Who Cares If Samsung Copied Apple? 544
hype7 writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article that's questioning the very premise of the Apple v Samsung case. From the article: 'It isn't the first time Apple has been involved in a high-stakes "copying" court case. If you go back to the mid-1990s, there was their famous "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft. Apple's case there was eerily similar to the one they're running today: "we innovated in creating the graphical user interface; Microsoft copied us; if our competitors simply copy us, it's impossible for us to keep innovating." Apple ended up losing the case. But it's what happened next that's really fascinating. Apple didn't stop innovating at all.'"
The Chinese... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Interesting)
You kid, but this is actually important.
Supposedly we live in a "Global Economy" now.
China manufactures a lot of goods for the US. Now ask yourself, what does the US have to offer China, and the rest of our world? Intellectual Property, which is only reinforced by our nations laws? Our Lawyers, which mostly are specialized in US law? Our MBAs?
If we hardly manufacture anything now and IP is our primary "resource", and foreign countries do not need to respect our IP, then what exactly do we have to trade for? What do we offer the world?
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is totally naive to think that just because someone can look at your product, they can execute the production, distribution, and support for your product.
IP is not our primary resource. And if it is, we deserve to fail utterly.
Companies should be successful for building, selling, distributing, and supporting products. There isn't any reason to Tax the world for their willingness to compete just because we pass a law that says they have to.
Today there are nearly 200,000 patents on various aspects of smart phones. Maybe even more! If we gave every patent holder a penny, a cell phone would cost 2,000 dollars for IP alone.
Get over it. IP is important to some extent. But Apple's abuse of the system is unethical and shouldn't be tolerated.
Manufacturing strawman (Score:5, Informative)
If we hardly manufacture anything now and IP is our primary "resource"...
Strawman argument. The US has a $3.7 TRILLION manufacturing sector and it is growing. Just in case that isn't clear, measured by value the US has manufactures more than any other country in the world by a wide margin. By itself the US manufacturing sector would be in top 5 economies in the world. The notion that "we don't manufacture anything anymore" is complete nonsense. The only change is that products with a high proportion of labor cost (labor intensive) are now manufactured where labor is cheaper. However a huge number of products have a low proportion of labor cost (capital intensive) and those are made here. We manufacture automobiles, airplanes, pharmaceuticals, agriculture products, chemicals, integrated circuits, and much much more. The death of US manufacturing has been greatly exaggerated.
The change in manufacturing in the US is that it is evolving somewhat like farming did 100 years ago - fewer workers as a percent of population but producing more. As a proportion of the population manufacturing jobs are going to continue to decrease for some time. That does not mean that the US will cease being a manufacturing powerhouse however.
Follow the chain down (Score:5, Insightful)
If you follow the supply chain down, you start to hit China pretty quickly: seamless steel tubing, castings, bushings, bearings, more and more seals... Problem is, they are relentlessly climbing up that supply chain to such an extent, that our 'manufacturers' become more 'assemblers' (such as the Google a/v widget). Caltrans is saving millions on a new bridge... by buying most of the subassembly weldments from China.
Just has already happened in the food industry, more and more weasel words and definitions are being applied to US 'manufacturing' to put more money in the pockets of corporations all the while waving their American flags (probably also made in China).
Re:Manufacturing strawman (Score:5, Insightful)
Strawman argument. The US has a $3.7 TRILLION manufacturing sector and it is growing. Just in case that isn't clear, measured by value the US has manufactures more than any other country in the world by a wide margin. By itself the US manufacturing sector would be in top 5 economies in the world. The notion that "we don't manufacture anything anymore" is complete nonsense. The only change is that products with a high proportion of labor cost (labor intensive) are now manufactured where labor is cheaper. However a huge number of products have a low proportion of labor cost (capital intensive) and those are made here. We manufacture automobiles, airplanes, pharmaceuticals, agriculture products, chemicals, integrated circuits, and much much more. The death of US manufacturing has been greatly exaggerated.
The change in manufacturing in the US is that it is evolving somewhat like farming did 100 years ago - fewer workers as a percent of population but producing more. As a proportion of the population manufacturing jobs are going to continue to decrease for some time. That does not mean that the US will cease being a manufacturing powerhouse however.
This might be slightly OT but you make a good point and this is something that we, as a society, will have to deal with eventually.
