Steve Jobs contacted Samsung in 2010 to resolve Apple patent dispute | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs contacted Samsung in 2010 to resolve Apple patent dispute

bloomberg.com

43 pointsashishgandhi40 comments

Samsung's products are so aesthetically similar that their own marketing people get confused and just use Apple assets.

Based on everything I've heard about Jobs' "negotiation" style, I'm sure the phone call was completely civil. No yelling whatsoever.

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/24/who-copies-who-samsun...

I think a fuller outline of some of the copying (pictures worth 1,000 words) was linked by Gruber: http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a

It's pretty clear that there's a directive from above at Samsung mobile to copy Apple very closely. This may be legal in some/most cases but in others it's pretty clearly over the line.

Whether you like trade dress IP and design patent protections or not, the reality is that they exist and for Samsung designers to so clearly flaunt them creates a huge liability. You have to think their legal department has been out to lunch the past few years in approving these designs.

So in some sense Samsung is giving me exactly what I want: an iPhone running Android.

If all you want is an Android phone whose components (power adapter, USB cord, packaging, even Maps application) look exactly like an iPhone, then yes.

Samsung isn't the only company doing that though (at least packaging ...)

I bought a brand new HP TouchPad in the fire sale and the unboxing process was remarkably similar to unboxing my iPad 2. Not only that, but have you look at the iPad and HP TouchPad side by side? Home button in the same location, power button in the same location, camera in the front in the same location, volume up/down button in the same location, charging port in the same location, similar shape and size. It felt weird to me how closely HP had followed the locations of the iPad buttons.

I also recently purchased a Samsung Galaxy S Wifi 5.0" [1] Android device, unboxing that brought me back to when I first unboxed my iPhone 3G when I purchased it. They use the same sort of cardboard, they use the same sort of hidden compartment with the device lying on top as the first thing you pull out of the box.

It just makes sense to package products a certain way. One it uses much less space, and less materials, and thus making it better for the environment and the bottom line since less money is spent on packaging. But you can't just ignore the fact that the two are so similar.

[1]: whoever is naming this stuff needs to be fired, searching for information on it is almost impossible since it shares a name with a cell phone...

You have to understand Samsung. Cloning products cheaply is how Samsung creates a market. Sure they may have to layout cash to settle lawsuits (and they have). But in the end, it's a successful business model for them. They've grown to be an enormous company.

Now they can afford to innovate. But Samsung didn't start in that position. Be it TV's, radios, business telephones, chips - whatever.

But the iPhone is different. When they copied Nortel (business telephones) years ago, Nortel wasn't a Samsung customer. Apple is. Big time.

I bet part of Samsung wants to choke the mobile division. Cause I gotta believe Apple is looking for other suppliers.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Here, imitation is the most efficient way to create market share.

Samsung started as a lower end brand. Now in the world of electronics, they've become a substitute for higher end brands. The difference between Samsung and Apple is that the latter creates the market. Samsung goes where the market is and carves its own share.

>You have to understand Samsung. Cloning products cheaply is how Samsung creates a market...Now they can afford to innovate.

Samsung has been a very wealthy company for a very long time. They've long had the ability to innovate and they do in some regards. I have no interest in software patents but I do find it offensive to imitate design. A unique design gives an object its identity. It's not as if Ive is the only talented designer in the world.

That's the one where Gruber seemed incensed at the recording app... Apple's wasn't even the first iOS app that looked like that. Showing a picture of the physical device you're imitating is ridiculously common.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/iphone-ge...

Hmm. From a quick scan through the screenshots, of the 13 apps reviewed only two use a large image of a microphone in their UI and only one of those is a photo-realistic rendition - the other is much more stylised. So what I get from this is that given complete freedom there are a huge variety of possible UIs, and the chances of Samsung and Apple coming up with the same design independently is near zero. So yes, it's likely that Patrick O’Keefe's VoiceRecord app was a source for Apple, and a raging certainty that Apple's was a source for Samsung.

Apple and Samsung have much larger budgets for art direction than a guy selling a $.99 app. There are tons of recording apps that have photos (or if you have money, illustrations) of the equipment they're mimicking. Ever heard of ProTools? Apple takes inspiration all the time from its indie developers. iBooks is a great example:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/apple-tablet-ebook/

If you want other's:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/apple_copies_rejecte...

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/08/apple-ripe-developers-app

Not just indies either, the iOS 5 Notification Center is a page out of Android. iMessage is a play on BBM. OTA updates? Android and BB./

I've had over the air updates on my Sony-Erricson phones as well as my Nokia phones. That is not something new that was introduced when BB or Android came out.

OTA delta updates. Delta being the keyword. Esp. for people with poor internet connectivity.

The icon one there is the only one I'd take issue with. Possibly the non-usb connector as well.

The others are a matter of form following function. Apple don't have a trademark on USB or mains plugs. Apple don't have a trademark on white, rectangular boxes. Apple don't have a trademark on putting the damn product in the damn box (seriously? This is considered copying?) Apple don't have a trademark on showing a picture of a microphone when in a voice recording app.

The do have a patent for putting products into boxes. http://www.google.com/patents?id=tUzIAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&...

Oh I give up. This whole patent situation has gone long past the state of 'severe problem' and is now into the phase of 'ludicrous farce, bordering on trolling'.

This is a design patent, not a utility patent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

Yeah, they may not have trademarks on these things (neither should they). But Samsung doing things exactly the same way as Apple after Apple doing it is by definition copying.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copy

> The others are a matter of form following function.

