Apple’s war on Android gets major blow in the form of 1994 “future tablet” video
androidauthority.com
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I've always felt that the basic form factor patents Apple has would not ultimately hold up, and it would be insane for them to try and enforce them. But it still does not excuse the fact that Samsung tries to confuse the public that their product is pretty much an iPad/iPhone. They do this through marketing, packaging, peripherals, software and UI design.
I don't like the patent system the way it exists, and I think most of Apple's 'key' mobile patents are ridiculous, but I equally can't stand a company like Samsung that comes in and says we're just going to commoditize a great product by cloning it and selling it for cheap. I think this is where Apple's emotion comes in and the 'sue everyone' mentality takes over.
The galaxy tab's in the other form factors may be cheaper, but those are the markets that Apple is not trying to, and may never, compete in.
So please, before saying Android products are knock-offs or cheap clones, do some research.
I mean, that's just silly. Being a flat panel with rounded corners, it indeed looks very similar to an iPad (I'll skip the argument as to whether rounded corners and black and white color choices constitute a protectable "design language" or not -- that's been done to death). But trying to argue that they're deliberately trying to steal sales from Apple via fraud seems ridiculous on its face.
edit: two replies now have argued with this, apparently equating mere "copying", which is legal and pervasive, with deliberate confusion of the buyer, which is FRAUD, and a crime. If you want to condemn Samsung for the former, go right ahead. Personally I find that boring and silly, but whatever. It's a personal aeshetic or moral call, and yours to make. But accusing them of fraud is not remotely the same thing, so stop it.
This isn't about deliberately trying to confuse customers per se, but it's a close pursuit strategy that relies heavily on the association between their products and what is popularized by other companies. I remember my family taking a couple because they were offered free with a contract. Certainly this choice was partially informed by the popularity and name recognition RIM created.
Nice cable design: http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00BetaYigGqnkp/Data-Cable...
Here's an article that covers some of the other apple inspirations: http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2011/09/29/samsung-copying-app...
I am not an Apple shill, I own 3 android phones and an iconatab, but the blatant copying is not becoming of a company like samsung.
I don't think that is a fact at all. Tricking people into buying your product isn't exactly a winning strategy. Most retailers who are selling these items have a no questions asked return policy. It wouldn't work. Besides, the box for the galaxy tab 10 has Google and Samsung clearly written on the front. Unless you somehow think that "Apple" is a code company name for "Samsung" ....well... I don't know...in that case you've fooled yourself.
Also, they're not cloning anything. It's a completely separate operating system. And it's definitely not cheap.
I also think that, by the time that customer sees the box, it likely is too late. Who is going to say "did I buy that?" at that moment (if they actually actively look at the box at all)?
I do think there are some examples of blatant copying, but I also think the difference between blatant copying and the combination of inspiration and copying out of necessity because it is the only useful approach is subtle, very subtle in cases. It will be hard for judges to define where the border between the two lies.
But some non tech people who see someone using any tablet will think it's an iPad because Apple is the dominant player in the market. Other companies can't be held responsible for people's assumptions. Nor should they be forced to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from the dominant player for the sole purpose of reducing confusion. Or should they? I don't think so. I think there has to be some basic responsibility on the part of the consumer to at least look at the box.
http://mashable.com/2009/08/22/knight-ridder-tablet/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1381528/Knigh...
I can't find an article, but I'm sure this had already been in court. Or maybe I'm going senile at 32.
Also, I have a niggling feeling that Apple had a part in this video. But I could just be making that up.
Yep: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=tablet+vide...
I don't think anybody would disagree that the tablet form shown in the 1994 video is the natural form a functional tablet would take on: thin, large screen, rectangular, etc. Including Apple.
However, Apple is not happy because, to Apple, it is the first to figure out how to deliver this "natural" form factor in a tablet, and Samsung (and subsequent Android manufacturers), ripped Apple off in the delivery process. I imagine Apple's logic is that no other companies were able to engineer the "optimal" tablet until the iPad came out and they disassembled it and, through imitation, engineered their own. The Android tablets exist because of the iPad.
Which is not unreasonable, honestly. If the thin, rectangular, and large screen form factor is the final product of natural evolution of tablets, how come nothing even came close to it until the iPad came out? How would one explain the the sudden shift in tablet design if the iPad never existed?
If I came up with a way of actually making a hover car (envisioned through countless medias) that works and everyone copied the way I did it, I'd be pretty pissed too.
I'm not good with words as English is not my first language. I hope I got my point across.
EDIT: spelling.
I feel a bit pandered to. How about some more legal substance, even for us dumb tech readers?
I've only seen the full-length version, so I'm not sure if it's in this truncated clip, but there's an amusing bit where she leaves her sandwich on the 'desk' part of the monitor and the computer scans it. When she picks the sandwich up and notices there's an image of it on the screen, she 'sweeps away' the image with her hand - another gesture.
