Samsung's Comparison of Galaxy S To iPhone 383
david.emery writes "In a document from the ongoing Samsung/Apple trial, provided in both English translation and Korean original, Samsung engineers provided a detailed comparison of user interface features in their phone against the iPhone. In almost all cases, the recommendation was to adopt the iPhone's approach. Among other observations, this shows how much work goes into defining the Apple iPhone user experience."
Ars has an article on the evidence offered by Apple so far.
The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:2)
What if the iPhone really is that innovative in the smartphone arena that only Apple can provide smartphones? Then they have a monopoly, and the DoJ tends to get upset with monopolies that appear to be unreasonably restraining consumer choice raising prices, or both.
Just ask Microsoft. They, arguably, have never recovered from the antitrust suit. Does Apple want to go down that path?
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue comes up when Apple (or any other Microsoft) uses their monopoly in one area to leverage their position in another (think "shutting off the air supply to Netscape").
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Actually, "how much they earn through 3rd party apps being sold" is very little in their overall revenues. You should check that out sometime - Apple could close up the App Store tomorrow and only notice a small hit in their revenue - they make their money off of hardware sales, by and large -- NOT software sales.
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The line of argument was "considering how much money Apple makes through the sale of third party apps" - they make (demonstrably) very little money from the app store, and all comments they've made so far indicate that it's about a "break-even" proposition for them. It is far from a significant contributor to their revenues or earnings.
Even if the DoJ forced them to close their app store tomorrow, or sanction competition, there would be little to no appreciable hit to their bottom line, because profits fro
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
If 30% for "hosting, distribution and all finances" is such a great deal, surely they would have nothing to fear by allowing competing services to perform these difficult and expensive tasks. I mean, very few companies on the planet have yet mastered the intricate technological challenges of inexpensively hosting downloads.
30% (plus $100/yr, don't forget) is an insane amount for the minuscule amount of "service" Apple provides.
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is an absolute steal at 30%, given that the bulk of the software pricing on the app store and on the iTunes music and movie stores are low value amounts.
30% cut to handle payment services for your customers, including card processing and verification, refunds, fees to banks and credit card companies, gift cards, customer service, helpdesk etc? Yes please.
That alone is worth the 30% cut; the hosting and distribution is just a free bonus.
I assume that the 30% that Google charges on their store is also "insane"? Or is that perfectly fine because it's not Apple?
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30% cut to handle payment services for your customers, including card processing and verification, refunds, fees to banks and credit card companies, gift cards, customer service, helpdesk etc? Yes please. That alone is worth the 30% cut
On the contrary, 30% for payment processing is a huge markup - contrast with PayPal's Merchant Fees. [paypal.com] As a developer, which would you rather pay?
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Informative)
Not if you use their micropayments plan [paypalobjects.com]. Their fee is 5 cents + 5%, which works out to be 10 cents for a $0.99 app, way less than what Apple or Google charges.
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If my apps are all cheap? Apple's.
Small value payments are expensive and you lose a lot to the fees.
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The one that does all this for me, without my having to write, maintain, and police my payment system.
The one that has the store that markets my apps for me across most of the planet.
The one that builds devices specifically for the purpose of running apps like mine, devices that work correctly and aren't fragmented all to hell, saving me thousands in equipment purchases, and hundreds of hours of support and chasing down odd bugs.
The one that has some shred of piracy protection.
The one that has a userbase th
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It is a steal, if you're comparing it to traditional brick-and-mortar distribution.
Except we're not. Comparing it to most other digital distribution stores (mainly MP3s and games), this 30% app-store cut is *huge*.
Everything you list that they (and by "they" I mean all app stores) do is completely automated. Yes, that stuff would be a huge pain in the ass for an individual to handle it themselves, but once it's been automated it's not a substantial amount of work for *anybody*. And besides that, if you'r
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Google allows you to install stuff from other sources. Developers are more than welcome to sell their files directly to customers if they find it expensive. Bet you didn't factor that little nugget of info into your argument did you?
I didn't need to - it's not relevant.
If you think, as a small developer, you can get better rates on microtransactions with all the major payment methods and still come out ahead after doing all the legwork for it yourself (maintaining the servers that handle it, processing returns, handling support calls etc) then fair play to you.
For those developers who just want to develop apps and not have to deal with all that, a 30% cut on an app that sells for less than $5 is a fantastic, hassle free deal. The argum
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And if you think most companies selling boxed software in retail stores or Amazon are walking home with anywhere near 70% of the retail price, I have a bridge to sell you.
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That, is fucking retarded.
Judge an argument on it's own. That it is posted as AC means NOTHING.
I have a pretty early account. I only started using it again in 2010, only because I wanted to force a preference after the horrible Slash 2.0 update.
Before then I was still contributing, still getting high comments, without any bother of signing up(I forgot I had this account).
Being an AC does not mean they forgot to login or even have an account. It isn't necessary, and means NOTHING.
