Judge Koh Rules: Samsung Did Not Willfully Infringe 111
sfcrazy writes "In a nutshell there won't be a new trial in the Apple V. Samsung case, as Samsung wanted, because the judge thinks that the trial was fair despite allegations that the jury foreman could have been biased. She also ruled that there won't be any more money for Apple as the iPhone maker failed to prove they were 'undercompensated' by the jury. The most important ruling was that she found that 'Samsung did not willfully infringe.'"
Sensible for both sides to appeal (Score:5, Insightful)
With this ruling neither side are going to be happy (and frankly it's somewhat self-contradictory as well)...
Both sides will be writing up appeals no doubt so this story is far from over yet - it'll be very interesting to hear what gets presented to the higher court and what their take on the foreman is.
Samsung isn't your friend (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeking treble damages is SOP for these kinds of suits. You do it because you have a reasonable chance of succeeding and there is no penalty for the attempt.
Anyway, don't be quick to jump to Samsung's defense because they're on the other end of Apple in this suit, or because they make your favorite smartphone. Samsung pretty much owns the SK govt and aggressively attacks its overseas competitors in every manner you could imagine. There are plenty of blogs detailing Samsung's domestic abuses of power (That far predate any smartphone). Samsung isn't a friendly company and they aren't looking out for you. Like any company, they just want your money.
State Taxes on Winnings? (Score:2, Insightful)
Face saving (Score:5, Insightful)
Judge Koh knew that she has seriously fcuked up in the original trial.
This second round ruling - that Samsung does not "willfully" infringe on Apple's patents - is nothing less than a face saving move.
Re:Sensible for both sides to appeal (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, that seems to be the case. So how is this not a case of doing a half-assed job, making wrong conclusions and then passing the buck?
If you or I did that in a business environment, we'd probably get fired. Will she get a free pass after this?
Re:Face saving (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone could copy them without any way to sue, why would anyone bother spending money on the invention? Much cheaper to wait for someone else to invent it, and then copy it.
I don't know why this stupid meme just won't die. TO MAKE MONEY of course. Sitting on your ass selling nothing doesn't make money. Sitting on your ass and trying to sell a 10 year old product also doesn't make money when someone else is selling something newer and better. First mover advantage is tremendous. New shit sells. It doesn't even have to be particularly innovative. Just different enough. Eradicate the assinine patent system completely, and nothing changes except we stop enriching lawyers to no purpose. Patents are not just useless for their stated purpose—they actively hinder ALL of their stated purposes. They do not foster innovation. They do not propagate ideas. They do not better society. They do not protect garage inventors. They exist today for the same reason they existed when the term was coined—to enrich the friends of the king. Nothing more.
And I know all of this to be true because of one thing we ALL know to be true. As engineers, we are ordered, in no uncertain terms, not to ever ever read a patent when we're trying to create a new product. And even if we weren't explicitly forbidden to read patents, we wouldn't, because practically none of them save any time at all. The vast majority of them do not contain sufficient information to benefit from reading them. The vast majority of them are redundant, stupid, and obvious. Yes, obvious, even at the time they were first contemplated. Another stupid meme that won't die. We all start from the same place. We all have the same tools at our disposals, we all have exceedingly similar educations, we all leverage the same software libraries and parts, and we're all trying to solve the same problems at the same time, because what's a problem for one of us is invariably a problem for a whole bunch of us. All of these factors cause us to converge on identical solutions. Nor is this a recent phenomenon. We now know from history that even the stuff we considered fundamentally, radically innovative STILL wasn't unique. The telephone. The radio. Independently invented simultaneously multiple times. Trying to solve the same problem with the same resources led to the same solution. The lone genius inventor is a myth. A myth we cling to because it strokes our egos. A myth we should abandon because the ego stroking isn't worth the damage that affects us all.
Patents aren't just worthless: they're an active detriment to society and should be abolished.