These days they are still an excellent "hard news"
Realistically, I suspect Apple would drop the case if they did not think the minimal costs of perusing it was not worth it and their return is not limited to this case. What I think most people miss is by taking it to this level the force other companies to consider how much close they can get before Apple makes an example of them.
There's no prior art for an industrial design like the iPhone 4 or the iPad, and other manufacturers than Samsung, e.g. Motorola, HTC & Nokia, seem to have no problem creating alternative designs.
It's easy to mistake Samsung phones and tablets in public for their Apple equivalents, and that's what Apple thinks is wrong.
Whether we think outright cloning of designs should be wrong or right is a separate question from judging whether or not that's what Samsung are doing.
As technology evolves, then many of those improvements naturally contribute to enhancements in other products. I believe that if a small, commercially viable camera existed at the time that video was made, it would have been featured.
You can't say that the features/technology that we have taken for granted for the past 10 years are not natural upgrades all existing products in this category.
In other words, I think the details you mentioned are trivial. The overall concept is pretty much the same, with some varying details.
What this tablet (and the non-clone tablets) actually show is that there is no need for Samsung to have copied Apple's trade dress of not using a bezel, having an all glass front, an aluminum back, black buttons etc.
If, as you concede the details are trivial, then Samsung should be able to easily vary them and produce a tablet that doesn't look like a cloned iPad.
The black (or white) border around the iPad screen is effectively a bezel.
> having an all glass front
The all-glass front is neither unique to Apple nor truly optional. Edge-to-edge touch capability requires that the glass extend far enough past the edge of the screen to allow touch gestures to work across the full screen. A "bump" going from the screen to the bezel makes it nearly impossible to effectively touch at the edges.
If you extend the glass past the screen but then also introduce a "bump" to transition to plastic or some other material, you either make the device bulkier, make it uncomfortable to hold, or both.
> an aluminum back
Meh. This a functional element, because it dissipates heat better. But it is optional. However, it hardly constitutes a clone by itself.
> black buttons
The buttons on the tab are completely different, in that there are multiple and also in that they are just capacitive buttons. The color of the buttons in both Apple's and Samsung's designs are chosen to match the bezel. Note that Apple does not put a black button on the white iPad, because it would look stupid. Even the original Kindle had color-matched buttons (ugly as it was).
I don't think that a design patent (or copyright or trademark) covering essential functionality is acceptable. Have you ever looked at the actual design patent that Apple filed?
http://www.google.com/patents?id=6BsWAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...
It looks about as much like an iPad as it does the Knight Ridder concept, or the tablet from 2001: A Space Odyssey, because Apple's patent is generic. The patent covers the very concept of a tablet (for which there is plenty of prior art), and none of the "trade dress" you mentioned except the edge-to-edge glass, which was not an idea unique to Apple.
The patent that Apple has been citing in support of its claims does not even cover the features they claim to have patented, and I frankly don't understand why the courts haven't recognized that and told them that they have, at best, a copyright claim and not a patent claim.
I was under the impression that they were also going after details of the trade dress which I think it is obvious that Samsung is copying in various products.
I don't think that would matter if the design it self is generic - not an innovation (as in this case) and hence the patent it self can be considered as invalid.
Why would it not count as prior art if it demonstrates the patented method? Supposedly the original patent on the modern waterbed could not be defended because such a similar device had been described by Heinlein in SciFi books.
However, Heinlein was not starting from scratch, people had been building them for 60 years and he actually described a lot of the details normally left out. Temperature control, safety, leaks, water level, floor load etc. So when someone tried to patent improvements their was prior art for both waterbeds and the obvious improvements to them.
At least in Europe you're wrong; I can't recall anything in USA patent law that rules out this sort of disclosure either.
The tech demo is only citable as far as the detail disclosed however. For example a patent application claiming a touchscreen tablet device with multi-touch would be novel WRT the device shown here. They do say "just touch the screen" so arguably a touchscreen is disclosed in the narrative. But they don't give any details as to how that touchscreen would work so such a disclosure wouldn't prevent a claim that included such detail.
As you suggest, most of IP cases between the large corps is apparently about posturing or "negotiation" rather than the case itself.
To me the cited video preempts the form factor entirely.
The video's version of a newspaper rendered on tablet is also rather good IMO.
It is that edge-to-edge glass that is a big part of Apple's suit. I won't claim I've done an exhaustive review, but I've glanced back at some older tablet concepts like the Apple "navigator" video, the Star Trek TNG PADD, and even the Newton and Palm and Windows Tablet designs, and every single one I've seen had a raised bezel framing the screen.
The Samsung Galaxy tab has an edge-to-edge glass surface, not a raised bezel. Stupidly pedantic? Yes. That's pretty a good description of design "patents" in general IMO.