Older iPhones, iPads banned as agency says Apple infringed on Samsung patent | Hacker News Reader

Older iPhones, iPads banned as agency says Apple infringed on Samsung patent

washingtonpost.com

47 pointseplanit57 comments

Looks like Samsung got denied on all the current models and can prohibit the importation of only the iPhone 4 and earlier models.

Meanwhile Apple is still trying to get the courts to ban the import of the Samsung's 2011 Galaxy Nexus based on the case last year.

Well, at least the plodding and ridiculously slow pace of justice is a good thing for once. If it takes two years to ban a model of smart phone, they'll never manage to ban one that's important in the market.

It probably depends.

If the phones are already manufactured and can't be sold, two years after release or not, it would be a big hit... right in the moneys.

Having to sit on five days' worth of unsellable phones would not be all that painful.

Not to mention that they can just be shipped to another market and sold there.

I thought the 4 is still the "free with contract" phone though?

for another month or so...

I think you’re mistaken. iPhone 4S was available on October 14, 2011, iPhone 5 was first sold on September 21, 2012. Given that release cycle, I seriously doubt a new iPhone model will be announced in the coming month. However, since the iPhone 4 import ban won’t be active for another two months, the effect will be minimal for Apple.

Wouldn't they have to pay a penalty for the ones they've already sold?

The ITC can only issue import (and sales) bans. It has no power to compel licensing or damages. The Federal Courts handle those issues and have taken a very different view of FRAND commitments and Standards Essential Patent licensing.

The reason for iPhone 4 and earlier only isn't the slow speed of the process but the fact the newer models include a Qualcomm chip so the patent exhaustion principle comes into place as Qualcomm has a license from Samsung. I believe if this wasn't the case the import ban would also apply to the newer models.

I find it interesting that the patent being infringed by Apple was a standard essential patent. Given that Motorola has been having so much difficulty going after Microsoft over FRAND patents, I'm surprised Samsung's lawyers were able to pull this off.

It seems that the ITC are on a different planet from the Federal Courts, the FTC (antitrust enforcement), a cross party Congressional letter and other countries courts (with the possible exception of the German courts) when it comes to the idea of injuctive relief over standards essential patents and FRAND commitments.

Just to add some more flavour to the matter, the European Commission has said they'd impose fines against Samsung if they tried to prevent sale of any device over a SEP patent issue. It seems like the ITC have made a decision, which is their prerogative, that's an odds with how it's treated everywhere else.

Apple hasn't got clean hands in the matter, they've been more than happy to saddle up and legal-cowboy their way into forcing decisions, but using a SEP to force an import ban is a pretty bad choice. Apple says Samsung wouldn't play ball in fair and equitable terms, that's a distinct possibility. The ITC seems to think Apple should have take the deal, so we don't know all the details yet, it'll be interesting to see what comes out.

I think both companies need to just chill out and let the best man win instead of clawing at each other immaturely.

Funny that everybody is realizing this _now_ - not when Apple was suing others for Rounded Corner (TM)(R)(C).

I don't think this is surprising at all. Apple's allegations against Samsung were largely visual and easy for the layperson to understand. It makes sense that Apple's position would carry more weight in the mainstream media.

Except of course it was rounded corners. Rounded corners.

That's a pretty big over-simplification of the case - at least for the tablet aspect of the case, the iPad and the subsequently released Samsung competitor were so visually similar that even Samsung's legal defence team were unable to distinguish between then without turning them on [1].

Apple may have overstepped their bounds fairly obviously with some claims, but the case was not entirely without merit.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5849803/even-samsung-cant-tell-the-differ...

His quote was "at this distance." And, without providing the distance specified, the article proceeds to blow the quote out of proportion. Shitty reporting anyone?

The Reuters article (which Gizmodo re-blogspammed) says the distance was 10 feet:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-apple-samsung-l...

  "Koh frequently remarked on the similarity between each company's
   tablets. At one point during the hearing, she held one black glass
   tablet in each hand above her head, and asked Sullivan if she could
   identify which company produced which.

   'Not at this distance your honor,' said Sullivan, who stood at a
   podium roughly ten feet away."

Something is very fishy about that incident. They aren't even the same aspect ratio. Either Koh held them at a strange angle or Sullivan has a problem with his sight. I don't believe that anybody who is familiar with the devices would not be able to tell them apart at 10 feet. The Samsung even has SAMSUNG written on the front, and Apple have a giant Apple icon on the back.

The issue is as you would guess a strategic one.

If he had answered the question definitively and been correct it wouldn't have aided his case, as it would have only reaffirmed what already was his case. If however for any reason he got it wrong, he would be fired and probably never work again. People's brains aren't that reliable. I know the difference between the tablets and I wouldn't stake my whole career on which was which if I was put on the spot. It's just not smart.

It's Gizmodo, they probably just popped open a bottle of champagne now that you promoted them to "reporting, albeit shitty".

IANAL, but, so what? If you build a stapler using your own internal mechanisms for stapling, and I design my own stapler with my own internal mechanisms, I'm infringing on your ideas just if they both look like staplers from 10 feet away? Or if Firestone patents a certain type of tire, I can never invent my own tire because, from a distance, they both look like tires?

The central point of the tablet part of the case brought against Samsung was that they had deliberately attempted to confuse customers intent on purchasing an iPad, into purchasing their product instead, while still thinking they were actually purchasing an iPad, by making them visually difficult to distinguish from one another.

