Sale of Samsung Galaxy Tab Blocked in the EU 412
bizwriter writes with a news piece in bnet about the continuing battle between Samsung and Apple. From the article: "In a stunning and painful decision for Samsung, Apple got a German court to issue a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Tab. According to patent analyst and blogger Florian Mueller, that means Samsung cannot ... sell its tablet in the entire European Union, except for the Netherlands."
Design patents (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
Note that this preliminary injunction is all about a design-related intellectual property right, not about hardware or software patents.
This might be confusing to readers in the United States, where exclusive rights in industrial design are treated as patents [wikipedia.org].
Tagged as ohnoitsflorian
Re:Design patents (Score:3, Informative)
Anything from Florian should be regarded as primarily ad-banner trolling.
Pathetic Apple (Score:5, Informative)
The community design document can be found here [scribd.com]. They're effectively preventing anyone from creating a mobile computer device that is rectangular in shape with round corners. Unbelievable.
Not about patents (Score:5, Informative)
This is not about patents. It is about the design of the Galaxy Tab which looks so similar to the iPad. I do not know the correct English term. In Germany it is called Produktmusterschutz (copyright on product pattern/design/the art of appearance). Like you are not allowed to open a fast food restaurant McDonald's without asking the company of that particular name. As they own the brand and the design of the logo and shops etc.
Re:Apple statement (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why can't Samsung do the same? (Score:4, Informative)
I'd be a lot more broken up about it except that Han shot first [slashdot.org]. AFAIK, Apple only started filing suits to block Samsung's hardware sales after Samsung began ITC proceedings to block Apple's hardware sales in the U.S. Even in the best case, trying to block import of a major company's devices via the ITC is a case of mutually assured destruction, and in the worst case, it's throwing the hand grenade soon enough for the enemy to throw it back.
Re:Not about patents (Score:4, Informative)
In the United States, this is called a "design patent". It's the mechanism by which such things as the shape of the coca cola bottle or the design of a font are protected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent [wikipedia.org]
Re:Cant compete, but sue. (Score:3, Informative)
Well, for starters Samsung is a Korean company.
At this point, I have no idea who sued who first ... but Samsung made the components for Apple, and Apple is asserting that in the process, Samsung ripped off their technologies so they could make their own product. (A little googling managed to turn up this [ibtimes.com] timeline -- apparently Apple sued first.)
Sadly, with patents being such a big factor in what products you can make without getting sued (for instance, Android phone makers paying Microsoft) ... I don't see how you can have anything but product competition being defined by lawyers and the courts.
Unless you toss the notion of patents altogether, do you have a proposal of how companies will make products with out constantly suing one another? Because quite frankly, as it stands, the patent system pretty much guarantees that your lawyers are more important than your engineers.
Patents exist so that you can avoid having to out-compete, you either get in injunction, or make them pay you an obscene licensing fee per unit that makes it impossible to compete effectively.
Re:Cant compete, but sue. (Score:4, Informative)
From wikipedia:
There is a citation to another page (a fool.com page) that I don't see actually gives this same price/share value, however it has been reported in many other places that Apple gave Xerox shares in exchange for the info/right to use the things they invented.
Re:Apple statement (Score:5, Informative)
Re:so (Score:2, Informative)
i think we have to thank apple for invention of 'the rectangle' and 'rounded corners', since apparently they were the inventors of these very important concepts
In a computing context, they were actually [folklore.org] :
"Steve suddenly got more intense. "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!". And sure enough, there were lots of them, like the whiteboard and some of the desks and tables. Then he pointed out the window. "And look outside, there's even more, practically everywhere you look!". He even persuaded Bill to take a quick walk around the block with him, pointing out every rectangle with rounded corners that he could find.
When Steve and Bill passed a no-parking sign with rounded corners, it did the trick. "OK, I give up", Bill pleaded. "I'll see if it's as hard as I thought." He went back home to work on it.
Bill returned to Texaco Towers the following afternoon, with a big smile on his face. His demo was now drawing rectangles with beautifully rounded corners blisteringly fast, almost at the speed of plain rectangles. When he added the code to LisaGraf, he named the new primitive "RoundRects". Over the next few months, roundrects worked their way into various parts of the user interface, and soon became indispensable"
Re:Apple statement (Score:5, Informative)
Well yeah, if you limit your sample to phones which didn't look like an iPhone before the iPhone was released, of course it's going to look like they copied the iPhone. As it turns out LG announced this phone [wikipedia.org] to the public with pics 3 weeks before the iPhone [engadget.com]. Black, touchscreen covering nearly the entire front surface, rectangular, rounded corners, and icons arranged in a grid [youtube.com]. So if we were to take your argument at face value, LG deserves credit for the current form factor of smartphones, Apple just happened to make the most successful copy, and Apple fans are deliberately ignoring history to spread misguided claims that Apple invented it all and others are copying from Apple.
