Samsung Expected To Sue Apple Over iPhone 5 LTE Networking 283
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Geek.com: "The courtroom battle between Apple and Samsung seems to be far from over, and come tomorrow Apple is in for a major headache as soon as it makes the iPhone 5 official. That's because Samsung is poised to sue the company over patents it owns relating to LTE connectivity the new smartphone is expected to use. All Samsung needs to confirm is that the iPhone 5 is shipping with 4G LTE and it can then apparently set its lawyers into action. As is typical with these patent lawsuits, Samsung will most likely seek an import ban meaning the iPhone 5 may not be able to leave its manufacturing plants and make it to the U.S. to fulfill pre-orders. If such a thing ruling was made, Apple would most likely do a deal that meant it no longer pursued Samsung product bans, and might even forget about that billion dollar payout." Samsung's not the only one hoping to gain some leverage: itwbennett writes, "Apple's iPhone 5 and iPad 3 may violate a pair of patents bought by HTC back in April 2011 that cover methods used in 4G devices for faster downloads. International Trade Commission judge Thomas Pender said it would take 'clear and convincing' evidence to renounce the U.S. patents."
ABM Treaty for Tim Cook (Score:5, Insightful)
The only winners here (Score:5, Insightful)
The only winners here are the law firms. The customers suffer limited feature availibility rather than a enjoy a robust market of the best each manufacturer can produce. It's a pretty rotten system. "You can only buy what our lawyers and patent portfolio will allow you to from out competitors" Really makes the patent system look like a tool of would-be monopolists.
Re:ABM Treaty for Tim Cook (Score:2, Insightful)
now that Steve Jobs is dead, there is no reason to continue his personal thermonuclear war
Isn't the reason obvious? Apple is not a well-diversified company; they make a small number of shiny gadgets from which they derive the vast majority of their massive profits. Their personal computer division, software sales, and app-store/itunes sales are peanuts by comparison. Android, and Samsung in particular threatens those massive profits. That Tim Cook would not do everything in his power to destroy Android is completely counter to his role as CEO (to ensure those massive profits).
Re:ABM Treaty for Tim Cook (Score:2, Insightful)
Wouldn't that just hurt the little guys?
Re:ABM Treaty for Tim Cook (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:By all means, bring on the lawsuits. More, more (Score:5, Insightful)
But I doubt it will take the form of fixing the patent system.
Likely just calling in favors to be sure he gets his phone first.
Re:Just waiting for the mushroom cloud (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't matter who fired first anymore.
Not to you, but it does to Apple. They fired first, and now instead of taking the usual potshots at one another, all the other companies are just firing on Apple. At the very least, they seem determined to reduce Apple to a cinder before turning on each other.
Re:This is not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, LTE patents were never made FRAND, and it's unlikely that the telecommunications industry will do FRAND again. Apple pissed in the FRAND pool and now noone is interested in being friendly anymore.
Re:By all means, bring on the lawsuits. More, more (Score:4, Insightful)
There is some indication this is already happening. The Congressional Research Service [thenextweb.com] released a report about it, and the report even used the word "Trolls" in the title.
Still the report is weak on actual recommendations, and spends a portion of its content defending trolls. Its encouraging for an arm of congress to even use the term Trolls, but with no clue as to a recommended solution there is a long way to go.
Re:Lawsuit will fail...again (Score:2, Insightful)
Any buyer of such a transceiver is automatically covered by that license.
Or not - maybe Qualcomm have a license to manufacture products using those patents, but they might not have the ability to pass onwards to their clients a license to use those patents, which may have to be negotiated with the patent holder. Yeah, it's stupid isn't it - but as a B2B situation it may be the situation.
In addition the Samsung LTE patents are new or specific enough that they won't come under FRAND - maybe in a year or two when the standard is well established like 3G.
Re:OMG! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why didn't these two companies realize this and come to some kind of truce before it ever got to court?
Because Apple made the stupid move of suing Samsung in the first place. The telecommunications and technology companies were previously in a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction scenario: where everybody held patents that they could sue almost any other company for, but they kept quiet so long as those other companies didn't sue in turn. It wasn't a good system by any means, but it more or less worked. Apple suing Samsung was the equivalent of throwing MAD out the window and jamming their finger on the big red button, and praying everybody is dead before they get a chance to fire back. Surprise surprise: Samsung is still alive, they also have a big red button, and they're pissed.
Re:Just waiting for the mushroom cloud (Score:2, Insightful)
Not really. Steve claimed patents on iPhone from day one. No other phone ad ALL the features iPhone did when it was released. In fact, when Google was designing Android, they LEFT OUT certain features like the pinch to zoom because Apple had a patent on those feataures from 2000 era Fingerworks multitouch devices.
