But what still seems out of your grasp is the fact that companies, like individuals, do what is in their interest, not what fulfills your personal ideological fantasies.
So why should Apple care if the patent office allows it to file patents that may be similar or even identical/overlapping with existing ideas?
And when did Apple attempt to take down Amazon's mechanical turk service with their patent, or any of the other examples of sloppy patent filings? Why is this a problem in itself? The problem is the patent system. Solve that rather than pointing out symptoms of the failed system.
So Apple was "inspired" to create the iPhone based on photos release of the Prada a couple months before the iPhone was demonstrated with a fully functional UI, one that the Prada never had and that LG still hasn't shipped?
What are you, an LG shill? Didn't know they existed.
The Prada was an overpriced piece of shit that didn't do anything interesting apart from sporting a clothing brand label. It was an ugly box with a crap UI, a high price tag, and was ignored by the market because it didn't offer anything interesting.
When you say "first," it suggests that the Surface demo arrived before the iPhone demo. The iPhone was not only shown first, but also shipped first.
And when you talk abstractly about gesture patents, are you even referencing what Apple patented here, or just making vague arguments laced with wholly inaccurate false statements?
You can complain about Apple's patents, but the reason it patents is because it can. The reason it has to patent is because if it doesn't, it gets attacked.
Tearing into companies that file every patent they can is like blaming citizens for carrying guns in a country that makes gun ownership legal while failing to police criminals. Why not seek to fix the system rather than complain about a symptom you don't like?
Perhaps you are blinded by ignorant idealism? Apple, and every other corporation, isn't going to play a different game until the rules change. Everyone knows that the patent system needs reform, they just don't agree on what the game should look like. So come up with a solution and find consensus. We don't really need additional complaint about game players who are playing according to the ridiculous rules of the game.
The only thing "similar" about the LG Prada phone and the iPhone was that both were rectangular boxes with a screen on one side.
Two years after the iPhone, LG still can't poop out anything but junk. It copied the iPod to deliver the US "chocolate" phone, and its Prada follow-ups have all been assclown imitations of the iPhone.
If the iPhone was "inspired" by something, it was probably the iPod. Your desperate attempts to suggest that it wasn't original seem to suggest that there are better alternatives that the rest of us just never heard of. Where are these wonderful devices, and why isn't LG, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Samsung, etc selling them?
Apple has nearly $30 billion in the bank now. It didn't need money from AT&T to start developing the iPhone.
But the thing is, no matter where Apple got the money, it needed a viable business model for investing those millions into developing the iPhone as a product.
What past examples are there of Apple using its patents to destroy competitors? There may well be examples, but I'm not aware of any. I am aware of a number of cases where Apple has been hit by patent trolls and benefitted from having a patent portfolio to use defensively. Creative, Burst, etc. Apple is always being sued by a half dozen patent groups at any given time.
On the other hand, the only example I can recall of recent patent threats to stop competition have been Microsofts', used to threaten Linux supporters and developers.
Apple has indicated it won't allow itself to be ripped off by cloners, but has specific patents in hand that cover a single product. It's not threatening to sue specific products out of business to prevent competition as Ballmer did.
Well actually, "ironic" would be an iPhone-interfaced hospital device failing, causing his death. But there is nothing to suggest that hospital equipment should be outfitted with mobile touch interfaces. It sounds like a terrible idea in fact.
On the other hand, recall that Apple developed unique, sophisticated IP on top of the basic UI concepts originating at Xerox, and those were stolen wholesale by Apple's key software development partner, Microsoft. Much of the world now thinks that MS invented or co-invented much of what it actually ripped off from Apple in the early 80s, and then forced Apple to agree to license to the company in exchange for two years of Excel exclusivity in 1985.
Microsoft continued to steal Apple's IP, including direct theft of portions of QuickTime that MS, using Intel, included in Video for Windows.
So the REAL IRONY would be Apple spending millions to make multitouch usable in a mobile device, and then letting its competitors once again rip it off and claim ownership again.
"Fool me twice... can't get fooled again" or whatever.
Anything in Apple's patents that isn't a valid, unique invention will be thrown out by the courts, just as Apple threw out half of the burst.com patents.
