Jury: Samsung Owes Apple Another $290 Million
allthingsd.com
allthingsd.com
And now, to top it off, iOS 7 is built on the holo-principles of Android. It's almost like Apple is doing it merely to taunt its foreign competitors, saying very, very clearly: "Sorry guys. I'm untouchable".
Utterly disgusting.
At least their attempts to outright ban products have been less successful as of late. There's some hope for a civilized world.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/102317767/Samsung-Relative-Evaluat...
Rather, stuff like what you linked to is what causes juries to award $1 billion. E-mails along the lines of "let's make this look more like the iPhone." Presentations along the lines of "why isn't this more like the iPhone?" Surveys along the lines of "75% of people thought this looked like an iPhone." Market data on customer confusion, etc.
This particular presentation is pure gold. Slide after slide that basically convinces the jury that Samsung didn't "play fair" and copied someone else's work instead of doing their own.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/20/samsung-looks-to-h...
>The Patent Office has been re-examining the claims of the '915 patent, and Apple recently responded to the agency's questions. However, in the document filed by the Patent Office on Wednesday, the group said that it "respectfully disagrees" with Apple's claims about the technology and that Apple's arguments "are not persuasive."
>The Patent Office comments don't invalidate the '915 patent but mean that Apple will have to provide more information and argue for the validity of the patent.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57613191-37/samsung-asks-j...
Other patents have been reaffirmed on reexamination.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/10/us-patent-office-confirme...
http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/08032013%20Letter_1....
Samsung promised to license those on FRAND terms, Apple will pay what a court sets as FRAND rate. An injunction in such circumstances would probably be a illegal anti-competitive action (at least that is the EU view and that of many US organisations too).
Also there is currently no injunction in this case against Samsung at this point.
Note that in the absence of rules including FRAND licensing commitments standards setting bodies would be illegal trusts which is why this is especially relevant.
There are some really awful mistakes in those slides, like buttons being cut off when the keyboard pops up, or things breaking when you rotate the phone.
Design Patents are Different than Technology Patents.
Indeed, they're quite different, yet the world would still be a better place without them.
I'm not arguing for or against patents (personally, I think they're an abomination), only against 'group think' from people choosing a 'team' and then using propaganda to reinforce their positions.
In a nutshell, American IP policy is predicated on the understanding that the production of IP is America's competitive advantage. The U.S. can't compete with asian countries for low-cost manufacturing, but still dominates when it comes to software, design, etc. There is a reason phones designed and built in China run software written in California.
Thus, the U.S. wants to enforce rules that treat design as a protectable asset. The reasoning is this: if Apple spends a bunch of money coming up with a really effective design, Samsung shouldn't just be able to get the benefit of that work for free. It's the mirror of the physical property rules which ensure that if Samsung invests a bunch of money in some new manufacturing facility, Apple can't just get the benefit of that work for free.
I think such suits will become more common as developed economies keep transitioning away from manufacturing. The law quite easily protects the output of China's industrial production (physical things). It's not as effective in protecting the output of America's industries (content, designs).
To imply that US judges have been 'bought off' by Apple or by the US government is a huge claim to make that deserves substantiation.
As a New Zealander, this whole affair seems like a load of US-centric BS to me.
If that is so, how would you explain that Apple has gotten several injunctions (Australia, Germany, Netherlands) and won lawsuits against Samsung outside of the US? Even in South Korea a court ruled that Samsung had infringed on Apple’s patents. Also, let’s not forget, Apple is far from the only company suing Samsung over mobile patents.
It might help move you to "I disagree, but I can see how..."
Also note that both sides had many more patents that they thought applied but had to be selective and discard many early in the case. They got to choose the most promising ones but it is hit and miss. There may be many more patents that would actually have applied.
The six-woman, two-man jury deliberated for part of three days before returning its verdict. During that time, the jury requested additional paper and pens and better lunch, as well as a copy of the sketches of them done by a courtroom artist.
