Apple Launches New Legal Attack On Samsung 490
walterbyrd writes "Apple Inc has asked a federal court in California to block Samsung Electronics Co Ltd from selling its new Galaxy Nexus smartphones, alleging patent violations. In a suit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products. Those include the ability to unlock phones by sliding an image and to search for information by voice."
Voice Search (Score:5, Interesting)
....has been on Android long before it was on iOS. I guess we know Apple is going to use their warchest to be anti-competitive.
Yay software patents.
No slide to unlock? Perhaps we should make a "place genitals here" unlock mechanism. At least that may not be patented yet.
More to follow? (Score:5, Interesting)
This will become interesting only when Apple files suit against Microsoft (one if Apple's largest shareholders) for searching for information by voice -- a long time feature of Windows phones.
I spoke too soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I hope that this results in an all-out patent war between the big players. Right now, they have little incentive to pour money into lobbying Congress to change the patent system because they're all benefiting from it. As long as they all don't sue each other and only pick on little guys, why would they want to upset the status quo?
However, if the mutual assured destruction scenario actually plays out and they all start suing the crap out of each other, only then would they finally realize that buying tens of thousands of patents as a defensive measure against getting sued is not an acceptable solution to the patent problem. Ultimately, the answer is that software/business process patents need to permanently go away. That can only happen when they stop spending so much on lawyers building, defending, and in some cases, using as weapons their patent portfolios and start actually making meaningful changes in the system.
Yes, they'd have more competition. Yes, that means that sometimes, competitors might mercilessly steal some of your clever ideas. But it also means that instead of spending billions of dollars on lawyers, you can now redirect that money towards research and development to blow competitors away with awesome products (thus gaining brand and product loyalty) instead of trying to blow them away in a courtroom (which is nothing but a colossal waste of time and money).
Apple stock is a bubble (Score:5, Interesting)
In view of the actual lifetime of a mobile phone, and the Apple cash mountain, I'd suggest a realistic valuation is between $200 and $300 billion.
In order to maintain the appearance of invulnerability Apple must sue, sue and sue again - just like SCO - as part of the preservation of the image that no other company can (or will be allowed to) possibly compete. If it starts to lose too many patent suits, its share price will suffer, and if, post-Jobs, it has somewhat lost direction (or is up against growing technological barriers like battery life), it doesn't really have a counter.
While the Chinese economy continues historically weak I don't thing the rulers of China will rock the boat - but at some point I suspect they will look at Apple's profits and say, in effect "Hey, we do all the work, we deserve some of that". One option would be a dramatic rise in factory gate prices. Another would be a slow rise in the currency.
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
you mean from the perspective of businesses that Apple has stood upon?
On my windows mobile 6 phone, I had a "slide to unlock" screen; So how many billions of dollars did Apple spend R&D'ing that?
I'm sorry, but Apple is everything they used to speak out against, they are the suits. The amount of "new" things that Apple has patented is very small. Everything else is just a tweak from something else.
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
They are most certainly afraid of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) and they should be. People should really see their BS for what is with these claims, seriously, they own voice control? My Car's navigation system has had voice control for a decade.