At some point in the future there won't be a need for as much manual labor as we have now. Robots/machines will eventually take over most tasks - look at Foxconn buying a million (!) robots to start converting some assembly of electronics to robotic assembly. Look at what Musk is doing at Tesla and how the cars are made almost entirely by robots.
Either:
Work weeks will get shorter and some form of guaranteed income (or massive increases in minimum wage) will take place, thus having the average person work many fewer hours per week for the same or much higher pay than people get now for 40 hours of work. I don't see this as a bad thing - I suspect many (if not most) first-world people would be glad to continue their current lifestyle while working fewer hours - they'd get to spend more time with their family, pursuing hobbies (including spending money on them), etc.
Or:
Most people are going to end up poor and unemployed (leading to a vicious downward spiral where less consumer $$$ means less economic activity, further depressing the need for output, leading to people willing to work for scraps, further putting downward pressure on economies around the world, repeat until riot/revolution). We already have a massive glut of capital, running around shoving money at anything that smells like yield (the primary driver of the financial crisis - too much cheap money desperately looking for a place to invest, though certainly not the only driver). If all the resources continue to accumulate at the top then we may end up with a brutal police state that crushes most people while a few lords live in mansions, consuming luxury goods produced by robots solely for the rich. Prices for everything would skyrocket (despite the minimal cost of production) because the money is just changing hands between the various rich factory/resource owners.
Re:Labor mobility (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it means those people will do something else other than manufacturing.
Like what, being artists and/or bankers? Most service jobs today are being replaced by software or outsourced.
Profits and wages for a small group of people have risen astronomically, while the rest is in decline!
Re:Labor mobility (Score:4, Informative)
Where do you live that the only things the population does is manufacture, paint, and manage money?
A nice list [bls.gov] provided for your reading pleasure.
Note the lack of manufacturing, painting, and money managing on that list.
Gah (Score:5, Insightful)
Such as selling each other mobile phone contracts, or asking paper or plastic, or would we like to super-size those fries.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
China manufactures a lot of goods for the US. Now ask yourself, what does the US have to offer China, and the rest of our world? Intellectual Property, which is only reinforced by our nations laws?
Competence?
It's a running joke that Americans are fat, stupid, lazy bastards. Many of us are. It's true for Northern Europe, too. What is also true is that when you're looking for field experts and one-of-a-kind capabilities, this is still where you look.
You fail to realize that when another country needs precise engineering (regardless of the field), they'll usually look to the US. Yes, even today. With few exceptions, the rest of the world still looks to the White Man Culture to implement the new, importa
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is, of course, exactly why the Obama Administration has been "going nuclear" on domestic and especially non-domestic threats to that precious IP. It's what prompted the extreme and illegal actions against MegaUpload and Kim Dotcom, not to mention that fellow from the UK whose name and site escapes me who also faces a sort of extreme rendition. There's also WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, because our government also perceives the diplomatic cables, war documents and videos and all the rest that WikiLeaks has shared to be "intellectual property" of the government itself.
This is why "infringement" is no longer simply a civil matter. It's now a crime against the state.
Re: (Score:3)
A company I work with often has its primary product made in China. They ship the manuals from here locally, to the dealers all around the world, but the product is made in China. Recently, we have been getting angry customers, calling and saying that their russian model does not have a manual at all, and there are no russian language ones on the website. Funny, they don't sell in Russia, and none of their distributors are authorized to sell in (or located anywhere near) Russia.
Apparently, we let it go, b
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're kidding right ? The war in Afghanistan has taken 11+ years, and costing trillions, and you're saying China should be Afraid ? HAHAHAHAHAH !
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he's not kidding and what2123 shouldn't be downmodded as a troll. Just because we aren't terribly successful at winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people doesn't mean we do not have a formidable military presence in the rest of the world.
The wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan were totally stupid and failed to meet the vast majority of political and military objectives that were publicly stated. They do manage to show the world that we will spend untold trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives (both ours and everyone elses) on fairly stupid, limited goals. China well knows that if it really tried to piss us off it could be turned into a vast repository of active nuclides so they won't.
It's going to be much like the "Cold War" which really was a warm warm using proxies (like Afghanistan). Look at China's attempts at getting at Africa's mineral resources. If they get terribly successful at it, plan on various guerrilla groups and proxy governments to join the fray.