It's also useful to remember that the media is now made up of lying whores who say what they think will get the most attention, rather than journalists who are reporting what is actually happening. There is good reason to believe that Apple will not sue Palm, but is rather wielding its patents defensively, just as it has with the iPod. Remember when Apple sued Creative out of business? Oh right, that didn't happen. It was Creative who sued Apple, which in turn used its patent portfolio to turn Creative into a partner.
Except for a multitouch screen. And Android doesn't support Bluetooth any better than Apple's nearly worthless level of support.
What exactly do you even have in mind when you say "all the features"? Because the features of the iPhone that are novel are not supported in Android, and those that are nothing special. What sets the iPhone apart is mainly its user interface, its software store, its smart integration into iTunes/iPod stuff. Android offers none of those things. It give users a DIY-UI, a software "store" without security, merchandising, or sales, and no PC connectivity.
"Begin Intellectual Property Reform: rather than just the usual extension of copyright terms, Obama's staff recognizes the "need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated." That includes "opening up the patent process to citizen review [to] reduce the uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation."
"Obama's running mate has been criticized for supporting current policy on copyright, but an exposure of government policy to sources of light outside of the lobbyists currently illuminating the dark caves of Washington is likely to change things dramatically."
GW Bush probably didn't personally torture anyone either. The problem is that his administration's policies allowed torture camps and supported torture as an ineffectual "intelligence gathering" method, just as Bush's administration promoted the idea that the markets would do better without the rule of law.
Bush furthered the deregulation policies of Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan, particularly in the area of derivatives, first with Enron and then in the housing market.
While banks were giving suspect loans, they were driven to do so by the insatiable, unregulated derivatives market, which expected that layers of wealth could be extracted from a bubble that would never burst, because it involved real estate. That was disastrously wrong, and has now pulled the pin on the entire credit market.
Don't revise history to blame the poor trying to get a house; it was deregulation: an attempt to have markets without the rule of law.
Problem with Windows Mobile: the software market is dysfunctional: no central app store like Apple for at least another year, sites like Handango take 40-70% of your revenues, and WiMo market share is dying. Dropped from 24% in 2004 to 12% this year. Look at apps that are available: ugly, expensive, and lame-o. Consumers aren't attracted to that, and the installed base is falling apart. Microsoft sold 18 million in the last year, not even twice as many as the iPhone, except that the iPhone is one platform; all the WiMo devices are slightly different, with different features and capabilities, from non-touch tiny Smartphone screens to larger Palm-style Pocket PC form factors.
Look at RIM: Apple just passed them in sales this quarter. RIM sells replacement phones to a relatively slow growing base (19 million subscribers total, again less than double Apple's sales this year). Its installed base is also spread across a variety of different models.
Palm is dead.
Symbian is big but struggling. Difficult to develop for, has the same problems with marketing apps as WiMo. Nokia sells a lot of phones, but most don't run Symbian but only the feature phone Nokia OS. It's Symbian products are split between different hardware types, and the overall Symbian market is currently split between three platforms.
Flash Lite and Java struggle to run on hundreds of slightly different phones, which all have the same software marketing problems. Android is basically just a semi-consistent version of Java ME, the hardware will still be all over the place. Installed base is currently very small, and the G1 isn't going to help in that regard.
Apple's iPhone has a single installed base of over ten million units, and growing dramatically. It has a wildly profitable marketing system for software, good development tools that share a lot in common with Mac development, and a customer base that spends money. There is no real variation in hardware to deal with, nor problems between the software/hardware vendor.
So if you want to do mobile software to make a political statement, or because you like a certain technology, or just want to keep yourself busy, you have several options. If you want to make money, you write iPhone software and sell it to the ten million iPhone users and several million other iPod touch users.
Yes, Apple's argument is that the "market for Mac OS PCs" does not really exist, just as nobody else has the right to market Pepsi's soft drink, or sell BMWs, or force DuPont to license cellophane to them. The DuPont case went to the supreme Court in 1956:
"In a civil action under  4 of the Sherman Act, the Government charged that appellee had monopolized interstate commerce in cellophane in violation of  2 of the Act. During the relevant period, appellee produced almost 75% of the cellophane sold in the United States; but cellophane constituted less than 20% of all flexible packaging materials sold in the United States. The trial court found that the relevant market for determining the extent of appellee's market control was the market for flexible packaging materials, and that competition from other materials in that market prevented appellee from possessing monopoly powers in its sales of cellophane. Accordingly, it dismissed the complaint."