Google had inside information because their boss sat on Apple's board. Samsung had inside information because they were selling the parts. They brazenly chose to copy and lost that bet.
The Dyson Vacuum commercial is a perfect example of Apple's position. Apple put a lot of effort in to be unique and they want the dollars for that. If it wasn't such a big deal, why did Samsung's own documents point out how important it was to not lose market to iPhone?
Re:ABM Treaty for Tim Cook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fuck it. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, there are no mobile phone companies that don't hold patents and use them either as weapons or as barriers to entry for potentially new competitors, This is why it's silly when people take sides in these fights since neither side is some angelic cmoany. Fanboism overrides logic every time.
Re:This is not possible (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is the exception. They refuse to license their patents, and also refuse to pay people for the patents they use.
[citation needed]
And no, I own an Android phone, so don't go there.
I agree with you that FRAND doesn't mean that you have to charge everyone the same amount to use the patents you contributed to a standard. If someone doesn't bring any patents to the table, they should be charged more than someone else who did contribute.
What got Samsung last time was that the patents they tried to use against Apple were considered to have been paid for by the IC manufacturers who incorporated the use of those patents into their ICs. That's commonplace and allows IC manufacturers to sell to customers without those hundred or thousands of customers to each have to pay for those patents individually. Sadly, I suspect these LTE patents are the same type and their claims won't be upheld.
Re:Yay!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Those who live by the patent, die by the patent.
Patent exhaustion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lawsuit will fail...again (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the MPEG licenses that allow someone to manufacture a camera that compress to MPEG-4 but if you stream that contents you have to pay again? or force the manufacturer to add a message that the video could not be used for commercial purposes, go check your camera annexed documents http://www.freshdv.com/2010/05/mpegla-licensing-nightmare.html [freshdv.com]
After seeing the MPEG licenses I believe everything is possible
Re:ABM Treaty for Tim Cook (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long time there was uneasy peace. Nobody was stupid enough to pull the trigger on a full scale patent war. Not even Microsoft. Even dancing monkey boy was willing to merely extort money.
For mutually assured destruction (MAD) to work, all players have to be rational and sane.
Enter Apple.
By Steve Jobs own words, and Apple's continued actions, this won't end until Apple is pounded into the ground and nothing but dust is left.
I for one will be laughing myself silly once a patent nuclear weapon lands in Apple's back yard. And it will happen. Then we will hear a chorus of whining like nothing ever heard before from the fanboy reality distortion field cult.
The good thing that will come of it will be to draw attention to the broken patent system and how it is seemingly designed for abuse.
Re:bad for consumers (Score:2, Insightful)
Wasn't Apple's argument regarding the 3G patents that, since they bought the chips from Qualcomm, who did pay for the FRAND licensing deal, they were already licensed? (Which makes sense, honestly. Is it reasonable that a FRAND patent holder should be paid twice for the same product?) As I recall, this argument was accepted by the court. I'd like to look it up, but my school internet is absolutely awful.
Re:Yay!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you give an example where Samsung has used patents to block competitor's products from being sold on the market before that whole showdown with Apple?
Re:OMG! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not and never was about any particular issue that Apple is suing anyone over in any particular court.
The recent Samsung case is not about Trade Dress (eg, Rounded Corner rectangles, etc). Other Apple lawsuits are not about the specific claims Apple is complaining about (eg, bouncy scrolling, pinch to zoom, searching more than one database at a time, etc).
For example, Samsung specifically designed a phone (Galaxy S 3) to avoid any kind of trade dress lawsuit. So what did Apple do? Sue over some other equally trivial issue.
What this is really about is that Apple doesn't want any competition. Apple feels like the entire Smartphone industry is God's Exclusive Gift to Apple by Divine Right. Apple should never have to license others' patents, even at standard rates, because Apple is special. Never mind that others have been in the business for decades. Apple should have it all now because Apple wants it all.
This is not your dad's Apple Computer anymore. This is a monopolist wannabe monster that is as bad or worse than Microsoft ever was.
I wouldn't care if Apple just wanted to have their walled garden, sell lots of toys, make boatloads (and more boatloads) of money, and leave me alone. But no, Apple wants to force me to buy their product and only their product. I can't have one of the over 4,000 Android devices that come in every size, shape, color, style and price from lots of manufacturers and on ever mobile network. So now that Apple wants to affect me, I suddenly care passionately, just like I did once with Microsoft.
How much is enough Apple? What do you want? Blood? Would that satisfy you? Aren't you successful enough to just leave everyone else alone?