Dutch Court Rejects Samsung Patent Claims Against Apple 148
angry tapir writes "A judge at the district court in the Hague has rejected claims that Samsung had made against Apple regarding four patents. Samsung wanted Apple to pay for licensing the patents in question, and the court to issue an injunction banning the import and sale of Apple's iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, as well as upcoming products, until licensing terms are in place. But the latter won't happen at this point. The ruling came in the in the same week that an Australian court blocked sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1."
Re:spreading ... (Score:3, Insightful)
As a rule national courts do not care much about what other national courts rule.
Re:spreading ... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, but as a rule, they all apply logic and reason, and generally reach the same conclusions because of that.
All your code are belong to us. (Score:4, Insightful)
The real story here is that Apple and Microsoft are on a coordinated campaign to own all your code.
The notion that you cannot sit down in front of your computer and write code without needing a massive legal department to go up against the likes of Apple and Microsoft as they come to either ban products based on your code or demand a license from vendors based on your code is chilling to say the least
These companies rose on the backs of others. These companies became successful using ideas of others and writing lots of code that was unchallenged by patents for decades. Now they want to use software-patents to raise the barrier of entry so high that even Samsung is having trouble in the marketplace
The companies are also on a mission to use software-patents to make the use of open source software more expensive than their own.
The fact these companies are using the legal system against open source and free software shows that they can no longer compete in the marketplace based on the merits of their own products.
The sad thing here is that they will win and open source will lose and they will become the gatekeepers to all development in the future. The days of free software innovation are coming to an end.
Re:All your code are belong to us. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. Software-patent on swipe to unlock. They sued Samsung in the Netherlands over this., software patent on scroll bouncing and other effects. Effects that have been around for decades. Software-patent on "a picture viewer that displays thumbnails and when clicked displays the picture in an image viewer" They got an injunction against Samsung in the Netherlands for this. I could go on and on and on but that should be enough.
Now let me break it down for you ok? Software is already protected by copyright. That means that if I write a feature and you write a feature and the features are similar they are protected by copyright. If I copy your code then that is a violation. however if I file a software-patent on what my code does and your code though completely different from mine solves the problem in a similar way then I can then claim ownership of your code by suing the shit out of you until you 1) pay me a license to use/distribute your totally different code or 2) you remove your code from the marketplace. get it?
Re:FRAND process (Score:3, Insightful)
What stinks here is regardless of FRAND and negotiations is that one company can get another's products banned based on something utterly arbitrary and which took no amount of effort or imagination to produce (the concept of a rectangle with rounded corners) but that when that company tries to strike back using patents based on actual real solid research that cost real money to come up with and produce in the first place they're told they don't have a case.
There's something very wtf about that, Samsung's patents are based on real R&D, Apple's aren't yet Apple's warrant a ban from the marketplace and Samsungs don't? seriously?
I suspect the real issue here is that Apple is just as good at lobbying and giving backhanders to the right people as it is marketing, and Samsung, not so much.
I just simply struggle to see how this ruling is in any way fair relative to the ruling in Apple's favour, how can their ludicrous patent be upheld but Samsung's real actual patent not?
Re:spreading ... (Score:3, Insightful)
samsung should use the same thing against apple to get tab bans lifted, saying that they'd be willing to negotiate for the right to sell a rectangle..
The design case is not about "a rectangle". Apple's design patent is for a long list of design choices, and you need to copy them _all_ to get a tablet that looks like an iPad, and you need to copy them _all_ to get a tablet that Apple can sue you for successfully. If you look at many of Samsung's competitors, they had no problem at all creating tablets with rectangular screens and rounded corners where Apple doesn't have a chance in hell to sue successfully. These companies will also not be able to make customers think "it looks like an iPad, so it must be good". Instead they have to compete with Apple on their own merits, which is what competition is all about.
That said, Samsung can of course claim that they want to negotiate with Apple, and since this design patent is not _essential_ as shown by Sony, Toshiba, RIM, HP and many others, Apple can then just say "we are not selling any licenses" and that finishes the negotiations. Samsung's patents fall under the "essential patents" category so they cannot refuse license negotiations.