The reality is that the current form factor is just the natural evolution of the smartphone due to a variety of factors, none of which has to do with a distinctive design that others are copying from LG (or Apple). You need to maximize screen size to comfortably browse the web on something the size of a phone, so the screen will cover almost the entire front surface. The screen needs to be black to maximize the contrast ratio - if you use a white screen you have to turn off the lights to maximize contrast. Capacitive touchscreens (which had just reached commercial critical mass, and the LG had before the iPhone) were responsive enough that they could replace trackballs or directional navigation keys. Rounded corners prevent it from poking you while in your pocket. And icons in a grid have been around since the Xerox Star IS in 1981 [toastytech.com]; even earlier if you look outside computers. All of this is stuff which would be obvious to someone working in the field, and thus not worthy of patent protection.
I disagree with most of your points, Apple Troll. (Score:2, Informative)
GTFO, Apple Troll. Taking a look at your comments, it's obvious all you talk about is Macs, and I would say you're somewhat biased in that regard.
Regardless of that point, I own a Macbook Pro, but I, unlike most fanboys, can at least remain somewhat unopinionated when it comes to realizing the evil biz tactics they employ. I'm a industrial design engineer working as an interaction designer these days, but I can tell you that making something that is less than 1/3 of an inch thick, with a rectangular shape, will automatically be hard to differentiate from another rectangular shape with 1/3 of an inch's thickness. If there are similar colors, even harder. And, speaking as an industrial design engineer, I will also point out that any piece of hardware that size that wants to have a lifespan of at least a few years is going to be dark-colored or simply black. The finish is designed to keep the device looking pretty for as long as its lifespan will allow.
Please stop being the normal consumer troll that goes, "Hey, those two things look similar. I'll just take it at face value that one of them copied the other, instead of doing some introspection on the design, and reaching a more valid conclusion which expresses an understanding of the individual facets of a design and why the exist."
Troll.
Re:Cant compete, but sue. (Score:5, Informative)
This http://www.saares.net/verkkokauppa/files/nokia-e7-00.jpg [saares.net] doesn't look like an iPhone :)
Oh crap! Someone thought of something like iPhone before it came out:
http://alypuhelin.nettisivu.org/files/2011/05/nokia.jpg [nettisivu.org]
SUE SUE SUE SUE!
http://www.brighthand.com/assets/4911.jpg [brighthand.com]
It resembles an iPhone!
How could they allow such devices as this to exist: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/PalmTX.jpg [wikimedia.org] without a myriad of lawsuits!
So apple took a PDA, wanted 24/7 connectivity, added GPRS to it and noticed it could also be used for calling. (Remember, original iPhones were VERY lacking in phone related features and finishing/polishing)
Best smartphone i know was pretty much a prototype which slipped into mass production:
http://blog.dialaphone.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/nokia-n900.JPG [dialaphone.co.uk]
Before that there was N810 which actually predates iPhone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N800 [wikipedia.org]
Or for some really early work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet [wikipedia.org]
Clearly Nokia 770 was too early on the market, before technology properly supported what they wanted to do.
In any case, Apple simply took Mac OS X, stripped it down, took something already built, and added a few hippies to dev team (artists), seriously nothing else.
Before you start your fandroid bashing, i've actually never used android before, getting my first android pad from customs tomorrow to see how it is, and i actually am receiving tomorrow my new phone: Nokia E7-00. Sure some iPhone could have been cheaper to buy, but i want something i can actually do whatever i want with AND make phone calls, and i want to make damn sure it will not fail on me for the next couple years :)
Seriously, you need to take a few weeks off from the sunday mass @ your local apple store.
Re:Cant compete, but sue. (Score:4, Informative)
What are you talking about? Samsung ripped off the look and feel of the iPad. It's Samsung that can't compete.
Are people really okay with companies just blatantly ripping off other companies? I thought Slashdot trashed Microsoft for years over that.
Oh, come on! If Samsung ripped off the look and feel of the iPad, then the iPad ripped off the look and feel of tablet PCs. Take a look a this picture [wikipedia.org] of an HP tablet PC from 2006, and tell me how the iPad didn't copy the rounded rectangle shape you see there! Seriously, I know worshiping Steve Jobs makes you blind, but surely nobody could be that shortsighted ...
Other than the basic shape, let's see ... The iPad has a single central button, that could be considered unique; does the Samsung have that? Nope. [wikipedia.org] And the two OSes are completely different (you couldn't possibly compare iOS to Honeycomb, surely??)
Incidentally, if MS was trashed for ripping off Mac OS's look'n'feel back in the day (and I don't remember this ever happening except from Apple fanbois, so plus ca change ...) then Apple should also have been trashed for ripping the original GUI look'n'feel from Xerox [wikipedia.org] ...
Apple has done some great and innovative things, no question. But they were neither the originators of the GUI concept nor the tablet concept, and to claim otherwise does them no credit. Right now they're in serious danger of being left behind in the innovation stakes. Already iOS is copying features from Android, and looking more as if it's trying to play catchup than leading the field as it used to. It's about time Apple stopped suing and started doing again.