Apple asks court to ban Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy S III from US
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I don't think I'll buy anything from them ever again.
Go fuck yourself.
signed,
a former iOS developer and Apple fan
But really I prefer the S3 in almost every way now and wonder why I put up with the limitations of the iPhone for so long. If you do switch I think you'll be happy.
Though I personally prefer Android OS, I must admit that build quality is now strongly coming as a win for Apple.
S2 is now a little flimsy, 4S is as new.
I've also seen a lot of iPhones with big cracks in the glass in the back and I'm happy I can just swap out the plastic back of the S3 with a cheap replacement if necessary.
I'm not trying to draw statistics here, it's just my experience that iPhones are more resistant to wear and tear, and Samsungs more resistant to somewhat more extreme shocks.
So you can be mad at Apple if you want, but what's really messed up is a patent system that makes this behavior profitable.
Patent reform should be the top priority in the tech industry, but they're all too busy using it to batter each other to death. Apple's just the latest and highest-profile aggressor.
What I'd love to see, in place of this fiasco, is a tech summit, led by companies like Google, Samsung, and Apple, to thrash out a proposal for reform. Put all those high-profile, high-paid lawyers to good use.
Of course, actually doing so won't be easy, because the status quo benefits most influential players...
But your brain does.
The patent system is nevertheless still broken of course. Very incredibly broken. However that does not, to any extent, reduce the new lack of respect I have for Apple.
I'm not a huge fan of patents either but what can we do when countries like South Korea break every free trade agreement they make? Our politicians are only looking at the short-term election horizon and don't bother to call South Korea out on their BS.
If the Apple gestapo doesn't yank my apps for me for this I'll pull them completely from the store myself as long as I've posted any updates for my existing customers required for iOS 6.
Fun discovery made in the process: Apple won't allow you to use the word "Android" in the app description.
Bye!
But I'm honestly baffled that HN doesn't emotionally understand Apple (maybe: Steve Jobs). Samsung has ripped off Apple wherever it could while being one of Apple's trusted suppliers, to the point where the SGS2 was considered THE iPhone contender. (Mostly anecdotal, though see [1].) Now Apple is throwing whatever they have at Samsung, this happens to include software patents.
Surely if the AAPL corporation is capable of experiencing emotion, it is capable of acting in an ethical manner instead of just a profit-seeking manner.
Different people saying different things is not new :) But this wouldn't be a contradiction if we were the same person either. Someone without ethics can very well react emotionally. I'm only speculating about the emotions at play - which I think do exist - I have no interest in judging ethics this time.
Because all software patents shouldn't be granted?
Because you have studied them deeply, fully understand their claims and believe there is prior art or no inventive step (the current requirement for the inventive step seem very low, do you think that this is not being met or you believe the standard should be higher)?
The patents have now withstood not only the flawed patent office examination but have been tested in court. The presumption should now be that they are valid and not bogus unless you provide justification or at least explanation of your view.
Samsung/Google should also presume validity and develop a workaround while the case is pending to strengthen their negotiating position and remove risk of a ban. This doesn't mean that they have to stop fighting legally.
Edit: A reply suggests I may have been wrong to believe that these are the patents that were tested in court. If I was wrong the advice would probably be to plan potential workarounds but not carry them out.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/05/slide-to-unlo...
"Data detectors" looks completely ridiculous to everyone who has programmed for more than a year. I would be shocked if this stands, although I have heard that HTC modified their skin because of it.
"Unified search" is the classic "X + on a phone" patent, where X is something that has been done for decades. I hope this is challenged and closely examined. I would not be surprised if there is prior art even for phones.
"Word completion" is very obvious too, they have included details of their implementation in the claims so it will be easy to workaround.
But why would Apple sue over these patents? The best they can get are slight modifications to the software, which will not alter the experience or the look and feel much. Meanwhile they are losing goodwill and making people aware that there are better alternatives out there. All this because the former CEO felt slighted? As a stockholder I would be a little mad.
Thinking that even 1% of the populace understands patent law, much less how the US legal system functions is going to leave you disappointed. No matter how Samsung tries to spin this, no matter how many articles appear on Groklaw or HN, this is a bad PR scene for Samsung.
UK law is different to US law (apart from anything in the US a priority date at the time of invention rather than filing could be claimed) so it is quite possible one patent is valid and the other isn't.
I've looked at 'Data Detectors' very briefly and I think that you may be right. Looking just at the claims it appears to cover just about any data processing system which would obviously have massive prior art. I assume Apple are trying to say it should be interpreted more narrowly to avoid prior art but throwing it out would probably be the best result.
I haven't looked at the other two and you may be right although only the claims really matter rather than the example implementation details.
Apart from the troubling 'Data Detectors' patent I agree that there should be easy workarounds. The best justification for pressing these cases I can see is that they are trying to create and ensure some differences with Android even though they are fairly minor. It is quite arguable that this is a completely proper use of patents although whether it is worth the effort I don't know.
My next phone is an S3 though.
Must be painful for Woz to watch.
It will be the consumers who lose if Apple wins.
If Asian companies can just clone our products and block our products from sale in their countries, there will be fewer jobs for Americans, Europeans and Australians.
For what it's worth, I have lived in Asia for several years, speak three languages, and my opinions are influenced by the Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang, so I'm trying my best.
(Of course, Apple is only one of many, many companies who will soon be paying for their insipid copycatting)
edit: language
I'm not sure what patents in particular they say are being infringed here, but it can't be the trade dress stuff -- Samsung's stuff have moved away from being obvious ripoffs of Apple's products and the Galaxy SIII looks no more like an iPhone than any other smartphone from any other manufacturer.