Apple's brief notes: "Psystarâ(TM)s effort to define a single-brand relevant market contravenes well-known principles of antitrust law. Relevant markets generally cannot be limited to a single manufacturerâ(TM)s products. As the Supreme Court recognized in the United States v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 351 U.S. 377, 76 S.Ct. 994 (1956), the âpower that, let us say, automobile or soft-drink manufacturers have over their trademarked products is not the power that makes an illegal monopoly. Illegal power must be appraised in terms of the competitive market for the product.'"
"Most recently, in Spahr, supra, the court rejected almost identical allegations as those made here. Plaintiff claimed that Leeginâ(TM)s brand of womenâ(TM)s accessories, called the 'Brighton' brand, was a separate market because the products are unique, they are marketed as 'one of a kind,' customers would not consider other accessories as 'suitable substitutes,' and there was an 'inelasticity of demand' for these products. 2008 WL 3914461, at pp. 3, 8. Applying the Supreme Courtâ(TM)s decision in Twombly, the District Court dismissed the complaint without leave to amend because its definition of the relevant market was implausible 'from the face of the complaintâ¦.' Id., at 8."
forced licensing
Another thing to consider: if you think Apple should be forced to license the Mac OS in the way Psystar is claiming, it follows that you also must agree with Pystar's claim that Linux and Windows are so far inferior to the Mac to the point where they can't complete, therefore creating a distinct market. I believe these claims are ridiculous. Anyone who doesn't should go on record admitting that everything else in the industry is a joke compared to the Mac. That is a line of reasoning which I will be happy to use in future arguments where the opposite is claimed. One can't have it both ways.
"The right of a manufacturer to exercise independent discretion with whom he will deal."
"Ultimately," Apple's filing states, "Psystar seeks to force Apple to license its software to competitors, like Psystar, so they can use Mac OS to create Mac 'clones.' Psystar undeniably can sell, and is selling, its Open Computers running Windows or Linux in direct competition with Appleâ(TM)s Mac. Nevertheless, it also wants to sell computers running Appleâ(TM)s Mac OS in direct competition with Appleâ(TM)s Mac. However, one of the bedrock principles of antitrust law is that a manufacturerâ(TM)s unilateral decision concerning how to distribute its product and with whom it will deal cannot violate the Sherman Act:"
The Sherman Act "does not restrict the long recognized right of a trader or manufacturer engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal. And, of course, he may announce in advance the circumstances under which he will refuse to sell."
iTunes songs are 99 cents. That is 200% more than what "market competitor selling downloads of the same content?
iTunes movies are 2.99 to 4.99. That is 200% more than what "market competitor selling downloads of the same content?
iTunes mobile software is mostly $1-10. Most mobile software for other platforms is $15-$50.
Apple's DRM isn't designed to reform thieves. It's designed to create a market. You can't stop thieves, but you can create a functional market that leaves the thieves to steal elsewhere. Or are you suggesting that because there is shoplifting, we can't have retail stores?
"Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction to minor gripes"
That, in a nutshell, is why the industry isn't taking all the bleating about DRM seriously. DRM is a business decision. It's not there because they hate your freedom, it's there because they think it will help stop or at least slow piracy. If the world wasn't full of thieves, there would be no DRM.
Acting like DRM will go away if you cry about it is childish. It will only go away by becoming invisible. Nobody seems to know that iPhone apps are protected with DRM, nor that it helps bring prices down (although it certainly doesn't have to; PSP DRM hasn't had any effect on software prices).
The real issue is that DRM doesn't work well in the hands of software producers (audio/video/apps), because their monetary conflict of interest pushes them to wield the power of DRM to extort hight prices.
The only successful DRM comes from hardware makers (read: Apple) who balance the power to govern sales without extortion prices and without runaway piracy, because their interests are aligned with both consumers and intellectual property content producers.
That's why Microsoft's DRM didn't work; the company only cared about producers because it wasn't selling its DRM products directly to consumers, and subsequently stacked the deck against end users.
It fits into the 2006 list. Symbian market share is now down to 55%, just as Microsoft's WiMo fell from 23% back in 2004 to today's 12%.
