Apple Claims Samsung and Motorola Patent Monopoly 381
esocid writes with a bit in Daily Tech about the ongoing spat between Apple and the rest of the mobile world. From the article: "Apple lawyers are crying foul about Samsung, and ... Motorola's allegedly 'anticompetitive,' use of patents. ... Apparently Apple is irate about these companies' countersuits, which rely largely on patents covering wireless communications, many of which are governed by the 'fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory' (F/RAND) principle, as they were developed as part of industry standards. ... Apple takes issue with the fact that Motorola in its countersuit declines to differentiate the 7 F/RAND patents in its 18 patent collection. ... Regardless of what Florian Mueller says, it's hard to dispute that the 'rules' of F/RAND are largely community dictated and ambiguous."
Re:World Class Hypocrisy (Score:4, Informative)
Here's Steve Jobs explaining his point of view on design [youtube.com]
RTFA, particularly the second link. (Score:2, Informative)
The first link is a DailyTech Blog by Jason Mick, an author well known for factual inaccuracies in every post, and for continual Apple bashing. Consider the source, and double check all facts before drawing any conclusions from it.
The second link includes an informative discussion of the actual issues. The core of Apple's argument, that Samsung is asserting that Apple is violating "standards essential" patents, for which Samsung has offered no F/RAND licensing, which is a clear violation of antitrust regulations in the US and EU (a fact which Samsung itself has repeatedly asserted in previous lawsuits when they were the defendant). Apple hasn't disputed those patents, only that they must be separated from the suit because they are standards essential patents which must be offered under F/RAND in order to prevent them from being an illegal monopoly under antitrust regulations. Therefore, they can not be considered as part of the suit potential injunction based upon the other non-"standards essential" patents, but must be considered as a separate issue and Samsung must offer F/RAND licensing terms for those "standards essential" patents.
Re:How dare they sue us! (Score:2, Informative)
You do realize the 'tablets' shown in this movie were display only (a monitor) and had no means of input whatsoever, even in the movie?
Re:There, finally (Score:5, Informative)
The patent that Apple has used to pull Samsung Galaxy Tabs from the shelves isn't a software patent. It's a design patent for a thin, rounded-rectangle, flatscreen computer. It's even more absurd.