I personally don't think this strategy is economically viable nor particularly sane, but then again, nobody votes for me....
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even though we still have a dominant 1st-world military, and we're trying to act like self-justifying warpigs in some areas, when an "ally" of one of our former enemies (who still has enough nukes to glaze the world over a couple of times, at least), we're suddenly reluctant.
China seems to want to take the long view on things more often than not. They're in a spot where they can invest in infrastructure in Africa with a currently far less obligatory reciprocity required from its target countries. In return, those countries are far more welcome to the Chinese investments. The US and Europe these days are edging to the worst excesses of the first colonial days, focused only on short-term, maximized resource extraction rate (aka "profits"), regardless of what is left behind. Sure, China will approach that, but at least the countries have 20-50 years to realize this. China is also new, different, not a lot of history. European & American countries have 100-200 or more years of colonial exploitation history...
China is happy to let us ADD ourselves into the spider web or quicksand. Hopefully, again in the future, we here in the West can come together, to a point, and pull our collective heads out of our asses (WWII), but hopefully not because of an epic world condition.
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what kinds of messes do certain Continental European countries create? Germany, France and Switzerland are major arms exporters. Believe me, Europe causes its fair share of misery and woe, and on the scales of history, has caused more misery than war than any other bit of geography I can think of. No one needs to be lectured by Continental Europe on how to behave.
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Funny)
And what kinds of messes do certain Continental European countries create? Germany, France and Switzerland are major arms exporters.
Hey, don't forget the rest of Europe! I'm from the Netherlands and we're at least as big as, as, I dunno, Idaho! And we make really nasty stuff too, like, errrr, ummm, like target sights! Or at least, we used to make them, let me look that up *returns to computer terminal*
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Interesting)
doesn't mean we do not have a formidable military presence in the rest of the world.
China well knows that if it really tried to piss us off it could be turned into a vast repository of active nuclides so they won't.
Wow.... just wow. Are Americans really this naive? You know America! Fuck Yeah! isn't really a usable military strategy? Sure you have some impressive hardware, but you have no brain. Let me tell you how it will work. China will destroy the US without a single shot being fired. They'll steal you're IP, hack your secrets, buy your officials, supply drugs to your children, financially back all the conflicting fringe groups and rot you from the inside out. They won't kowtow to the religious crazies, the gun nuts or anti-abortionists, they'll do whatever needs to be done to win, and you won't know it has happened until it's all over. China has a hundred year plan, The US can't plan past next week. You've already lost, it will simply take a few years for all the pieces to fall into place.
Lets be honest here. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can only win a war when you don't pretend your not at war. By that I mean, we no longer fight wars to finish them, we fight wars with the hopes of exhausting the resources of the other side before we exhaust the support of our own people.
If we had fought Afghanistan like we fought the Germans in WW2 it would be a lot closer to over if not. When you do not break the population supporting the other side the other side itself will never break. As it stands now, those in Afghanistan have no reason to quit fighting, they haven't really lost anything they value and those who live there are not to the point where they would put a stop to those supposedly fighting for them
Re:Lets be honest here. (Score:4, Interesting)
As it stands now, those in Afghanistan have no reason to quit fighting, they haven't really lost anything they value and those who live there are not to the point where they would put a stop to those supposedly fighting for them
The other approach (which has somewhat worked in Iraq) is to convince the population that the life provided under US occupation or a US-allied government is better than life under the other guys. For instance, the main reason that the VietCong had the slightest chance of winning in Vietnam is because their government had convinced people that they were the better choice - if they hadn't, the Vietnamese peasant population would have promptly turned in any VC in the area to the French, US, or South Vietnam.
If it works, it kills far fewer people than, say, the Dresden bombing.
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Insightful)
The war in Afghanistan has taken 11+ years...
Winning is not the objective. Perpetuating war is. Making this war one of America's most successful ever. And we have secured the poppy fields from the Taliban who damn near shut down the opium trade back in 2001. Just in case you're wondering why we are really there. The numbers speak for themselves.
No, it's making trillions for the financiers of this little adventure.
But neither of these should or will frighten China.
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because in Afghanistan, we're not fighting a war, we're fighting an insurgency. Big difference there (for a /.-friendly analogy, the difference between CP/M and RHEL).