Nokia is taking over Symbian and making it into an open source foundation because royalties are dropping rapidly. Nobody wants to pay for OS software. Without revenues (down 14%), Symbian can't afford to invest in modernizing.
The era of Windows-like software platform licensing is over. From here on out, it will be integrated proprietary platforms (RIM and Apple) or free platforms (Google and Ubuntu). There's no need for paying for a commercial software OS. Symbian is adapting, Microsoft is pretending the climate isn't changing.
There are a lot of things that are "not inherently illegal" that become the basis of a civil suit after one enters an agreement not to do it. That's what this case is about, so you can stop shaking the strawman of your populist idealism.
Additionally, there are plenty of workalike compatibility tools and or independent implementations of a proprietary standard that exist, but could easily be assailed, probably successfully, by patent attacks.
Microsoft could probably easily shut down Samba if it decided it wanted to (and determined the cost was worth the bad press). Apple created its own lossless codec after determining that supporting FLAC would expose it to liability due the patent attacks. Just because something exists doesn't mean it can be defended successfully under patent assault.
Doesn't matter. The question is: do you respect license contracts? Because if you only obey contracts that have no impact on what you want to do, you can't demand others follow the rules of a license agreement they might not want to follow.
I understand the difference. What I'm asking is if you have respect for all software licenses equally, or if you just pick and choose which things you decide to respect and which you do not based on what you want to do.
You may have no interest in using Linux commercially without contributing your source changes back to the community. A major corporation may have no interest in putting OS X on a machine it is not licensed to be on.
However, if both entities only respect the rules that have to impact on what they want to do, the law is meaningless. Do you believe in the rule of law, or do you just believe in law and contracts that have no real impact on what you want to do, and ignore laws and contracts that do?
If so, your opinion isn't worth much to anyone who does respect the rule of law. Stop answering the question like Sarah Palin.
What about if you possess Linux? Do you have the right to use it outside of the GPL, without contributing back changes?
Is your attitude about free software consistent with your view of commercial software? Does the license on intellectual property mean nothing to you ever, or only when that license is created by a commercial entity and violating the license is convenient to your needs?
Because unless you hate GPL freedom too, you're a hypocrite to advocate ignoring the limitations of a software license.
The first "Microsoft's server market share" link is Gartner's numbers on servers shipping with an OS.
The second "Linux's server markiet share" relates to commercial licensing for servers, and addresses the Unix market buying Linux licenses.
Neither captures the Linux server market, as you don't have to buy Linux to use it. Most people using a Linux server didn't buy a server with Linux on it, apart from segment of commercial Unix users who migrated to commercially supplied Linux.
If Linux in servers had really fallen as your numbers try to suggest, Microsoft wouldn't be spending money trying to pretend Linux costs more and other white paper propaganda.
Trying to compare Windows with Linux as new sales is like comparing iTunes with torrents and finding that hardly anyone is buying non-iTunes music, so therefore torrents are going away.
Microsoft spins its R&D into an "Other" category in its earning statements, and that segment blows through crazy billions of dollars. The problem is that nothing tangible results from all of that spending.
Apple has $20 billion, which for a company that earns haft as much revenue and a third the profits, is proportional to Microsoft. The difference is that Apple is growing and building new products and businesses, while Microsoft is servicing the same three monopolies it had ten years ago: Windows, Office, and Servers. Outside of those high profit cash cows, Microsoft hasn't done a damn thing in ten years. All three are now under attack.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes please click the Zune ads.
But what still seems out of your grasp is the fact that companies, like individuals, do what is in their interest, not what fulfills your personal ideological fantasies.
So why should Apple care if the patent office allows it to file patents that may be similar or even identical/overlapping with existing ideas?
And when did Apple attempt to take down Amazon's mechanical turk service with their patent, or any of the other examples of sloppy patent filings? Why is this a problem in itself? The problem is the patent system. Solve that rather than pointing out symptoms of the failed system.
So Apple was "inspired" to create the iPhone based on photos release of the Prada a couple months before the iPhone was demonstrated with a fully functional UI, one that the Prada never had and that LG still hasn't shipped?
What are you, an LG shill? Didn't know they existed.
The Prada was an overpriced piece of shit that didn't do anything interesting apart from sporting a clothing brand label. It was an ugly box with a crap UI, a high price tag, and was ignored by the market because it didn't offer anything interesting.