Re:All your code are belong to us. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. Software-patent on swipe to unlock. They sued Samsung in the Netherlands over this., software patent on scroll bouncing and other effects. Effects that have been around for decades.
Have these really been around for decades? I mean, it looks totally obvious when you see it (which is the point of implementing it this way) but very often what looks totally obvious and the only right way to do it with hindsight is everything else than obvious before that. And if you work hard to come up with great and totally intuitive ways of doing something you're not happy if others just copy it without any effort spent on it. Without protecting it in some way everybody could just copy it and nobody would ever bother to put much effort into coming up with own solutions. You'd get mediocre half-assed solutions all over the place.
Well, maybe this is wrong. But evidence seems to support that view. If you look at copies and ripoffs from China and elsewhere how often do you see products where someone intelligently and carefully picked the best ideas from the products he has stolen from? He should be able to afford this, or not? He doesn't has to pay licenses and can freely chose whatever he wants to copy. But what you invariably see is just badly ripping off from the currently best selling products, nothing else. Small wonder: it's much cheaper, it takes much less effort and it's much faster -- and if there is no protection, being on the market a few weeks earlier than others is imperative.
No, I think we've taken a long time to get us into that mess and we will have to take a long time and careful measures to get out of it again.
Re:FRAND process (Score:2, Insightful)
I see this as because Apple, despite catching all the flack from people here and other places, isn't actually doing the evil people are painting it to be. They are going after Samsung directly becuase Samsung had access to exact specifications of the ipad and iphone ( since they were making a considerable number of their parts ) and were a very close business partner. Samsung basically stabbed them in the back. RIM, Dell, HP, Amazon, Sony, Motorola are all companies that genuinely made their own products through their own reaseach and development.
Re:FRAND process (Score:0, Insightful)
Samsung shifted nearly as many Galaxy S II's as Apple did iPhones last quarter, it was something like 16 million S II's vs. 17 million iPhone 4s. That's before you factor in Samsung's other offerings - Android and WP of course.
It's entirely because Samsung is far and away Apple's biggest competitor - whilst companies like HTC have some offerings in Apple's market they also have a lot of budget phones and their userbase is spread across that. Samsung's actually cutting directly in Apple's high end market like no other, and worse for Apple, even the sales Samsung hasn't taken from it - which number in the millions - people buying iPhones are still giving money to Samsung because so much of the iPhone is produced by Samsung. Apple doesn't want this story repeated in the tablet market too, it's hard enough for them to swallow in the phone market.
It's that that Apple doesn't like - Apple can only beat them if they can push them out the market, and even there they're always going to be paying for components from them to at least some degree. Effectively Samsung could at any moment pull the rug out from under Apple - by not just producing a product that's succesful or at least almost so as the iPhone/iPad, but also by deciding to up their rates on production too leaving Apple more limited in it's ability to find a manufacturer for it's products.
Really though what Apple should do if it wants out of this mess is not resort to suing, but to invest some of those many billions in cash it has lying around in pursuing it's own manufacturing base as a longer term strategy. This would be better for everyone - excellent job creation, greater plurality in manufacturing to name a couple of benefits. It can also then ensure stability, and then compete on the merits of it's products, unless of course, they think they can't. Which I suspect is precisely where the problem is. Why pursue this route of a more stable manufacturing base if you can't be sure you're going to be able to produce products people want manufactured on such a scale forcing you to throw that investment down the drain?
It's no coincidence that since Jobs mostly stepped down and Cook took over back in Feb that all we've seen is a half-arsed iPad update, a late and abysmal iPhone refresh, a pretty weak iOS update, and then a massive escalation of lawsuits from Apple against others. Perhaps it's too early to say Apple's few years in the sun are done and it's downhill again for it from here, but let's be honest, that's certainly where it's heading without drastic change. I wouldn't like to be one of those fools who has bought their grossly overinflated shares right now, that's for sure.