A war would be two armies, fighting on relatively equal ground (within an order of magnitude of each other, at least). And it would be destructive as *hell* (there's almost no way a real war now would not go nuclear), and would end only with the near-complete destruction of one side's forces and economy. That's what the US military is designed for, and what a war with China would be. Remember Iraq? The proper war with Iraq's rather significant military, many of them veterans of a very long, bloody war with Iran, and armed with reasonably modern weapons? I'm sure you *don't* remember, because we cut through them like butter. We blasted them with not even the full might of our military (we held the nukes back, at least), and they literally could not surrender fast enough.
An insurgency is different. You don't win by killing all the enemy combatants, destroying all their materiel and wrecking their supply chain. After all, they can recruit more insurgents from the population, can arm themselves with locally-made or stolen small arms, and have no supply chain worth speaking of. No, you win this sort of war by "winning over" the people, by trying to minimize civilian casualties (instead of maximize enemy casualties), by building up civilian infrastructure (instead of destroying militarily-useful infrastructure). It's a war of politics and propaganda, not of armies and fleets.
And it is, unfortunately, something very difficult to win. In fact, I think it is essentially impossible for a democracy with any semblance of a free press to win, because all but one of the examples I can think of of "successfully ending an insurgency" were done by brutal massacres and the sort of things the Geneva Conventions were designed to stop. The sole counter-example I can think of is Ireland, and that was not a "victory" as much as it was "stalemate".
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Insightful)
A war would be two armies, fighting on relatively equal ground (within an order of magnitude of each other, at least). And it would be destructive as *hell* (there's almost no way a real war now would not go nuclear), and would end only with the near-complete destruction of one side's forces and economy. That's what the US military is designed for, and what a war with China would be.
area of iraq : 438,317 km2
area of china : 9,640,821 km2 (about 20 times as much)
populations : 31 million and 1300 million. (about 40 times)
and china also has nukes.
I hope you're not really contemplating attacking China ?
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
We (The United States) offer them the ability to keep their land and people under peace and not the premise of war. We (The United States) have the military strength to undermine another sovereign state's ability to maintain control of factories and production of said goods. This is what we offer to them and will do so until we cannot do so.
I wonder if that's true in modern times - if we declared war on China because we wanted control of their factories and suddenly lost access to Asian electronic component imports (even if other Asian countries remained friendly to the USA, China's military may prevent them from manufacturing or exporting any goods), would we be able to keep our war machine running? Do we have the capacity to make the semiconductors, resistors, capacitors, and build the circuit boards that we rely on for our "smart" military? Could that capacity be ramped up as quickly as we ramped up our industrial manufacturing capacity during WWII? A single chip fab can take billions of dollars and years to bring online - and probably relies on many foreign imports to make it run.
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Informative)
Much as I like WWII fighters... that's bunk. You first need to build the tools and dies to form the parts. You need skilled workers who know how to use them. Let's also not forget the main strength that gets overlooked - logistics. Your fuel comes from a refinery that probably uses a few microprocessors here and there. What are you going to do when you start having production problems with your fuels, hydraulic fluids, etc.?
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
I write this knowing full well that it will probably get modded down to -1 but this is exactly the sort of attitude that we (foreigners) see from US citizens which makes us look down on your country.
You (vocal, arrogant and naive representatives of the USA) post inflammatory things (like the above) acting like you are the worlds police (Team America... F*ck YEAH!) without even realising that Chinas intellectual property laws are quite different from the USA's and they are not beholden to your laws.
In reality it is only the AMERICAN company (in this case Samsung USA) who imports the product who is responsible for making sure the product complies with the local laws of the USA.
Regardless it would be quite interesting to see what happens if the USA ever did declare war on China... a little flash video from Albinoblacksheep springs to mind:- http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end [albinoblacksheep.com]
Just like the USA. Ask Charles Dickens. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, rather, check up the history of the USA and copyright/patents and especially Hollywood.
Re:The Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese don't give a shit about copying anything.