Stop making that fucking arg
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Google has explicitly opened themselves up to competitive pressures by allowing externally sourced purchases & downloads. And they STILL charge 30%.
Amazon, too.
That means they either need to charge that just to break even or make a reasonable profit (and this is Amazon, Apple, and Google we're talking about - I think they probably have some pretty good tools for managing server farms), or they're confident nobody else is going to be able to do it significantly cheaper.
My money's on the second one - hosting a data center, providing good uptime, fast payment processing & downloads, worldwide distribution, and a storefront... that all gets expensive. They probably COULD do it a bit cheaper, but why lower your revenues when there's no competitive pressure to do so?
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With Apple, that's not even an option.
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"Apple Dick-tators". My goodness, your professionalism is showing!
I don't think the App Store is really missing much due to your boycott over the yearly fee.
I'd tell you that you're cutting your nose off to spite your face, given the customer base and money-making potential of iOS (a serious developer targets at least the top two major platforms), but you're probably too busy complaining to your mom that your brother got a bigger piece of cake for pudding.
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unknown sources (Score:5, Insightful)
It is exactly the same amount as Google charges for apps in the Play store.
Unlike iOS devices, Android devices have alternatives to the Play Store. Google charges 0% for applications distributed through "unknown sources" such as Amazon Appstore, SlideME, Soc.io, or the developer's own web site. The key difference is that the user doesn't need to exploit a security vulnerability in the operating system to install third-party app stores on Android devices.
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1) They don't have a monopoly in phones, they have much less than 50% of the market
2) They don't have a monopoly in smart phones, they have much less than 50% of the market
3) They don't have a monopoly in smart phones in the USA, they have much less than 50% of the market
They currently have a large part of the Tablet market....
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The long-term problem for us (Score:3)
Restated for a different era:
There are few if any issues w/AT&T having a monopoly in phones.
The issue comes up when AT&T (or any other monopoly) uses their monoply in one area to leverage their position in another (think "shutting down the air supply of innovators)
Is the problem with monopolies perhaps more clear now? They *ALWAYS* end in less innovation... ALWAYS.
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that will happen. There are plenty of implementations that apple doesn't think infringe. The phone market isn't like the PC market was at all. The numbers are open to interpretation, but apple isn't the number one phone manufacturer and the don't have number one market share. A monopoly isn't a hazard for apple
Definition of a patent (Score:2)
A government grant of monopoly. Then they expire, and the monopoly is over. If the government does not like such monopolies, then it should stop issuing patents.
Patents are temporary (Score:4, Informative)
A government grant of monopoly. Then they expire, and the monopoly is over. If the government does not like such monopolies, then it should stop issuing patents.
The government doesn't mind monopolies and in some cases monopolies are actually useful. Patents are granted because a *temporary* monopoly is a lesser evil than the Free Rider problem [wikipedia.org]. Some monopolies are hard to avoid (utilities) and some are regulated. The problem is when monopolies start to abuse their power in ways that hurt consumers or the economy in general. Standard Oil was broken up because having a single unregulated company in controlling the nation's energy supply was demonstrably dangerous. You can argue that patents are too long or issued for frivolous "inventions" but they exist for a very good reason. Monopolies as such aren't the problem - unchecked monopolies sometimes are and that is when the government worries about them.
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:5, Informative)
Two problems with what you've said:
1) A monopoly on smartphones is not a monopoly at all, since dumbphones still account for the majority of the market. Companies have tried to sue Apple in the past for having a monopoly on the Mac market and using it to their advantage, but they've always been dismissed since Macs are merely a part of the larger PC market, and a rather small part at that.
2) Having a monopoly is not necessarily a problem. It's when a monopoly acts in an anti-competitive manner that there are problems.
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You're not going to hear any disagreement from me, but that was one of the arguments used by Psystar (the Florida company selling Mac clones a few years back) when they counter-sued Apple after Apple tried to shut them down.
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Well, Google's approach is to ask the government to force Apple to license their patents out.
I wonder if Google knows what a patent means - exclusive use is part of the terms for granting a patent, IIRC.
Apple isn't that powerful (Score:3)
What if the iPhone really is that innovative in the smartphone arena that only Apple can provide smartphones?
Unlikely. There is a difference between providing a similar product and slavishly copying one. I don't pretend to know the details of this case but if Samsung simply copied everything Apple did then they deserve the consequences. Apple's way is hardly the only way.
Then they have a monopoly, and the DoJ tends to get upset with monopolies that appear to be unreasonably restraining consumer choice raising prices, or both.
Apple lacks the market power in phones to do either and all it would take for a mass migration away from Apple would be one bad or inferior product. Android based phones collectively outsell iOS based phones and there is no indication that thi
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What has been killing Microsoft is that the world is moving to something other than the PC.
I don't think this is the whole story. The desktop is not dying, and the PC gaming market is not dying. Revenues are higher than they ever have been.