If it's the pinch-to-zoom and bounce-back patents (etc) then it shouldn't be hard for Samsung to issue an update to workaround those patents.
In fact, I mentioned in another comment[1] but I'm pretty sure Android (not sure about Samsung's modified version of Android) doesn't infringe on the pinch-to-zoom patent anyway, because Android allows scrolling with two fingers. Obviously, I'm no patent expert, though...
Why on earth is HackerNews so pro-Samsung?
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/08/31/apple_adds_sam...
Just broad nonsensical software patents that shouldn't have been granted in the first place.
I hope Samsung fights this as I think they have a much better chance in winning even a jury trial against these, I mean why hasn't anyone invalidated these patents yet?!
P.S.
I'm not clear as to when Apple is hoping to ban these devices, at the December hearing? earlier? next year? I would appreciate a clarification.
Edit: trial date is set for March 2014 according to this http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044361860457762...
There may be prior art as another poster claims, I haven't studied it but it doesn't look too broad to me.
I was not trying to give a total judgement on the case but argue against the claim that all the patents were ridiculously broad (admittedly the data detectors one looks very broad to me although if read in the broad way MUST have prior art).
Its right up there with someone trying to patent the ESC key.
It is clear that at least at the time of grant that it wasn't the only obvious way to unlock a touchscreen - it wasn't used by MS/Palm/Ericsson. Prior art from others may apply but the fact that many weren't doing this indicates that it wasn't completely obvious.
The scope is highly limited and no one needs to practice them at all. There are still issues of accidental infringement and the high costs of defending actions particularly in the US. However you could just wait until challenged on issues of this type and then workaround removing the incentive to prosecute an action against SME's.
To take your analagy it is more like the rough surface of a newly paved road than potholes.
There is quite a bit of detail specified (e.g. continuous movement of the image along the path) and it wasn't the approach taken by Ericsson, Palm or Microsoft in their previous touch devices so it isn't clear to me that it is obvious (at least in the detail).
To me it is better to have narrow specific patents even if they aren't completely revolutionary than massively broad ones claiming whole areas of technology.
Again - I haven't studied the prior art either listed in the patent or suggested by others so that may rule it out but as a concept and as patents go it seems like quite a reasonable one.
That isn't to say I don't think the patent system needs major reform and may generally be doing more harm than good but this specific patent seems to me to be the wrong example to pick as an example of what is wrong with the system.
Pretty darn obvious I would say.
Again I'm not saying that slide to unlock is definitely valid as there may be prior art but I really find the arguments based on a straw man of what the patent is to be really unhelpful to the discussion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
It's unlocked with a left to right swipe. Contrary to the iPhone there is no image moving with the finger. I don't think that difference is worth a patent. Moving things (i.e. images) around with the finger is a pretty obvious concept for a purely touch-based device. See for example the Microsoft Surface (now renamed to PixelSense) from 2008:
To be clear though this is based on an understanding of the patent covering only swipe to unlock with an image and a dragged object.
Haven't looked at the MS video but are you sure 2008 is early enough for prior art for this patent in the US where the first to invent rather than first to file priority was in place at that time?
There may also be other prior art but this alone doesn't convince me that this should be invalidated.
The point of the second video was to show that moving an image on a touch screen with a finger was known to the industry before the iPhone was introduced[1].
This means that Apple's slide to unlock is nothing more than the combination of two known concepts: swipe to unlock and moving an image with the finger. Certainly not worthy of a patent in my opinion.
[1] Linking to the MS video was a mistake of mine, since the device was actually introduced after the iPhone. But please, do have a look at this wonderful summary of the history of multi-touch technology (especially the list of devices in the second half of the page): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wetIwsR...
There's also an impressive TED video from early 2006: http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_tou...
Also, the problem is that upvoting is accepted as an expression of agreement. So it's a bit counter intuitive to reject downvoting as a form of disagreement.
I for one have decided to never downvote under any circumstances. Downvoting can be unnecessarily humiliating, even thuggish when posts become almost invisible. Using words should do the trick, even in cases of really bad behavior.
Swipe-image-of-a-knob-to-unlock repicates exactly on a display what has long been a moderately common physical widget on mobile phones, mp3 players, portable consoles etc.: a sliding `Lock' or `Hold' button. User sled a finger over a dedicated area of chassis -- where the physical button is located; the button followed the finger; upon reaching end of travel it unlocked or locked the device.
It's a stellar example of `the same as before, but on a mobile device' type of patent, that doesn't really cover innovation.
There is an invention waiting happen here: doing away with the image following finger and replacing it with some other kind of feedback. After all, on a display we are no longer constrained -- neither by costs nor by technology -- to a simple sliding button.
So nobody should add visual feedback during the unlock operation, because someone did it first and patented it?
I'm not a huge fan of patents either but what can we do when countries like South Korea break every free trade agreement they make? Our politicians are only looking at the short-term election horizon and don't bother to call South Korea out on their BS.
Do not heap too much praise on Samsung - they have a very chequered history.
Do not let Apple's reprehensible behaviour in this instance undermine the value that Apple has added in other ways. I would still consider buying an iPhone - and I recognise Apple for their unique talent in high polish of a product.
I just want fair competition - I'd love Apple to think and act the same way.
Why would they give a flying fuck what you would "love them to be" if you still shovel fistfulls of money at them?
And thinking that this isn't exactly what Steve Jobs wanted to do had he lived is ignoring his explicit statements on the subject.
All of this garment rending and teeth gnashing seems to be due to people getting far too emotionally invested in the companies involved. Apple is just a company, its products won't fill the hole in your life. Samsung too is just a company, not some Quixote tilting at windmills.