Comment by ugh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ugh | Hacker News Reader

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Some more details: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/preliminary-injuncti...

No patent or trademark is the culprit but rather the design (as in: look) of the enclosure. Above article does link to this document: http://www.scribd.com/doc/61944044/Community-Design-00018160...

That’s called a community design, it’s an EU thing, here is the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_design

This article deals a bit more with community designs and especially the concept of the “informed user” that is somewhat central to them: http://www.linklaters.com/Publications/Publication1392Newsle...

Here are images of the current iPad: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

Here are images of the Galaxy Tab 10.1: http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxytab/10.1/spec....

(My personal opinion? It seems absurd to me that you can protect something vague like this. The Galaxy Tab and the iPad seem sufficiently different to me as to not cause consumer confusion.)

This is ridiculous. They are suing over a rectangular shape and a certain size / weight?

So I guess only Apple can make a thin tablet. Any other one will be an infringement...

Can Ssamsung sue all other TV makers since they are all rectangular, with a bezel, and is flat? They all look too similar to Samsung TVs!

Are rectangular shape, size and weight the only similarities you can find? Check out the side by sides: http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

I'm sure you could hire a creative team to come up with 100 iterations of tablets and icons (as I'm sure Apple did) that would look nothing like an iPad. In light of those 100 the similarities would look more apparent than ever.

This doesn’t seem to be about the software at all, only the look of the enclosure. (Also: You are linking to an article about phones.)

The assumption is that if Samsung's design heuristic with the iPhone competitor (as linked to) was to copy, then I see no reason why their heuristic would be different on the tablet.

As it is, my point regarding the level of similarity between the Tab and iPad still holds--it's not simply a matter of shape, size, and weight; even if it were, where does the assumption come from that Apple's form factor for the iPad was obvious?

This lawsuit, however, seems to be only about the general shape. It doesn’t make much sense to say that the result of a lawsuit about the shape is justified because of the software or other factors unrelated to the shape.

As for obviousness, let me submit exhibit A, used in 1994: http://de.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Datei:Plan_des_Arboretums.jp...

This doesn't resemble an iPad to me, and even if it did the obscurity of the source nullifies any claim to obviousness. You know, at some level of abstraction you can show that any two designs are the same, but I think the level of abstraction you have chosen goes too far and doesn't get at the essence of the claim.

Shrug

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t resemble an iPad to me. You know, at some level of abstraction you can show that any two designs are the same, but I think the level of abstraction you have chosen goes too far.

Let's get one more side by side: http://cl.ly/3h30350I0c0P0W401N3c

The obscure device you found is on the left. iPad which is an actual product, is in the middle. Samsung's Tab is on the right. The iPad and Tab are practically identical.

The left two are only similar in that they are both rectangular. The bezel size, color, texture, and material are all different.

You can't argue a:b :: b:c.

Ouch. It’s not an obscure device, it’s a freaking PADD. Did you never watch Star Trek?

Anyway, I don’t agree and since we all don’t have any empirical results – only different opinions – we might as well stop here. I only fear that the courts and the politicians who wrote the law also didn’t have any empirical results.

Can the JooJoo Pad sue Apple for infringements?

The bezel size, color, texture, and material are all the same.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2009/12/main.jpg

Damn! They all look the same to me!

A couple blatant problems with your comparison, among others: * That is not a final-representation of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Tab) * The back and profile sides are nothing alike, for the Tab and Apple iPad. * The front sides is only comparable in an obvious "shape," "size," and "materials," but all of these are also represented in previous art and even dozens of lines of monitor fabs.

Maybe you ought to be specific on what is so non-obvious about the iPad, because I have a feeling you are simply have not been made aware or fail to recognize previous art.

The "non-obvious" and "previous art" criteria are non-issues. This isn't a patent suit. Instead, it's a (very odd, IMHO) EU law that protects products from clones that would confuse consumers.

So I guess the standard here is whether or not someone would reasonably be fooled into thinking a Galaxy Tab was an iPad. Honestly, it seems reasonable to me. The Samsung looks like a clone.

Now, the law is ridiculous in the face of the fact that the devices aren't compatible. Treating the box that the things come in as the defining aspect that needs protection instead of the very different software contained therein is just insane. But apparently it's the law, and frankly it seems to have been applied correctly if I understand it right.

Both _ARE_ criteria of the requirements set in "COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 on Community designs" [1]. IP; patent; potatoes; patatoes. I could have just as easily have said the Product has neither "individual character[istic]" nor is "novel."

If it was thought this injunction was just and applied correctly, I don't think we'd be arguing.

[1] http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/resource/documents/RCD/regulati...

Clearly indicated by others already, this is about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and not phones.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is very generic and the interface is pure honeycomb.

That article seems to talk mostly about the phones. When it was first written I recall this image being brought up in response: http://photos.appleinsider.com/Sam.Apple.001.jpg

And the response to that image was to point out that its dates are completely wrong, and that the very first time the F700 was shown was at CEBIT 2007 (not 2006) in March, after the first appearance of the iPhone.

When did the notion of copying being evil become so mainstream? Copying should be culturally commendable in my opinion.. but maybe that's why I'm not a central planner.

How long have people been whining that Windows copied the Mac or vice versa? It's not a new thing.

Personally, I think there's some reasonable situations in which a company can say "you're trying to copy us to confuse customers and this is a real problem." This isn't one of those situations, though.

How long have people been whining that Windows copied the Mac or vice versa? It's not a new thing.

Calling out copying to cut the copier down to size is one thing... it's about giving credit where credit was due. But suing a company into submission is a whole other bag.

I think Apple is being unethical here. They've made great contributions to tech, but we all are standing on the shoulders of not just giants, but millions of tiny innovators who've contributed their work along the way.

I mean... decent chunks of Apple's software are not just inspired, but are literally copied, as in "cp -r konqueror/src/engine webkit/src".

> "you're trying to copy us to confuse customers and this is a real problem."

Who is this a "problem" for? The multi-national corporation looking for a legal monopoly, or the consumer? Are consumers do dumb they won't notice that their tablet says SAMSUNG instead of APPLE? Doubt it.

> Are consumers do dumb they won't notice that their tablet says SAMSUNG instead of APPLE? Doubt it.

I'm pretty certain that I said this isn't one of those situations.

Couldn't I theoretically manufacture a bunch of differently designed crappy tablets that barely work, but may have the shape/aesthetics that future ipads may move to? Seems to me this law would be easily exploited. Instead of a patent portfolio, people would come up with product design portfolios...

Given that patents are not at issue here, it's worth noting that software patent reform would not prevent something like this from happening.

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