What I believe is happening is that innovations in the desktop market just aren't there now, to the same extent that they were 10-20 years ago. Making a game pretty is not enough, anymore, since it's relatively easy to make a game pretty now. I am not one of the apo
Re:The long-term problem for Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
What if the iPhone really is that innovative in the smartphone arena that only Apple can provide smartphones? Then they have a monopoly, and the DoJ tends to get upset with monopolies that appear to be unreasonably restraining consumer choice raising prices, or both.
Just ask Microsoft. They, arguably, have never recovered from the antitrust suit. Does Apple want to go down that path?
Apple didn't invent the smartphone, and I doubt they claim to. There were plenty of smartphones before the iphone - Nokia had e.g. N95 [wikipedia.org] (and other N-series) and their Communicator [wikipedia.org], Blackberry had many [wikipedia.org] phones, Sony Ericsson had their P900 series [wikipedia.org], HTC had Windows mobile phones [gsmarena.com]. They behaved in different ways, and had many interesting styles. So obviously, there are many other ways than iPhone and iPhone OS to look and behave.
Samsung just put an awful lot of work into looking and behaving the same. Where the legal limit for copying goes I don't know, but Samsung wasn't exactly trying a brand new design they had been working on and polishing for the last five years... it seems as if they even copied marketing materials [appleinsider.com]. And even today, there are many different ways. E.g. the Nokia Lumia 900 [techradar.com] - it is a full screen touch mobile, but has its own design and user interface. I certainly wouldn't buy one - Microsoft has already said that they are obsolete [arstechnica.com] - but they have put (different) thoughts into design and behaviour.
Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Insightful)
The comparison of phones/tablets available prior to the iPhone/iPad and those that came out after both were unveiled show that Samsung is definitely in the wrong as far as design styles go.
Whether this should be something someone can patent is another argument that I'm not going to get into here.
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Whether this should be something someone can patent is another argument that I'm not going to get into here.
How dare you gloss over this! Coming up with an uninterrupted rectangular surface with evenly-rounded corners and a bezel is some of the greatest innovation of all time.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4)
Thank you for this because I wanted to reply to the guy above you, that the problem is that the discussion seems to be always dumbed down or ridculized by talking about the "rectangle and round corners". If I follow the court-case in more detail, it seems a lot broader then a "rectangle with round corners".
And even then I'm not convinced that you can even patent a "rectangle with round corners", but then again I'm rather sure you are aware of that fact. I think your reaction is a classic way of not getting a discussion about the other arguments.
I didn't even had the time to reply, the rectangle argument was there at the speed of light. And don't say it is funny because after hundreds of time, the humor is wearing of.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that is exactly what their design patent is asserting is their 'invention'.
Claims
We claim the ornamental design for an electronic device, substantially as shown and described.
And their drawings are just scribblings of a rectangular form factor with rounded corners and a bezel.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that is exactly what their design patent is asserting is their 'invention'.
Claims We claim the ornamental design for an electronic device, substantially as shown and described.
And their drawings are just scribblings of a rectangular form factor with rounded corners and a bezel.
Not "just". Design patents are actually very narrow: the design claimed is not just "rounded corners" or just "a bezel" or just "a rectangular form factor", but all of those things, in combination... and even in more depth. Every aspect of the design shown is part of the patent claim, including the specific curvature of the corners, the size of the bezel, the symmetrical placement of the screen within the border, the edge curvature, etc. Change any single one of those, and you don't infringe, by definition.
They're not "scribblings" - you could actually take a ruler and protractor to them if necessary.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Insightful)
You see all those squiggly black lines AROUND the drawings?
Yeah, those are called "words."
Those "words" do something we call "describing".
So perhaps you can explain why you're only looking at the pretty pictures, when the claim you JUST cited specifically says "substantially as shown and described "?
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Oh, I'm sorry - you're under the impression that this case is solely about that single patent. Never mind, then - I stand in awe of your reductionist logic.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Informative)
Also, from an icons standpoint, they said Meizu didn't infringe, but Samsung did. The meizu calendar icon looks WAY more like the iphone icon than the samsung one that Apple highlighted.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure Apple had the iphone under development before it was announced. Samsung being a supplier for the iPhone would have access to these designs during the development stage.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Black, flat front with no/few buttons, large touchscreen, rounded corners, silver bezel, grid of icons... Looks the same to me.
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You mean it sort of looks like a black Palm V?
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Samsung being a supplier for the iPhone would have access to these designs during the development stage.
Samsung don't build the iPhone - they only supply a few components chips (cpu, flash) and the LCD display. All of these parts can be purchased in volume, there's absolutely no reason why Apple would need to supply Samsung with pre-release iPhone designs.
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This is true. However my main intent was to point out the flaw in the parent's logic "Samsung presented evidence of phones that were in development before the iphone was announced" where he compared the date of announcement with the date that development sta
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One more thing.