I don't necessarily agree with either side and I am also NAL, but when the case hangs on visual recognition, the ability of the legal team to tell the product they are defending apart from their competitors' probably becomes relevant as a microcosm of Apple's contention.

This is about the visual aspect. The accusation is that Samsung deliberately mimicked the look of the iPhone at the time in a bid to cynically confuse consumers at point of sale. That they changed the interface of the OS too is a smoking gun. It's like copying someones homework, but just swapping a few key words and sentences and claiming the work was entirely your own. I agree the question should be asked, I don't necessarily agree with the way Apple chose to ask it, but that is neither here nor there. They feel aggrieved, they are legally entitled to pursue this how they see fit. The "its just a rounded rectangle" argument is reductio ad absurdum.

right. these phones aren't similar at all. http://cdn.redmondpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/iphone-...

/sarcasm

Well, if this is a free for all troll thread, then let me jump in.

The one on the right looks much better.

much better than what? some other phone? because the 2 shown are nearly identical. grandma wouldn't know which was which except for the word "samsung" on it (from any distance).

Come on, all of this is fairly obvious. Let's say you take a Nokia brick and want to put one touch screen instead of a display and an input panel. What do you do? Something that looks exactly like that. The screen gets larger, the buttons go down and everything else stays the same (yeah, pre-iPhone dumb phones had nice icons in a grid too, remember?).

I mean, you're not going to put the speakers behind, or put fragile sharp corners, or put the buttons on the middle of the screen, just because Apple did something similar!

This is fairly obvious stuff when developing a smart phone out of a dumb phone. Dumb phones looked alike too, just like fridges and microwaves look alike, and that's because these things just make sense.

The other android handsets released around the same time didn't mimick the look of the iPhone. Take the HTC Desire for instance, it has the same cues you mention but looks very different.

Your point is proven wrong though by the fact that there were phones that looked like the iPhone before the iPhone.

Granted they were rubbish to actually use, but they looked good, just like the iPhone does.

The icons are on a 4x4 grid with 4 additional icons on a dock. There is a contrasting chrome bezel framing the glossy black front elevation of the device. On this elevation, the ear piece is positioned a few millimetres down from the top edge. At the bottom of the elevation their is a single large button that returns the user back to the principal screen. Which phone am I describing?

There is a contrasting chrome bezel framing the glossy black front elevation of the device.

LG Prada.

On this elevation, the ear piece is positioned a few millimetres down from the top edge.

LG Prada.

At the bottom of the elevation their is a single large button that returns the user back to the principal screen.

Ok you got me there, the LG Prada has two large buttons at the bottom of the elevation.

Are you really going to suggest that Apple took LG's Prada concept, which was announced on the 12 December 2006, and copied their version (which looks nothing like the Prada, which was a feature phone) which they announced 28 days later, bearing in mind that this was over the Christmas period? I've worked in manufacturing for a nearly 2 decades and I can assure you that it is actually impossible to do this. Neither the iPhone or the Galaxy S look anything like the LG Prada. Incidentally, the Samsung device was announced over 3 years after the iPhone was initially launched. I'd suggest that the point that you are trying to make is void of any merit whatsoever.

And I'd suggest that you're full of it if you claim the iPhone looks nothing like the LG Prada.

You attempted to describe the iPhone in 4 points. 2 of those points exactly described the LG Prada, the other 2 were very similar (a 2x3 grid instead of a 4x4 grid, 2 large buttons instead of 1 large button).

"You attempted to describe the iPhone in 4 points. 2 of those points exactly described the LG Prada"

I was describing the Galaxy S.

Well that's a pretty disingenuous thing to say, but hey, if the facts don't happen to support your arguments why not just start trolling?

Wow. Calling me a liar and a troll. This from someone that wrote:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5824190

and

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5826888

Both demonstrably false too.

At what point did I call you a liar?

Really? "Well that's a pretty disingenuous thing to say,"

You don't know what disingenuous means then.

Grow up will you. By saying that I was being disingenuous you were saying that I was being insincere about my reply. That is tantamount to calling me a liar without going so far. End of.

It's quite possible to be insincere without lying outright. If I'd meant to call you a liar then that is the word I would have used. I used the word disingenous because that is what I meant.

Please try not to be so hysterical.

You've got to be seen to have the last word. You were wrong. You called and continue to call me names, and you call me hysterical? Troll.

"Well, if this is a free for all troll thread, then let me jump in." I'd suggest your earlier comment[0] led to this being the case. So you are in fact continuing to set the tone.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5823335

Apple added a hardware back button??? I need to upgrade!

Both look like LG Prada knock offs to me.

... and my grandmother wouldn't be able to tell these apart:

http://blueribbonappliances.com.au/photos/FridgesFreezers/tw...

(and unless my business was large appliances, neither would I)

... or these:

http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/3491844a021bbc...

okay, the point is, all these three types of devices look so similar because of all the traits they don't have. it's minimalism. not having superfluous design elements or adornments yet keeping efficient functionality, is usually going to end up with a very similar design.

Well, since the power buttons are now failing on the iPhone 4's, it's not too much of a loss.

It's a good thing both of these products are almost end-of-life.

You mean it's good thing for Apple.

Why? It seems to me that you aren't actually interested in discussing the merits, or lack there of in this particular case, you're just trying to elicit a negative response.

No - I am all for a good discussion, as long as the involved parties have not decided the winner already.

So why then does it appear that you have decided Samsung to be in the right?

I haven't. But I have a tendency to support anyone fighting against a bully.

As do I.

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