Apple Again Seeks Ban On 20+ Samsung Devices In US 235
An anonymous reader notes that Apple has renewed its patent attack against Samsung, asking U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh to prohibit Samsung from selling over 20 different phones and tablets. Apple made a similar request after it won a $1 billion judgment in 2012, but Koh did not allow it. An Appeals court later ruled that Apple could resubmit its request if it focused on the specific features at the center of the 2012 verdict, and that's what we're seeing today. Apple's filing said, "Samsung’s claim that it has discontinued selling the particular models found to infringe or design around Apple's patents in no way diminishes Apple’s need for injunctive relief. ... Because Samsung frequently brings new products to market, an injunction is important to providing Apple the relief it needs to combat any future infringement by Samsung through products not more than colorably different from those already found to infringe."
Re:20+ devices (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no. (Score:5, Informative)
This "is a matter of law" only when law is on Apple's side. When Samsung got some of their devices blocked at ITC, they just came to Obama crying and Obama administration overturned ruling by decree. For me it's plain corruption, not a matter of law. Apple is a parasite who abuses laws when it suits them and using political connections to ignore laws when it works against them.
Re:How about no? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually what I find more disturbing than a biased juror is how Obama permitted apple to sell its phones even though samsung won a ban legally, yet didn't grant the same favor to samsung in the exact same circumstances. That's pretty obvious favoritism, and unlike the biased juror, it's perfectly legal and not subject to appeal.
Re:Apple is a terrorist. (Score:5, Informative)
Apple did not invent what we now call the smartphone. The iPhone merely has the distinction of being the first really popular such device.
IBM came out with their touch-based "Simon" phone in 1993, which although it had a black-and-white screen and lacked multitouch capabilities, still had many of the features we associate with smartphones today. Users dialed with a onscreen keypad, and Simon included a calendar, address book, can be understood alarm clock, and e-mail functionality.
A Swedish company, Neonode, came out with a touch screen phone in 2003 (arguably unimaginatively named the N1m) that even utilized gestures, including the now very familiar "slide to unlock" functionality... which so many people associate with the iPhone these days (although in actuality, the intuitiveness of slide-to-unlock gesture is really quite obvious when you compare such an operation to that of sliding a deadbolt open).
But arguably neither of these phones looked a lot like the iPhone... But this in no small part because technology really needed to catch up to the concept. Nonetheless, if you look at pictures of either of those devices, especially in operation, you will probably recognize many familiar concepts which we now come to expect in a smartphone today.
Enter the LG Prada, in 2006, a fully multitouch smartphone unveiled not that long before Apple publicly unveiled the iPhone, and which looks so similar to the iPhone that LG actually accused Apple of copying *THEM* (although in actuality, their release dates were near enough to each other that it is unlikely that either had had any significant influence on the other).
So perhaps, instead of anyone copying anybody else, smartphones look and operate the way they do because it is a design that comes spontaneously from a combination of the evolution of technology, intuitive operation, and overall practicality... not, as you put it, imitation that is both "transparent and egregious"
Re:How about no? (Score:4, Informative)
That wasn't favoritism, that was corporatism. Apple was a big donor to Obama's campaign and Samsung wasn't as big a donor.
It's no better in any form, but put the blame where the blame is due.
Re:...not more than colorably different... (Score:4, Informative)
If the current patent mess had been in place when cars were first industrialized
It was. George B. Selden is credited as being an early patent troll. He patented a version of the internal combustion engine, then went around demanding licensing fees from automobile manufacturers. It was eventually overturned, but was a early indicator of the problems in the patent system. Read more here: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/11/05/the-original-patent-troll.aspx [fool.com]