I assume you are referring to the Samsung F700 whose development and announcement timeline is currently being debunked by several sites. The F700 wasn't publicly announced until February 7, 2007. The development timeline wasn't disclosed, but there were direct comparisons to the iPhone during the original announcement.
Unfortunately for Samsung, the F700 only copied the look of the chassis and not the UI. The pictures shown on a Gizmodo article dated Feb 8, 2007 shows some screen shots, and
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So, despite the fact that the linked document [scribd.com] contains 260 slides showing side-by-side comparisons of the difference between the iPhone and the Samsung GUIs, with recommendations that Samsung implement the iPhone approach, which they then did, you are going to tell us that in fact Samsung alread
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Informative)
This is a simplistic and incorrect view.
Before the iPhone, most phones didn't have a large touchscreen, but that doesn't mean that everyone copied Apple or that others shouldn't be allowed to compete. Both Samsung and LG had an iPhone-like design before the iPhone. Patents should only be awarded for novel, non-obvious designs. The design was always obvious, which is why a large touchscreen had been used in sci-fi and mock-ups in the past. The problem is that the technology wasn't there. You needed a beefy mobile processor to power the display, and good battery life.
In 2006, there was a convergence in cheaper displays, better mobile processors and better batteries that you can three companies who had the same design. Apple by far did the best of marketing it. The technology still wasn't cheap, which is why the LG Prada and iPhone were both $600 (subsidized). The Prada was marketed as a luxury item, where as Apple appealed to the masses (even if they all couldn't afford it yet).
But LG won a design award in 2005 for what Apple claims they should have sole ownership of, when they didn't demo it publicly or release it until 2006. Samsung has documentation they had theirs in 2005 as well.
The fact that the design became popular and common when the technology finally supported it doesn't mean Apple is right. Perpetuating that lie is harmful to competition.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Informative)
This is a simplistic and incorrect view.
Yours is also a simplistic view.
Apple's case is not based on "We own the idea of phones with big touchscreens, Samsung made a phone with a big touchscreen, therefore Samsung infringed upon our idea, case closed."
The claims are far more specific than just "phone with touchscreen" or "phone with rounded corners." [peanutbuttereggdirt.com]
But, of course, a twelve-point comparison makes for a lousy sound bite, so we keep harping on ALL YOUR TOUCHSCREEN WITH ROUND CORNERS ARE BELONG TO APPLE!!!1
What it is... (Score:2)
Tell me what it is
It is what it is. A very exact description of how something looks, including the icons on the screen and the exact coloring used. A line that Samsung crossed.
You can tell it's specific because Apple is not suing all Android makers over these design patents. Just Samsung.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Informative)
But LG won a design award in 2005 for what Apple claims they should have sole ownership of, when they didn't demo it publicly or release it until 2006.
The Prada was a slide phone with a hard keyboard [dailymobile.net]. That's a very different design.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:4, Insightful)
When people say "look at all phones post-iPhone to see that they all copied Apple" they're generally referring to a large rectangle with round corners, and a large touch screen. Certainly some had slide-out keyboards and others didn't.
The Prada won a design award because of the large touchscreen and soft-buttons replacing traditional physical buttons.
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Your post (GP from this) has no troll mods. I'm guessing whoever modded it down posted to the discussion, and thus voided their mod points. (though I never saw your post with a troll mod, so I'm taking your word for it).
That being said, if this is the way it works, I hope we can metamod temporary mod points. Someone who is shilling can abuse the system by modding everyone they want to down, then post later to prevent metamodding.
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I don't like to complain about the moderation system. Anytime I post something that someone disagrees with, I run the risk of negative moderation. It is an imperfect system and it happens from time to time. On the whole I really like democratic moderation and want to integrate it into my Wordpress site.
My post was -1 Troll at the time I commented. I was upset primarily because I think this is such a crucial issue. Steve Jobs talked about how Apple didn't fight enough for the desktop market initially and it
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. What you're not seeing is the complete list of devices that Samsung released before and after the announcement of the iPhone. There were devices before the iPhone that looked iPhone-ish, but Apple isn't going to show you those. And there have been a lot of devices after the iPhone that don't look anything like an iPhone, but Apple isn't going to show you those either. The only thing that is certain is that Samsung has released a lot of different devices over the years, and some of them have looked iPhone-ish. Because Apple makes only one style of device, they naturally assume that Samsung must have ripped them off when, in fact, it's just not true.
Or put another way, imagine if I started a car company and decided that I wanted all of my cars to look exactly like a 2005 Nissan Altima because I'd decided that was the height of style and function. Then later, I sued Nissan for ripping off my design. In court, I put forth "evidence", slides showing various models of Nissans--the Sentra, the 200SX, maybe even some old Altimas that used a different design, then slides showing the 2006 Nissan Altima, 2007 Nissan Altima, 2008 Nissan Altima, etc. To a layperson, it would look very much like Nissan ripped off my design, when in fact at best, we came up with the designs independently (and at worst, Nissan could compellingly argue that I ripped off their design).
