Samsung Beats Apple In Tokyo, Itching To Sue Over LTE Patents 221
AmiMoJo writes "A court in Tokyo has ruled that Samsung Electronics did not infringe on a patent relating to transferring media content between devices. Tokyo District Judge Tamotsu Shoji dismissed the case filed by Apple in August, finding that Samsung was not in violation of Apple patents related to synchronizing music and video data between devices and servers."
This particular battle is just one front in a patent war that spans ten countries and dozens of cases. Samsung also confirmed it was ready and willing to sue Apple if an LTE iPhone ever hits the market. Meanwhile, Apple was granted a number of new patents on Tuesday, including one for changing settings on a wireless device depending on its location (#8,254,902). For example, sound and light from the device could be disabled when entering a movie theater, or communications with other devices could be disabled in a science laboratory.
Re:Is this over the same patents? (Score:5, Informative)
No, different patents. But it's the same m.o.: Apple steals other people's ideas and products, creates a barrage of iffy patents and copyrights, invests in a massive marketing campaign to create the false impression that they invented the technology, and then sues the hell out of everybody else.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has been unwilling to pay the licensing fees for several of Motorola's FRAND patents [techradar.com].
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is this over the same patents? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually they don't have juries in Japan, they have a system of lay judges. And I don't think they even have them in civil cases.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
It must be fun just to make things up. Of course, the rest of us who like real information spend the time reading from credible sources. Unfortunately, there is no information available on the situation with Samsung and LTE. However, when looking at court records from Nokia v. Apple on 3G FRAND issues, the record is quite clear. Nokia didn't want more money than Apple was willing to pay. They wanted a cross-license on Apple patents that Apple was unwilling to provide. According to Nokia, Apple was the only phone vendor unwilling to cross-license.
It was all eventually settled with Apple paying Nokia and not licensing their patents. Same thing is likely to happen to Samsung. Apple will not allow anyone to use their patents in a competing product for better or worse. But, Apple doesn't mind paying for standards essential patents.
Re:Is this over the same patents? (Score:5, Informative)
In order for something to be patentable, it needs to be a novel, non-obvious, and useful invention in a technical area, and we call "novel, non-obvious" insights "ideas". "Ideas" become "inventions" when they are about something that is also useful and in a technical area. So, not all ideas are patentable, but all patents (theoretically) require some idea at their core.
You are absolutely right that most of Apple's patents are "for specific implementations", and that is the core of the problem: Apple takes other people's novel, non-obvious insights and then creates a massive patent portfolio on implementations. And because juries aren't that good at figuring out the differences and are swayed by Apple's marketing prowess and commercial success, they then side with Apple when these cases go to court. As a result, inventors and innovators get screwed and Apple just keeps copying and stealing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple patents useful Android apps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why do we even have a Patent Office? (Score:4, Informative)
That only changes the procedure if two filings come it at similar times. It does not get rid of prior art. Read the damn wiki you linked too.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, the public record showed that Apple didn't owe Samsung anything for those patents because of exhaustion. If someone asked me to pay a licensing fee for a chip I bought from another company I would decline as well.
Re:Is this over the same patents? (Score:2, Informative)
Jury instructions were much more specific than this two sentences long summary you give. For instance, they included rather long description of what constitutes prior art, which they decided to discard in favor of foreman's "if you load it on a different processor it changes everything right there". Then there are other bits that show how good was jury's job, like "this item doesn't infringe on this patent, but we'll award $2mln damages for it anyways".
Just because you like the verdict doesn't mean that anyone who sees what's wrong with it is a fandroid.
Apple doesn't want to cross-license (Score:5, Informative)
Motorola charges the same rates to everyone (and they're less than Qualcomm, actually). It's just that normally companies don't pay cash but rather cross-license their own patents.
Apple doesn't want to cross-license, but claims the cash rates are too high. (When they're the same as what everyone else is charged.)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Except that everyone else pays less because they cross-license patents into the pool. I mean, we're talking about Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Sony, all of whom have the other essential patents necessary to implement the tech. Apple has no such essential patents in the pool to negate the cost, and refuses to cross-license any of their non-essential patents, so they are expected to front up the cash. Not really surprising.