When you say "first," it suggests that the Surface demo arrived before the iPhone demo. The iPhone was not only shown first, but also shipped first.
And when you talk abstractly about gesture patents, are you even referencing what Apple patented here, or just making vague arguments laced with wholly inaccurate false statements?
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
You can complain about Apple's patents, but the reason it patents is because it can. The reason it has to patent is because if it doesn't, it gets attacked.
Tearing into companies that file every patent they can is like blaming citizens for carrying guns in a country that makes gun ownership legal while failing to police criminals. Why not seek to fix the system rather than complain about a symptom you don't like?
Perhaps you are blinded by ignorant idealism? Apple, and every other corporation, isn't going to play a different game until the rules change. Everyone knows that the patent system needs reform, they just don't agree on what the game should look like. So come up with a solution and find consensus. We don't really need additional complaint about game players who are playing according to the ridiculous rules of the game.
Apple's Billion Dollar Patent Bluster
The only thing "similar" about the LG Prada phone and the iPhone was that both were rectangular boxes with a screen on one side.
Two years after the iPhone, LG still can't poop out anything but junk. It copied the iPod to deliver the US "chocolate" phone, and its Prada follow-ups have all been assclown imitations of the iPhone.
If the iPhone was "inspired" by something, it was probably the iPod. Your desperate attempts to suggest that it wasn't original seem to suggest that there are better alternatives that the rest of us just never heard of. Where are these wonderful devices, and why isn't LG, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Samsung, etc selling them?
Apple iPhone vs LG Prada KE850
Apple has nearly $30 billion in the bank now. It didn't need money from AT&T to start developing the iPhone.
But the thing is, no matter where Apple got the money, it needed a viable business model for investing those millions into developing the iPhone as a product.
What past examples are there of Apple using its patents to destroy competitors? There may well be examples, but I'm not aware of any. I am aware of a number of cases where Apple has been hit by patent trolls and benefitted from having a patent portfolio to use defensively. Creative, Burst, etc. Apple is always being sued by a half dozen patent groups at any given time.
On the other hand, the only example I can recall of recent patent threats to stop competition have been Microsofts', used to threaten Linux supporters and developers.
Apple has indicated it won't allow itself to be ripped off by cloners, but has specific patents in hand that cover a single product. It's not threatening to sue specific products out of business to prevent competition as Ballmer did.
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source
Why Apple's Tim Cook Did Not Threaten Palm Pre
Well actually, "ironic" would be an iPhone-interfaced hospital device failing, causing his death. But there is nothing to suggest that hospital equipment should be outfitted with mobile touch interfaces. It sounds like a terrible idea in fact.
On the other hand, recall that Apple developed unique, sophisticated IP on top of the basic UI concepts originating at Xerox, and those were stolen wholesale by Apple's key software development partner, Microsoft. Much of the world now thinks that MS invented or co-invented much of what it actually ripped off from Apple in the early 80s, and then forced Apple to agree to license to the company in exchange for two years of Excel exclusivity in 1985.
Microsoft continued to steal Apple's IP, including direct theft of portions of QuickTime that MS, using Intel, included in Video for Windows.
So the REAL IRONY would be Apple spending millions to make multitouch usable in a mobile device, and then letting its competitors once again rip it off and claim ownership again.
"Fool me twice... can't get fooled again" or whatever.
Anything in Apple's patents that isn't a valid, unique invention will be thrown out by the courts, just as Apple threw out half of the burst.com patents.
It's also useful to remember that the media is now made up of lying whores who say what they think will get the most attention, rather than journalists who are reporting what is actually happening. There is good reason to believe that Apple will not sue Palm, but is rather wielding its patents defensively, just as it has with the iPod. Remember when Apple sued Creative out of business? Oh right, that didn't happen. It was Creative who sued Apple, which in turn used its patent portfolio to turn Creative into a partner.
Why Apple's Tim Cook Did Not Threaten Palm Pre
Except for a multitouch screen. And Android doesn't support Bluetooth any better than Apple's nearly worthless level of support.