Unfortunately, Samsung won't be able to show the jury some of the evidence of this happening, as a result of Judge Koh's ruling earlier. I still hope they are able to win this case, because otherwise, whether you like or hate Apple, you can bet that there are going to be a lot more cases coming forward dealing with design patents. Every company out there is going to see "rip-offs" of their products and sue, no matter how incidental it is to the actual workings of the product.
It's also unfortunate, because if Apple wins, it's going to also severely limit companies' ability to innovate in the future. Until very, very recently, it wasn't unusual for companies to regularly take the best ideas from other companies and people, mix them up in new ways, improve on features that were weak, and release new products to advance the industry. Apple has benefited from this themselves: they didn't invent the GUI; they got the idea from another company, improved it, and drove GUI operating system technology forward while also making it popular. They didn't invent MP3 players; they took the best of what was out there, splashed their own design and software ideas on it, and completely revived their company.
But now, god forbid someone else uses some of their ideas--ideas that they got from other places--to try to push the technology forward even further. And if I were an Apple fan, that level of protectionism would greatly concern me. To me, it says clearly that Apple is afraid that Samsung can (and quite possibly is) out-Appling Apple when it comes to design and functionality.
I mean, let's be brutally honest. How many people are going to go in a store wanting an iPhone, get confused, and come out with a Galaxy instead? Nobody. I can almost guarantee you that no one has ever gotten home and thought, "Hey waaaait a minute... This isn't an iPhone!" I will admit that there are some slick features that the iPhone and Galaxy phones share that I really like, but when I got my Galaxy Nexus, it wasn't because it was an iPhone rip-off. If I wanted an iPhone, I would have bought an iPhone, I had one prior to the Galaxy Nexus. I deliberately bought an Android phone because of features such as widgets on my phone's home screens, the ability to use third-party software that isn't in the Google Play store, the bigger screen and an aspect ratio that I like better, etc.
Of course, there are rumors now [arstechnica.com] that the next generation of iPhone will have a taller screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Does Apple cons
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, the fact that Samsung is denied the right to present the evidence is because their legal team was so dumb fuck stupid not to present the evidence in the legal phase where evidence is supposed to be presented. Call it a technicality if you must. Nevertheless, the judge is 100% right to suppress said evidence on the grounds it wasn't presented on time.
Legal proceedings are very precise. Samsung lawyers seems to be very stupid on that one.
There will be an appeal anyways, so who cares?
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As I understand it, the fact that Samsung is denied the right to present the evidence is because their legal team was so dumb fuck stupid not to present the evidence in the legal phase where evidence is supposed to be presented. Call it a technicality if you must. Nevertheless, the judge is 100% right to suppress said evidence on the grounds it wasn't presented on time.
Legal proceedings are very precise. Samsung lawyers seems to be very stupid on that one.
There will be an appeal anyways, so who cares?
Agreed on the first part, but the appeal can only address legal issues, not factual ones. The factual record gets established at trial, so it does matter. The appeals court could always remand and call for a re-trial, but that's pretty rare.
Re:Damning Evidence in the Ars Article (Score:5, Informative)
You have a bit of a misunderstanding but the situation is complicated because it really is a result of mistakes by everyone: Samsung, Apple, and the Judge.
Samsung did bring up their evidence near the end of discovery but they were still in the phase of the trial when such things should be admissible as long as it wasn't intentionally delayed until the end. There is practically a tradition in the legal profession of submitting exhibits and discovery at the last possible moment, and having it ruled inadmissible is one of the risks they take with that and Apple won in saying that the F700 should be inadmissible. That's fine.
Where things go sketchy is that Apple then brought up the F700 design as an example of a Samsung iPhone copy in its opening statements. Samsung argued that by bringing up the F700 Apple opened the door for further information about the device (particuarly that it was in development before the iphone was announced) which is the way things normally work for this sort of situation. The Judge said no. However the Judge also has ruled and issued statements that everything in the trial is to be open, so Samsung pointed to the evidence when asked what the flap was about by a media contact.
The Judge was angry about this, but the Samsung lawyer's response was basically bulletproof and hung the Judge to dry by both her own statements and overwhelming precedent. Apple's lawyers have been very loudly hoping to capitalize on the Judge's unhappiness while (hypocritically IMO) they (or Apple PR) have been feeding the press a steady stream of "Samsung did a horrible thing by speaking to the press!" quotes.
Samsung's legal team made a mistake in not getting the F700 in earlier. Apple's legal team made a mistake in mentioning the F700, and in doing so allowed Samsung's team to immediately tee-up this case for a very strong appeal should they lose. The Judge made a mistake in her very aggressive response to Samsung's media statement and may have strengthened Samsung's appeal case by seeming to not be impartial. The only party seeming to be doing a perfect job is the Jury, which has been following the instructions to avoid all media on the case and thus likely doesn't have a clue about all of this bickering.
