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Comment by Hari_Seldon | Hacker News Reader

Not sure what you mean by "act like a monopoly". But you're right that Apple never forgot that microsoft ripped them off and dominated the industry with their sub par OS. (I know about the Xerox stuff). This is why Steve Jobs said very clearly at the iPhone launch "and boy have we patented it".

Many companies in the tech sector have effectively been using Apple as their R&D department for decades. Samsung is just the latest and most blatant.

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you did see this http://i.imgur.com/KPGYL.jpg right? A large-screen candybar phone isn't really revolutionary. Nor is a touch-screen interface. I really don't know what you mean. Something with a web-browser? http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/wce/wceapps.htm A home-screen? http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/palm-treo-600-at/4505-64... An app store? http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3504_7-5021267-1.html Face-time? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dell_Axim_X30_624.jpg

Nothing that Apple did was really that new ... they have never been the "new"; just the people that came up with the right marketing sauce to convince people to buy it; and that's just a US thing. US lagging behind in mobile tech was an on-going joke up until about 2007 because other companies had had run-away successes in the Asian and Europe markets already. Just nothing of that scale in the US.

There were touch-screen smartphones in 1994 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Simon_Personal_Communi... ... Oftentimes there were widely available commercial equivalencies 10, 15, even 20 years prior to the Apple "Innovation" event. And then a few years later they (Apple) pretend like they invented and own all of it.

I don't see Palm or Rim or LG or Qualcomm or IBM or Sony or Nokia or Ericsson or even Microsoft going around and suing the pants of people in the Mobile space; even though they clearly have more of the prior art right than Apple does.

With Apple, suing people out of market has been their modus operandi at least since Lisa.

And I really don't know what you mean with the Microsoft comparison; you can do a very identical analysis with early 80s computer UIs ... from visicalc to desqview to deskmate to countless utility suites that did WIMP pre-lisa, some even graphically (e.g., wordperfect, wordstar)

Round shapes weren't uncommon until someone used it for displacing things, hence inventing the wheel.

Syncing data over a network wasn't unheard of as well, but then someone came with dropbox.

Nothing today is "really new", but the novelty is in the way this is put together and used.

And what would have happened if round shapes or syncing data over a network were patented and everyone who tried to reuse them in novel ways were aggressively sued?

There's a big difference between "uncommon" and "untried". Fact is, most of what Apple has popularized with their line of iDevices has already failed previously in the market. This just proves Apple's ability to iterate, perfect, and market their products. It has no bearing on how well they innovate.

There may well be something special about the packaging of a particular set of features, but that isn't the standard for patent.

Downvoted you because you are just another anti-Apple troll. Apple succeeded where others had failed, usually by innovating and by relentless attention to detail. Consequently everyone else copies "what Apple did" in "the way that Apple did it". This "patenting round corners" BS is just nonsense spouted by the feeble minded who do not, or will not, understand the issues being tested by these court cases.

Samsung did not just copy one or two isolated design details, they copied the whole damn thing. Do not your let your fandroidism or anti-Apple bigotry blind you to the reailty of what is being contested here.

Downvoted because accusing someone of trolling when they (quite clearly) are being genuine is rather inane, and the name-calling doesn't help the standard of discussion here.

You're right, it's ridiculous. What is an iPhone if not a combination of silicon, carbon, oxygen, aluminium, potassium, copper, boron, phosphorus, nitrogen etc.? Did Apple come up with any of these elements? Was it the first to bring them to market? With such prior art as clocks, wires, plants or rocks, going back lustra or even scores, it's a wonder their case has not been thrown out yet.

Apple aren't trying to claim exclusive use of any chemical elements that I'm aware of.

This isn't about whether or not Apple make good and/or innovative products. It's about their claim of exclusive rights to the concepts they use in building them.

So the Android OEMs are just sending Microsoft checks for each smartphone sold out of the goodness of their heart?

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