What exactly do you even have in mind when you say "all the features"? Because the features of the iPhone that are novel are not supported in Android, and those that are nothing special. What sets the iPhone apart is mainly its user interface, its software store, its smart integration into iTunes/iPod stuff. Android offers none of those things. It give users a DIY-UI, a software "store" without security, merchandising, or sales, and no PC connectivity.
Google's Android Platform Faces Five Tough Obstacles
"Begin Intellectual Property Reform: rather than just the usual extension of copyright terms, Obama's staff recognizes the "need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated." That includes "opening up the patent process to citizen review [to] reduce the uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation."
"Obama's running mate has been criticized for supporting current policy on copyright, but an exposure of government policy to sources of light outside of the lobbyists currently illuminating the dark caves of Washington is likely to change things dramatically."
What an Obama Presidency Means for Technology
GW Bush probably didn't personally torture anyone either. The problem is that his administration's policies allowed torture camps and supported torture as an ineffectual "intelligence gathering" method, just as Bush's administration promoted the idea that the markets would do better without the rule of law.
Bush furthered the deregulation policies of Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan, particularly in the area of derivatives, first with Enron and then in the housing market.
While banks were giving suspect loans, they were driven to do so by the insatiable, unregulated derivatives market, which expected that layers of wealth could be extracted from a bubble that would never burst, because it involved real estate. That was disastrously wrong, and has now pulled the pin on the entire credit market.
Don't revise history to blame the poor trying to get a house; it was deregulation: an attempt to have markets without the rule of law.
What Prop 8 Means to America
Problem with Windows Mobile: the software market is dysfunctional: no central app store like Apple for at least another year, sites like Handango take 40-70% of your revenues, and WiMo market share is dying. Dropped from 24% in 2004 to 12% this year. Look at apps that are available: ugly, expensive, and lame-o. Consumers aren't attracted to that, and the installed base is falling apart. Microsoft sold 18 million in the last year, not even twice as many as the iPhone, except that the iPhone is one platform; all the WiMo devices are slightly different, with different features and capabilities, from non-touch tiny Smartphone screens to larger Palm-style Pocket PC form factors.
Look at RIM: Apple just passed them in sales this quarter. RIM sells replacement phones to a relatively slow growing base (19 million subscribers total, again less than double Apple's sales this year). Its installed base is also spread across a variety of different models.
Palm is dead.
Symbian is big but struggling. Difficult to develop for, has the same problems with marketing apps as WiMo. Nokia sells a lot of phones, but most don't run Symbian but only the feature phone Nokia OS. It's Symbian products are split between different hardware types, and the overall Symbian market is currently split between three platforms.
Flash Lite and Java struggle to run on hundreds of slightly different phones, which all have the same software marketing problems. Android is basically just a semi-consistent version of Java ME, the hardware will still be all over the place. Installed base is currently very small, and the G1 isn't going to help in that regard.
Apple's iPhone has a single installed base of over ten million units, and growing dramatically. It has a wildly profitable marketing system for software, good development tools that share a lot in common with Mac development, and a customer base that spends money. There is no real variation in hardware to deal with, nor problems between the software/hardware vendor.
So if you want to do mobile software to make a political statement, or because you like a certain technology, or just want to keep yourself busy, you have several options. If you want to make money, you write iPhone software and sell it to the ten million iPhone users and several million other iPod touch users.
Five More iPhone Myths
Myth 6: iPhone Developers will Flock to Android
Myth 7: iPhone Buyers will Flock to Android
Myth 8: iPhone will lose out to Steve Ballmer's Windows Mobile 7 in 2010
Myth 9: iPhone Unable to Penetrate Europe Due to Symbian Dominance
Myth 10: RIM's BlackBerry Will Contain iPhone Expansion
Antitrust
Yes, Apple's argument is that the "market for Mac OS PCs" does not really exist, just as nobody else has the right to market Pepsi's soft drink, or sell BMWs, or force DuPont to license cellophane to them. The DuPont case went to the supreme Court in 1956:
"In a civil action under  4 of the Sherman Act, the Government charged that appellee had monopolized interstate commerce in cellophane in violation of  2 of the Act. During the relevant period, appellee produced almost 75% of the cellophane sold in the United States; but cellophane constituted less than 20% of all flexible packaging materials sold in the United States. The trial court found that the relevant market for determining the extent of appellee's market control was the market for flexible packaging materials, and that competition from other materials in that market prevented appellee from possessing monopoly powers in its sales of cellophane. Accordingly, it dismissed the complaint."