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Except it's not VAGUE. Everyone brings up previous phones, but they had vastly different UI from iPhone. One iPhone came out then Samsung is copying icons, behaviors, etc. even Google substantially changed Android to "act" like iPhone in many of the small things.
Fundamentally, your engineers can't take notes on somebody else's product and those same ones do implementation. They picked similar colors for icons (the previous phones has vastly different ones) they even copied the style of the BOX. Samsung tota
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"I mean, let's be brutally honest. How many people are going to go in a store wanting an iPhone, get confused, and come out with a Galaxy instead?"
I don't know about iPhone, but there was an incident where it supposedly happened with iPad.
Never mind the fact that iPad packaging doesn't have the word "Tab" or "Tablet" anywhere, doesn't have the word "Samsung" anywhere, doesn't have the word "Galaxy" anywhere, and similarly, nowhere on the Tab 10.1 packaging does "Pad" appear, not does anything related to App
Pre-Knowledge... (Score:2)
Never mind the fact that iPad packaging doesn't have the word "Tab" or "Tablet" anywhere, doesn't have the word "Samsung" anywhere, doesn't have the word "Galaxy" anywhere, and similarly, nowhere on the Tab 10.1 packaging does "Pad" appear, not does anything related to Apple appear...
And how exactly would a purchaser who had not seen an Apple iPod box before know that?
In fact all they would have to go on was thing thing in front of them in the display case, which looked just like an iPad.
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Okay Apple wanna nitpick, lets nitpick.... going from the bottom of TFA.
SMS Icon ... hmmmm
Apple = Comic strip SMS word cloud
Samsung = Wait that's the email icon
Similarity = Green, Different shades.
Clock
Apple = well okay, its a fuckin clock
Samsung = a fuckin clock again
Similarity = CLOCK!
Browser ... IE anybody?
Apple = Safari icon
Samsung = World icon
Similarity = Blue, a little bit of prior art
IPod
Apple = IPod outline
Samsung = Wait, that's the calculator icon.
Similarity = Orange.
I'd also note the px rounded e
Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only normal to look at someone else's product and say "hey, that's a good idea, let's implement that too!". Question is, were there PATENTS that covered this and that and was there a patent infringement in such cases? Moving a "Loading..." text from top right to middle of the screen doesn't, for example, look like "patent infringement", and if it IS a patent covering that, well then my personal opinion is that patents have really gone too far.
Re: (Score:2)
My understanding is that this was entered into evidence to show a pattern and Samsung's state of mind. As in, moving a button isn't infringement, but if they were already being so blatant, it's easier to believe they also ripped off what is patented.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Interesting)
It's only normal to look at someone else's product and say "hey, that's a good idea, let's implement that too!".
Agreed. But the other question in this case is: Where do you draw the line? If you copy 100 details from your competitor, you are effectively plagiarizing their product.
Re: (Score:3)
The patents are part of the trial, but if you too closely copy the entire look-and-feel of a product, there's a separate possible claim of infringement of "trade dress" [wikipedia.org], which is more like trademark law than patent law. Apple's also alleging that here.
On the other hand, if you look at how generic products tend to refer to brand names, in other areas trade-dress restrictions don't seem to put too many bars in the way. Walmart gets away with selling a Dr. Pepper clone named Dr. Thunder, for example, whose pac
Retaliatory power (Score:2)
Walmart gets away with selling a Dr. Pepper clone named Dr. Thunder, for example, whose packaging is clearly reminiscent of Dr. Pepper's. So I don't see why a "generic iPhone" can't come as close as "generic Dr. Pepper" does on the trade-dress claim.
Walmart gets away with it because Walmart can hurt the makers of Dr Pepper. Walmart could drop their entire product line with little effect to the bottom line of Walmart since it is a tiny fraction of their business. Losing Walmart as a customer would hurt the makers of Dr Pepper much worse since Walmart accounts for a rather significant portion of their business. Sure Dr. Pepper's maker could sue Walmart and might even win but it would be a Pyrrhic victory.
Apple on the other hand cannot hurt Samsung in
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember, this is a design patent case.
It's not just rounded rectangles and a black bezel. It's rounded rectangles, a black bezel, this AND that AND other things.
Note the the "AND" - it all has to add up to be significantly infringing. It doesn't have the same requirements as a utility [about.com] patent. Moving an icon would not likely be unique enough to get you a utility patent, but it could well be PART of a design patent.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
The way to crush a design patent is to show that there is a functional reason you chose that design.
"We moved the message from the top to the bottom so that it would be closer to where the user's finger would be hovering after the previous interaction. Here is expert testimony that says such alignment is more effective." BAM It's not just cosmetic.