As for the lawyers in the class; if a jury starts showing signs that they're overall uninterested in the trial (i.e.: asking for their courtroom portraits), what can litigators do to combat this? Is the only course to appeal for the case to be dismissed? Does it get retried if the jury is found to be negligent?
Yes, Samsung made products that looked kind of similar to Apple ones. Big whoop. Competition over litigation, I say.
Not everyone Samsung copies is a huge multinational:
A lot of companies sue over dumb shit - Samsung included. That's the nature of the corporate battleground. I really don't care as long as they aren't suing end users for things that I do with a phone (which includes pretty much every thing you can do with a phone).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/102317767/Samsung-Relative-Evaluat...
I'd bet Samsung didn't really have a well developed UX design group behind their software/UI initially. Then they were brought to their senses by a competitor and did a thorough analysis and comparison to improve their products and compete. I just can't see what's wrong with that.
I'd bet that had Samsung done an analysis of the iPhone that was evaluating the first-principles and then had a separate team work from those first-principles to design a clean UI they would have been much better off. Really though, having emails and presentations that say "we need to make our phone more like the iPhone" is pretty damning. It seems like they've done a better job recently when they just go and do their own thing.
And if so is it a bad faith to do these types of analysis inside your company on your products since it exposes you in court?
How has the auto industry get getting along so long without suing each other into the ground?
Yes, but not to this level. This is a guide book to imitating another platform.
>And if so is it a bad faith to do these types of analysis inside your company on your products since it exposes you in court?
No. I'd suggest that Samsung did go over the top with this.
>How has the auto industry get getting along so long without suing each other into the ground?
They haven't. The automotive industry is extremely litigious, it just doesn't get page views, dead-tree or internet.
Though I don't believe anything "intellectual" should be property, I buy products because they are good, period. As long as Apple continues to make better products, I'll continue to buy them without any sense of shame whatsoever.
And Samsung v. Apple I also provides many obvious bad guys if you follow the case and understand the industry and read the patents. Apple's claims are garbage but Samsung had so much contempt for the process that they let their lawyers utterly fail to make the case. The judge lost control of the case and ended up with vague and useless jury instructions and a self-contradictory verdict (parts had to be retried recently). The jury foreman admitted to bias and misconduct in public interviews. The PTO keeps gyrating back and forth in 'final' decisions about the validity and meaning of claims to patents at issue. I never saw coverage anywhere else but Groklaw about most of the pathetic failures in the case.
Let's hope the Apple ][ and Apple /// cases are handled better.
The Motorola v. Microsoft case, on the other hand, revealed bizarre bias on the part of Groklaw. Even when Microsoft was obviously right, Groklaw manufactured sympathy for Googlerola on every issue.
But that's not really the question. The essential thing about Groklaw was that they would recruit volunteer reporters to go to court and make extensive and informative reports about what really happened they very same day. Nobody else's reporting ever came close.
I think the conclusion that API's are not copyrightable is pretty much preposterous from my understanding of copyright law. A decision that there was a 'fair use' right to copy API's for compatibility purposes would have been an interesting and probably valuable development although I'm not sure Dalvik would have applied here.
Groklaw's example API to explain what API's (adding numbers I think) was also applied when considering whether there was creativity in expression and correctly the conclusion was that there isn't in the case of adding but then Groklaw inappropriately extrapolated this view to all API's.
The court reporting could be useful though you are right. Florian Mueller (http://www.fosspatents.com/) attends some of the German ones and I find his reporting on the patent cases very good. Groklaw seemed to have taken the view that you couldn't believe a word he said but I never quite understood why (although it might have been the Oracle v. Google case as he didn't see it the Groklaw way and had at some point consulted for Oracle).
EDIT: I stand corrected!
Q: How much money is this retrial about? A: It's about a replacement amount for a $410 million portion of the August 2012 $1.049 billion verdict. The replacement amount could be more or less than the original one. Apple will be awarded (subject to an appeal) $639 million plus the replacement amount.
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1: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/11/the-truth-is-neither-cour...
Care to provide some evidence of this.