Apple's brief notes: "Psystarâ(TM)s effort to define a single-brand relevant market contravenes well-known principles of antitrust law. Relevant markets generally cannot be limited to a single manufacturerâ(TM)s products. As the Supreme Court recognized in the United States v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 351 U.S. 377, 76 S.Ct. 994 (1956), the âpower that, let us say, automobile or soft-drink manufacturers have over their trademarked products is not the power that makes an illegal monopoly. Illegal power must be appraised in terms of the competitive market for the product.'"
"Most recently, in Spahr, supra, the court rejected almost identical allegations as those made here. Plaintiff claimed that Leeginâ(TM)s brand of womenâ(TM)s accessories, called the 'Brighton' brand, was a separate market because the products are unique, they are marketed as 'one of a kind,' customers would not consider other accessories as 'suitable substitutes,' and there was an 'inelasticity of demand' for these products. 2008 WL 3914461, at pp. 3, 8. Applying the Supreme Courtâ(TM)s decision in Twombly, the District Court dismissed the complaint without leave to amend because its definition of the relevant market was implausible 'from the face of the complaintâ¦.' Id., at 8."
forced licensing
Another thing to consider: if you think Apple should be forced to license the Mac OS in the way Psystar is claiming, it follows that you also must agree with Pystar's claim that Linux and Windows are so far inferior to the Mac to the point where they can't complete, therefore creating a distinct market. I believe these claims are ridiculous. Anyone who doesn't should go on record admitting that everything else in the industry is a joke compared to the Mac. That is a line of reasoning which I will be happy to use in future arguments where the opposite is claimed. One can't have it both ways.
"The right of a manufacturer to exercise independent discretion with whom he will deal."
"Ultimately," Apple's filing states, "Psystar seeks to force Apple to license its software to competitors, like Psystar, so they can use Mac OS to create Mac 'clones.' Psystar undeniably can sell, and is selling, its Open Computers running Windows or Linux in direct competition with Appleâ(TM)s Mac. Nevertheless, it also wants to sell computers running Appleâ(TM)s Mac OS in direct competition with Appleâ(TM)s Mac. However, one of the bedrock principles of antitrust law is that a manufacturerâ(TM)s unilateral decision concerning how to distribute its product and with whom it will deal cannot violate the Sherman Act:"
The Sherman Act "does not restrict the long recognized right of a trader or manufacturer engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal. And, of course, he may announce in advance the circumstances under which he will refuse to sell."
Myth 10: RIMâ(TM)s BlackBerry Will Contain iPhone Expansion
The Brick rumors are all bs. Why pundits feel the need to connect brick to anything is beyond silly.
Rebrickulous: Cutting Through The MacBook Rumors
Wrong; the judge has only denied the motion to dismiss the case. Whether there was any violation of law remains to be determined.
You can't return any video games that you've opened.
Where have you been over the last 20 years?
iTunes songs are 99 cents. That is 200% more than what "market competitor selling downloads of the same content?
iTunes movies are 2.99 to 4.99. That is 200% more than what "market competitor selling downloads of the same content?
iTunes mobile software is mostly $1-10. Most mobile software for other platforms is $15-$50.
Apple's DRM isn't designed to reform thieves. It's designed to create a market. You can't stop thieves, but you can create a functional market that leaves the thieves to steal elsewhere. Or are you suggesting that because there is shoplifting, we can't have retail stores?
The iPhone Store Impending Disaster Myth
"Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction to minor gripes"
That, in a nutshell, is why the industry isn't taking all the bleating about DRM seriously. DRM is a business decision. It's not there because they hate your freedom, it's there because they think it will help stop or at least slow piracy. If the world wasn't full of thieves, there would be no DRM.
Acting like DRM will go away if you cry about it is childish. It will only go away by becoming invisible. Nobody seems to know that iPhone apps are protected with DRM, nor that it helps bring prices down (although it certainly doesn't have to; PSP DRM hasn't had any effect on software prices).
The real issue is that DRM doesn't work well in the hands of software producers (audio/video/apps), because their monetary conflict of interest pushes them to wield the power of DRM to extort hight prices.
