'd be suing the pants off them too.
Anyway, to be more specific: Nokia uses coloured anodized Aluminium cases with a flat top and bottom. I don't know of anything before the iPod mini which had something like that, and it's certainly way more original than the iPhone designs.
Given that the lawsuit also involved actual emails from Samsung talking about the iPhone, the judgement was based on more than the two links you provided.
Well, kinda it does. It was just one of the claims. The 677 patent was only part of the trial, but that part had to be tested by itself without any other considerations. As things stand now Samsung can change their UI, icons and trade dress all they want, they won't be allowed to make phones shaped like that any more.
You're doing what all Apple supporters are doing and referring to the side-by-side photos of Apple's trade dress arguments. While these may or may not have merit, they aren't supposed to affect the more important patent issues. The jury is, at least in theory, supposed to differentiate and be able to decide something like "the trade dress was violated, but rectangles aren't patentable".
Anyway, that's not the verdict they reached. Apple now have a monopoly on rounded rectangular phones.
The fact that you misuse the terms shows that you don't really understand the issues. There's no such thing as an iPhone 3G trade dress. It's a single obsolete product. There's only an Apple trade dress.
Anyway, notice that we were referring to the 677 patent, not the trade dress issue. It doesn't surprise me that you're confuused. Apple have based their case and their PR on it. With great success it seems, evidenced by you. Hardly anybody had even heard of the term trade dress until a couple of months ago.
There's no such thing as a "look and feel" patent, at least not outside the pipe dreams of Apple lawyers.
All the device which were found to be infringing have more than one button. In fact the Galaxy Ace is the only one with a physical button like the iPhone. All others are capacitive touch buttons. So your argument doesn't hold any water.
By the way the Lumia phone cases totally look like the old iPod minis. Just sayin'.
No it's not. Read the verdict and read the patent. All it comes down to is the shape.
The link you posted is about Apple's trademark claims. This kind of claim is completely unprecedented, and the fact that they won it is maybe even more fucked up than the patent on rounded rectangles. Then again nobody really expected the guys on the jury to know much about IP law. I guess it really just highlights how completely inappropriate a jury is for cases like these.
Both factors play a huge role. The difference is that Samsung is competing fairly, whereas Apple sues people to intentionally to harm the long-term prospects of the company.
Hardly matters. Apple thinks they infringed, and you don't want to be on the wrong end of a court case trying to argue that your phone is totally more like the Galaxy Ace than the Galaxy SII. The only real choice is to pay Apple or steer clear from the rounded rectangle.
Curiously enough one of the phones that most resembles an iPhone. Probably because the corners aren't rounded vertically. But there again the same goes for the Mesmerize. If you can explain what makes the Ace so different then you'd be better than every patent lawyer and tech journalist out there.
Truth is however that the jury don't have to say why or defend their decision. They weren't really qualified and reached a completely one-sided decision by racing through the multiple-choice forms. Even the most ardent Apple fanboys need to admit that the verdict lacks real consistency.
The only phone found not to infringe upon the '677 patent was, curiously enough, the Galaxy Ace. I challenge you to explain what makes this phone so different.
In reality the differences are marginal at best, and with this enormous precedent on their side Apple will be able to pressure every company that comes close to any of the phones on the list. Say hello to Google Nexus look-alikes (well, truth be told, all major manufacturers have switched their flagship design to Nexus clones by now anyway).
Apple has sued EVERYBODY. Motorola, Nokia, HTC, you name them. HTC is particularly sad because they made some of the nicest smartphones, but it looks like they might be dead a year from now, in a big part thanks to sales bans credited to Aplle's legal team.
YOU read the verdict. The '677 patent was upheld. It is about Apple patenting the rectangle. Anybody arguing otherwise is an Apple shill or misinformed fanboy, and that's the truth.
It is true that there are other aspects that were ruled to be infringing, but the patented rectangle now stands strong and on it's own.
The car industry cross-licenses their inventions. That's how the phone industry really works too, at least until Apple came along and started saying that their frivolous UI patents were a hundred times more valuable than everything else.