"We chose rounded corners with a flush bezel instead of the earlier chunky corners because they will catch less when they are being removed from satchels, purses, and backpack pockets. Here are focus group comments related to that decision." BAM It's not just cosmetic.
A design patent is solely for non-functional design choices. Number of petals on a flower. Color coordination. And so on.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
For the end-user, this lawsuit means nothing. Samsung has already learned their lesson, and the Galaxy Nexus looks different than an iPhone. Samsung has some nice phones. Ultimately one of these two parties will pay the other one a lot of money, and the rest of the world will keep spinning as if nothing had happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember, this is a design patent case. It's not just rounded rectangles and a black bezel. It's rounded rectangles, a black bezel, this AND that AND other things.
Design patents also cover individual features. Why get a design patent? [designpatentschool.com]
Protect Individual Design Features – Perhaps the best reason to get a design patent is to protect individual design features. Protection of individual design features is probably the most effective way to protect the “visual brand” of a product. For example, assume your product is the first of its type to use a particular shape (i.e., rounded, squared, hollow, arched, etc.) for a major design component or set of components. Consumers may begin to recognize this unique shape as part of your brand identity. Then assume a competitor (i) uses the same shape for the same component, but changes the shape of other components, or (ii) uses the same shape for a portion, but not all, of the same component. The competitor likely will have intruded upon your visual brand identity and created some confusion in the marketplace, but may have done so in a way that avoids design patent infringement. A solution to this problem is to use advanced design patent prosecution techniques to protect the individual design features of your product. These techniques include portion claiming, broken line claiming, indeterminate break lines, multiple embodiments, multiple patents, continuation practice, and combinations of all these techniques.
Re: (Score:3)
Patents are mis-used (Score:5, Interesting)
The internal combustion engine is a perfect example. The internal combustion engine COULD NOT have been patented. The diesel engine was. One particular way of making an internal combustion engine. But with the patent for a diesel engine, a skilled craftsman had all he needed to make a fully functional diesel engine.
The reason there are so many different types of engine is that they were designed to avoid having to license a patent. This worked very well. It created innovation AND if you wanted to produce an existing engine in your own factory you just paid a relatively low fee.
But Apple wants to patent ideas. No a blue print but a concept. Not even the concept of an internal combustion engine but the concept of an engine. And the patents they submit provide nothing that a skilled craftsman can use to build a device. At most, they can give an engineer an problem to solve where the problem is "how do I actually build the product the patent theorizes".
That is not how patents are supposed to work. The idea for an engine is after all far older then actual engines but all the engineers who made engines would have to pay for the license to use the idea of some long dead guy if Apple had its way.
Go look through Apples patents, every single one of them. I bet less then a single percent contains the plans with which a skilled craftsman in the field can build a working product without having to design something himself.
Imagine if Apple was in medicine, they would patent a cure for cancer. The patent has nothing in it but "It would make us a lot of money if we could cure cancer, now someone else actually invent it and pay us".
Not how it is supposed to go. If you really did discover a cure for cancer, you deserve a patent and people would happily pay you for it. But NOT just for the idea that curing cancer would be nice.
Sadly the amoral Americans have decided the patent office needs to turn a profit and you don't turn a profit by turning customers away. So the patent office and grants every payment and the taxpayers pay for courtsystem to try to sort it all out.
Conclusion: Americans are a problem.
Re: (Score:3)
You're making the mistake so many Slashdotters are... you're confusing utility and design patents.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I was leaning toward Apple being a bit too overzealous on their claims until I read the Ars article. It's difficult to ignore the abrupt physical design changes that came after the iPhone release. And the similarity of the interface. The interface was so similar there was an internal suggestion at Samsung to make the icons more different because they themselves thought it looked like a ripoff. That's pretty damning just by itself. Even if they didn't set out to infringe, they've clearly recognized they did end up with a confusingly similar design. In this game, intent isn't the only thing that will get you in trouble. There's no leeway for "honest mistakes" in patent violation, especially when you realize your mistake and continue to do it anyway.
I also had to think about the "obvious" / "optimal design" problem. There's just so many ways to efficiently design a toaster. Slot for bread, lever to pull down, dial to adjust time. If someone has a patent that covers those basics, you'd have a really hard time designing a competing product that didn't infringe. I get that. But samsung has been in the business for years before Apple, they've had plenty of time to bring various designs to market. Then Apple comes along with what we'll presume is a truckload of market research and engineering resources, and right-off-the-blocks has a design that's very different than 95% of the existing products available in the market. If at that point a competitor suddenly changes their designs on a direct collision course with yours, it's very hard to swallow that your new design wasn't at least a major influence on your recent design changes.
And if you pull designs out of your drafting cabinet that you've been working on for years that look like the new release, but you had never patented them or brought them to market.... you snooze you lose. The point here is improving the products available in the market, and it will not reward you for sitting on good designs. Get it to market or go home.