The only successful DRM comes from hardware makers (read: Apple) who balance the power to govern sales without extortion prices and without runaway piracy, because their interests are aligned with both consumers and intellectual property content producers.
That's why Microsoft's DRM didn't work; the company only cared about producers because it wasn't selling its DRM products directly to consumers, and subsequently stacked the deck against end users.
Apple carries DRM like the Ring.
The Japanese iPhone Failure Myth
It fits into the 2006 list. Symbian market share is now down to 55%, just as Microsoft's WiMo fell from 23% back in 2004 to today's 12%.
Nokia is taking over Symbian and making it into an open source foundation because royalties are dropping rapidly. Nobody wants to pay for OS software. Without revenues (down 14%), Symbian can't afford to invest in modernizing.
The era of Windows-like software platform licensing is over. From here on out, it will be integrated proprietary platforms (RIM and Apple) or free platforms (Google and Ubuntu). There's no need for paying for a commercial software OS. Symbian is adapting, Microsoft is pretending the climate isn't changing.
Ballmer changes tune while dancing around Apple's success
There are a lot of things that are "not inherently illegal" that become the basis of a civil suit after one enters an agreement not to do it. That's what this case is about, so you can stop shaking the strawman of your populist idealism.
Additionally, there are plenty of workalike compatibility tools and or independent implementations of a proprietary standard that exist, but could easily be assailed, probably successfully, by patent attacks.
Microsoft could probably easily shut down Samba if it decided it wanted to (and determined the cost was worth the bad press). Apple created its own lossless codec after determining that supporting FLAC would expose it to liability due the patent attacks. Just because something exists doesn't mean it can be defended successfully under patent assault.
The Japanese iPhone Failure Myth
Doesn't matter. The question is: do you respect license contracts? Because if you only obey contracts that have no impact on what you want to do, you can't demand others follow the rules of a license agreement they might not want to follow.
It's pretty simple.
I understand the difference. What I'm asking is if you have respect for all software licenses equally, or if you just pick and choose which things you decide to respect and which you do not based on what you want to do.
You may have no interest in using Linux commercially without contributing your source changes back to the community. A major corporation may have no interest in putting OS X on a machine it is not licensed to be on.
However, if both entities only respect the rules that have to impact on what they want to do, the law is meaningless. Do you believe in the rule of law, or do you just believe in law and contracts that have no real impact on what you want to do, and ignore laws and contracts that do?
If so, your opinion isn't worth much to anyone who does respect the rule of law. Stop answering the question like Sarah Palin.
What about if you possess Linux? Do you have the right to use it outside of the GPL, without contributing back changes?
Is your attitude about free software consistent with your view of commercial software? Does the license on intellectual property mean nothing to you ever, or only when that license is created by a commercial entity and violating the license is convenient to your needs?
Because unless you hate GPL freedom too, you're a hypocrite to advocate ignoring the limitations of a software license.
The iPhone Store Impending Disaster Myth
How has installing a Windows skin on Linux worked out?
The iPhone Store Impending Disaster Myth
The first "Microsoft's server market share" link is Gartner's numbers on servers shipping with an OS.
The second "Linux's server markiet share" relates to commercial licensing for servers, and addresses the Unix market buying Linux licenses.
Neither captures the Linux server market, as you don't have to buy Linux to use it. Most people using a Linux server didn't buy a server with Linux on it, apart from segment of commercial Unix users who migrated to commercially supplied Linux.
If Linux in servers had really fallen as your numbers try to suggest, Microsoft wouldn't be spending money trying to pretend Linux costs more and other white paper propaganda.
Trying to compare Windows with Linux as new sales is like comparing iTunes with torrents and finding that hardly anyone is buying non-iTunes music, so therefore torrents are going away.
I do agree with the "it's peak" part.
Imagine Steve Jobs for President
Microsoft spins its R&D into an "Other" category in its earning statements, and that segment blows through crazy billions of dollars. The problem is that nothing tangible results from all of that spending.
Apple has $20 billion, which for a company that earns haft as much revenue and a third the profits, is proportional to Microsoft. The difference is that Apple is growing and building new products and businesses, while Microsoft is servicing the same three monopolies it had ten years ago: Windows, Office, and Servers. Outside of those high profit cash cows, Microsoft hasn't done a damn thing in ten years. All three are now under attack.