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Comment by pytrin | Hacker News Reader

If the Apple persecution of Samsung succeeds, we should all be worried that next NFL teams will start patenting their strategies and suing each other.

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"Persecution". Nice. Let's cool it with the inflammatory rhetoric. You may not agree with Apple's legal methods in solving a dispute, but it's hardly a persecution--particularly because Samsung is suing just as much (and has already threatened to sue over LTE).

I was surprised that Gruber completely ignored the possible penalty to copying, the resulting lawsuits. His football analogy doesn't really stand up because you can't patent the forward pass, or if you could the opposing team runs the risk of having their win vacated if they implement it too.

The lawsuit and Sumsung's (pending appeal) loss is such a huge elephant in the room that by not addressing it, and the similar fate that the other "losers" maybe trying to avoid, I don't think Gruber really said anything of real substance.

I think this article is interesting because of Gruber's role in the conversation as an Apple fan[atic]. Samsung has been criticized from the Apple side (and by Gruber in particular) for copying Apple's innovations -- the implication being that he thinks it's good that Apple won. But Gruber is acknowledging here that a healthy marketplace includes both innovation and copying of the best innovations, and that it's at least possible that the world is better with Samsung's copying than without it. So it's directly addressing the lawsuit by acknowledging that there's a downside to Apple winning. That's no big deal for me to admit, but kind of a big deal coming from him.

Right. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the only way to protect a strategy in football is to keep it secret?

I think the NFL and MLB already consider their stats proprietary. I wouldn't be surprised if someone patented something and won a couple years before the league made using that technology illegal in their games. That's a bit different, as the NFL would change the rules to prevent such a monopoly when they saw ratings go down (or not, if they went up, I guess). The whole 'salary cap' issue is already supposed to help address the problem of the wealthiest teams being able to 'buy all the talent' in the NFL, so I suspect they would move quickly.

Apple's patent of fairly obvious technology (slide to unlock, already present elsewhere..rounded courners WTF?) seems a lot more ridiculous, yet the courts cannot act quickly. If it wasn't for Android competition, would iOS advance very fast? Or would you be getting a 'New color of white this year!' option in the Iphone 6G?

NFL teams do not compete in a business sense. They are part of a coordinated league. There are even exemptions to antitrust law for some sports leagues (MLB at least).

...and it won't be possible to come up with an effective defense unless a team applied use of the patented offense in practice sessions without a valid license.

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