A small developer would never be able to stand up against the legal department and patent portfolio of a large corporation.
Both those companies sell one single product and represent a tiny fraction. The way to become dominant is to create a precedent and intimidate the other players. The only other major player is HTC and they'll probably be bankrupt by this time next year. Android might survive, but Apple have certainly done a good job in killing HTC.
That doesn't matter. The jury found that this phone infringes on this patent. No matter what kind of UI it uses, nobody is allowed to make a phone which resembles the iPhone drawing more than the Samsung does and nobody will want to test the boarders.
Yes, it really is that bad. Apple has successfully patented the rectangle and defended it in court.
This is a truly awful, awful result.
Microsoft tend not to axe popular features and make sure products are back-compatible. Their back-end may be shitty but most people like the improvements, even the ribbon interface.
Apple has always had a problem with "not invented here" syndrome which is why users put up with tardy mice and keyboards, but you can't blame them for not being consistent. OSX looks practically the same as it did 11 years ago, and even that was remarkably close to classic mac OS. But they damn well make sure that the features and gimmicks they make work, that's a major part of OSX's wow factor. They don't just say "yeah we removed x and y but believe us it's so much better and more logical this way. In the process we also broke z, but that's not our project. Complain to those developers."
No, market share is the single most important % in the industry. When Macintosh's market share slumped people weren't interested in spending development time to gain a tiny market share and they lost bargaining power with strategic business partners like Adobe and Microsoft, not to mention the support of game developers. This legacy haunts the Mac environment to this day.
When Apple started selling the Macintosh John Sculley insisted on a price that would make a net profit for the company, whereas Steve Jobs wanted to sell it below cost because he anticipated the importance of market share. While Apple continued to sell profitable premium-range computers their market dwindled and dragged the products and the company down.
High profit margins come at the cost of competitiveness. The assumption that all is well as long as profits are high is misguided, demonstrated no better than in Apple's history itself. Where apologists see high profit margins, sceptics see slipping market share, high prices, desperate patent lawsuits and products which have lost their edge.
So? The F700 was released in December 2007, "many months" later...
But unveiled in Febuary, and in developed for many months before that. What you're trying is the typical Apple double standard. Old sketches and fanciful recollections are enough to establish Apple's originality and designs, but nothing short of a full product-release will do for any of the competition.
That's not being disputed.
Duh! Yes it is. You're turning the story around again into something that's arguably true, but not at all what Apple is claiming. If Apple were to say "yeah, a big touchscreen isn't original, we just made the UI somewhat better" then everyone would agree with them. But they're effectively saying "we invented slate-type touchscreen phones, we invented multitouch and all this other shit and you're not allowed to use it". Their arguments are either highly misleading or blatant lies.
They might have dropped it because of the builtin keyboard making it sufficiently different.
It seems you don't understand the issue. Apple's argument is that Samsung intentionally copied the external appearance after the iPhone was released. The functional aspects of a now obsolete phone are completely irrelevant. If OTOH Apple was relying on pixelated jpegs to determine infringement that just proves how clueless and chaotic their assertions are.
I think it's sad to not actually understand what the issue is.
It's sad that people can become so defensive of Apple to not understand what's at stake. Apple are claiming exclusive rights to designs they didn't invent, through trivial patents and overbearing trade-dress arguments. So stop trying to convince us of the "whole picture" argument with the "breakthrough UI". If even one of Apple's arguments is vindicated it could cripple the vibrant phone industry and set an awful precedent for manufacturing in general.
There's a long way between wishful thinking like drawing a few drafts based on an untested concept and actually building a product that works while betting the company in the process.
This is just another red herring argument. Patents are about inventions. You don't retroactively get favourable treatment for being risky, and Apple doesn't have a patent on making popular products.
No. They only sold a few individual electronic parts. The phones themselves were assembled by contractors, presumably beginning in early 2007. The iPhone itself was released in summer 2007, long after the F700.