No they're not. There are a billion possible shapes for a USB power adapter for instance, getting within 1% of an exact match is not a coincidence.

>> putting the damn product in the damn box (seriously? This is considered copying?)

There is a considerable amount of thought that goes into how a product is packaged an unpackaged. It is extraordinarily disingenuous to claim that all that is being copied here is "putting the damn product in the damn box." I can think of approximately 20-30 ways that a tablet can be packaged (and surely you've opened just as many products in your life time), and a five-sided cover revealing just the product is only one of them.

It's a common theme emerging on HN that these trademark disputes constitute "obvious" design choices. It bears mentioning that it is possible to verify the solution of an NP problem in P time. That doesn't make the solution obvious.

Bin packing algorithms don't have to be difficult when you have one object and one bin.

When you have to think about an entire manufacturing process, your supply chain, how many you can ship at a time and for how much, the marketing implications, the user experience, concerns over crushing the device, concerns over crushing the box itself, etc, designing the packaging becomes a considerably more complex problem.

Yes I can imagine the decision conversation going something like this:

Number 1: Sir, we just received word, Apple put their product in the box FACE UP!

CEO: CRAP! Back to the drawing board. Note all staff, "product face up" has been done. It's tired, it's old. Yesterday's news.... now we have to try something totally different.

(sorry for the trolling, couldn't resist the sarcastic approach. Yes it does look like Samsung totally did a workalike on this one.)

I know you were trying to be sarcastic but I'm sorry if you cannot think of other ways to pack a cell phone. Maybe Samsung is run by people just like these.

A quick Google Images search displays quite a few ways it is actually being done.

http://www.google.com/search?q=phone+packaging&hl=en&...

I'd say that the sum is bigger than the parts when it comes to copying products. One or two things would be perfectly okay, everyone does that, in every market, but the accusations range from the packaging and peripherals to the core product and its interfaces... Sure you can split hairs and stuff, but it's not that simple.

"Apple don't have a trademark on mains plugs"

Correct it's a design patent not a trademark:

http://i.imgur.com/5YKdT.jpg

This is Samsung's modus operandi, perhaps more so than anyone in mobile phones. Have a look back at some of their really gauche imitation of Motorola's stuff years ago.

The difference is that someone has the courage and the money to call them on this shit for once.

> Have a look back at some of their really gauche imitation of Motorola's stuff years ago.

I remember looking at some of their clamshells, wondering, "Can they really do that?"

“We wanted to give them a chance to do the right thing.”

Like pay them a lot of money or change their designs? It's not like Apple reaching out would make Samsung say "great, awesome!"

> Like pay them a lot of money

Highly unlikely, considering Apple's complete lack of interest in licensing or having a clone market.

Well, ok, but you need to consider that Apple is actually winning most of the cases where it has accused Samsung of copying it. It has gotten injunctions. This is clearly a case of a company (Samsung) not thinking though the consequences of its actions. Although lots of companies copy stuff all the time, Samsung has done a really thorough job of copying the iPad this time around.

I find this unsurprising, companies don't resort to court before having a conversation. Even if the conversation is I think you should pay us licensing. The court actions are born out of disagreement.

Patents themselves have only partial importance in the dispute. Mild form of patent violations do occur in the industry, but they are set aside most of them times, because most companies have violated some form of patents one way or the other. They want to avoid this type of battle Apple and Samsung are engaged in.

The real motive on the both sides is to reduce the sales of the opponents. I think both Apple and Samsung thinks that 2011 and 2012 are critical years that would determine the mobile phone trend in next few years to come. So despite the huge pain both parties go through, they may think that it's all worth it.

"The real motive on the both sides is to reduce the sales of the opponents."

Only so much as they want to increase their own sales. Samsung is looking for validation that their close copying is not illegal so they can continue doing so and reaping the benefits. Apple is looking to force Samsung to differentiate their products more through court order or public shaming.

I don't agree with the claim that only Samsung is the one copying in this dispute. There is definitely traits of derivative designs from Samsung. So for laymen like us, it would appear that Samsung is on the wrong, but there may be a whole host of actual hardware infringements Apple might actually be engaged. No one other than selective few in the industry will know how much copying and infringement of patents have been going on. But if you were to ask me, both sides are probably both guilty.

Apple apparently infringed on Nokia's IP which is why they wrote Nokia a multi-billion dollar check plus future royalties.

People love to paint Apple as the big bad patent bully but they have paid more in patent settlements then all these other companies put together. Apparently they're allowed to violate but Android gets a free pass because, you know, "open".

this is Google's actual legal reasoning as to why they shouldn't be held liable for contributory patent infringement in Oracle v. Google:

"[S]ection 271(c) applies only to offers for sale, sales, and importation, but Google does not sell, offer to sell, or import Android or Android SDK. [...] The ordinary meaning of 'sale' requires transfer of ownership for a price. [...] Android and Android SDK are offered free of charge to anyone who wishes to download them off the Internet, however, and there is no evidence that Google ever receives any consideration in return. That undisputed fact precludes a finding of contributory infringement."

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/oracle-v-google-upda...

That is just one element of a many-faceted approach to defending Android. It is misleading to suggest that making the observation that Google does not sell Android is equivalent to admitting that there is no better argument available. AFAIK (IANAL), you aren't usually allowed to raise new arguments later on in a trial (which bothers me), so both sides will raise every issue and argument they can think of at the beginning.

Google is undercutting Microsoft, Apple, and RIM because they are releasing for free what everyone else HAS to charge for because they don't have income from advertisements to support the R&D required.

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