I think if a new player enters the market with a revolutionary design, you're not entitled to copy it just because it's turning out to be a much more optimal design. If it was "obvious" then you should have done it already. If you didn't, either you're slow, stupid, or it wasn't really that obvious then, even if now in retrospect it looks very obvious. In any event, you shouldn't be entitled to copy it just for the "optimal/obvious" reason. The one that was quick, clever and bold enough to bring the "optimal" design to market before you ought to get a reward for their effort, innovation, and providing the market with a superior product.
Some of what Apple is arguing is iffy, and a few things are downright silly. But now that they're in court they're going to play all their cards, whether they be strong or weak. May as well. Let the court uphold the strong ones, strike down the weak ones, and hash out who gets what out of the middleground. This is pretty standard practice in any big case like this. Bring all your cards to the table and turn over as many as you can mange to. So even though some of these things seem silly, I can see why they're doing it. You'll get better odds on review of your iffy things if they've already struck down some of the silly things and gotten the cutoff for "silly" more clearly defined. So it's necessary.
Re: (Score:2)
its a design patent
samsung's icons are very similar with the iphone in a few cases, almost exact. if Moto, HTC and others can make skins that don't look like the iphone then samsung can as well
Re: (Score:2)
It's only normal to look at someone else's product and say "hey, that's a good idea, let's implement that too!".
But when Microsoft does it it's sleazy and dishonist?
Chevy & Ford (Score:3, Insightful)
Ford suing Chevrolet on copying it's design for an automobile, submitting emails/notes from Chevrolet engineers who are analyzing/comparing their new car with Ford's:
1. It has four wheels w/ rubber tires.
2. There is a driver's station with locking mechanism, steering wheel, gear shift, brake pedal, and accelerator.
3. There are seats for the driver and passengers.
4. There are 2 to 4 doors for driver and passenger entrance/egress.
5. There is some bulk storage area (trunk, etc).
6. There are at least 2 headlights, tail lights, and turn indicators.
.
.
.
So, obviously, Chevy "stole" Ford's design!
Re: (Score:2)
Ford has quite a few design patents, and has successfully taken legal action against those who they thought were infringing on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you tell the difference between a Camaro and a Mustang?
That's a *design* difference.
Re: (Score:2)
Have someone from 1900 tell you the difference. They will be so shocked at all the similarities that the difference will be considered minute and one would be considered a copy of the other.
Has Samsung ever brought up the LG Prada??? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it may be taboo to throw a competitor's device into the fray (and possibly opening up yourself to litigation from them), but seeing as how the LG Prada (LG KE850) had already won a design award months before the extremely similar looking iPhone had even been announced I would imagine that Samsung would jump at the opportunity to show prior art for some of Apple's "design patents" just to get them eliminated.
Re: (Score:2)
They'd love to, but apparently the judge likes telling Samsung what evidence they can't present. Refer to the Groklaw article [groklaw.net] linked to from /. a day or two ago.
Re:Has Samsung ever brought up the LG Prada??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Slight problem: the Prada was referenced in the '677 patent [uspto.gov]. I.e. The patent was awarded with full awareness of the LG Prada phone, meaning that the LG phone must have been different enough so as not to invalidate the claims of Apple's design patent.
Re: (Score:2)
Slight problem: the Prada was referenced in the '677 patent [uspto.gov]. I.e. The patent was awarded with full awareness of the LG Prada phone, meaning that the LG phone must have been different enough so as not to invalidate the claims of Apple's design patent.
So that would mean that anybody could make an exact copy of the LG Prada phone, and Apple could not sue them (well of course you can sue for anything, but they couldn't possibly win). And of course LG could sue. Or you could pay LG some money for the right to make an exact copy of the LG Prada, and you would be safe.
Re: (Score:2)
LG Prada was crap and based on crappy Brew OS. the nice thing about the iphone was that it was the first phone that was based on a real computer OS
Re:Has Samsung ever brought up the LG Prada??? (Score:4, Informative)
They submitted the evidence too late, so it was excluded. It had nothing to do with the importance or worth of the evidence itself. Apple actually had some of their evidence excluded for the exact same reason, though that's not getting as much press.
Re:Scribd document taken down (Score:5, Informative)
Fair amount of it here
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-samsungs-step-by-step-guide-for-how-to-copy-an-iphone-2012-8?op=1 [businessinsider.com]
Re:Scribd document taken down (Score:5, Interesting)
I read through it. There are some "let's copy the iPhone" things, but so much of it clearly shows that Samsung just didn't care about the software. Decisions that, even in a vacuum, make no sense. Here are some that I can remember:
There are quite a few places in the document that boil down to "The iPhone does this neat little visual trick, we need a neat little visual trick". There are a couple of places (I can't remember them off the top of my head) where it looks like they actually removed something useful to be more iPhone like. Without some of the slides, it would have read like a "what the hell were you thinking" memo.
It's going to be a tough thing for Samsung to argue against.