No; The Chinese care very much. China began writing long after the Mesopotanians, however, because ancient Chinese texts were carefully and repeatedly copied, they have survived much longer than texts almost anywhere else in the world. This gives them a real claim to be the oldest culture in existence. The current Chinese trend to "respect intellectual property" is a sign of their current governments disregard for the good of their culture and pandering to corporate interests over those of the Chinese people.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
China began writing long after the Mesopotanians, however, because ancient Chinese texts were carefully and repeatedly copied, they have survived much longer than texts almost anywhere else in the world. This gives them a real claim to be the oldest culture in existence.
Who cares about being "the oldest culture in existence"? What matters is where you're now, and it'd be pretty silly to excuse poor performance by saying, "well, but we did all those awesome things like 2000 years ago".
(naturally, this is not specific to Chinese at all)
Re:The Chinese... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares about being "the oldest culture in existence"? What matters is where you're now
Where you are at now is a product of where you came from. It's not an accident that Sun Tzu [wikipedia.org] is still studied in West Point. Time is an excellent filter of value in ideas. It's much easier to accept his teaching if you believe that he's an important part of your culture and if you have direct access to the original texts. Still; there's one perfectly valid point in what you are saying. Many of these texts are translated and everyone can learn from Chinese culture.
Re: (Score:3)
Time is an excellent filter of value in ideas.
Only when they're critically approached in the first place, rather than mindlessly duplicating them on the grounds that it's what you've always done before for centuries.
I'm not saying that keeping knowledge around is worthless, far from it. But you keep it around to build other things on top of it, not merely to preserve it as is for posterity.
Re: (Score:3)
No; The Chinese care very much. China began writing long after the Mesopotanians, however, because ancient Chinese texts were carefully and repeatedly copied, they have survived much longer than texts almost anywhere else in the world.
Not germane.
In those days, where originally there may have been exactly one copy of a text, the act of copying was critical to its preservation, not to mention dissemination. One copy does no one any good. The Chinese copied texts no more frequently, and no more widely than any other civilization. Its just that more of them survived.
That texts have survived in China longer is due to a lack of nut-job dictators and religious zealots seeking out and destroying every copy they can find, and even burning ent [osu.edu]
What Innovfation? (Score:3, Informative)
Xerox created the interface which apple purchased in stock swap, it was not apple's original innovation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What Innovfation? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple did a lot of work to make their UI as a GUI for consumer level users. Xerox interface was for a limited use. Trying to get it in a system that is under 5k.
For Example Supercomputers can perform Ray Tracing Animations in real time. For our normal PC we cannot (at least at the same quality). In order to attempt this we take a lot of the ideas and find what to reduce and shortcuts that have the smallest visual effects. So we took an idea and make a new product off of it... Innovation.
But this is a difference case of Samsung and Apple They are both on the same market, selling a product at around the same price with similar specs. So it more of a case of copying then innovating.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Payment can take many forms. Allowing someone priority access to your stock pre-IPOD is worth something. Therefore it is payment.
Re:What Innovfation? (Score:4, Informative)
Stop posting from the future.
There isn't a PC in existence that can ray-trace a full scene (1920x1080 or better) in anything approaching "realtime" (24fps or better).
Re:What Innovfation? (Score:5, Informative)
Patent System Broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously the patent squabbles in these cases are ridiculous - the only reason we have functioning high-tech industry in the US is that most companies are not like Apple, and do not use patents offernsively.
It's a good time to review the reasons why, for example, software patents do not work, and can never be made to work:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_abolish_software_patents [swpat.org]
Re:Patent System Broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patent System Broken (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. Here's the obligatory TED link, with an interesting view on how the lack of patents, and an obvious and accepted pattern (pun intended) of copying has made the industry huge.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html [ted.com]
It isn't very easy to tell an original from a copy (Score:3)
It isn't very easy to tell an original from a copy, as this poor reporter found out (too late):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=789he-8T_-E [youtube.com]
The object in that video looks like it was copied from something with rounded corners. Could it be an Apple copy of something? Don't know. Still. As always. I prefer the original.
Re:It isn't very easy to tell an original from a c (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all copies are inferior. Japan got huge in the 80s/90s by "copying and improving". And they were not the first that did this; it's how UK lost out to mainland Europe in the later stages of the industrial revolution: they were the first to industrialise, but the continent copied there methods and products, and improved on them.
China is currently very much in the copy phase, sooner or later they will also start to innovate themselves (some Chinese companies already do that), followed by a time in which the establised companies will be out-innovated. It may take a while, the Chinese don't seem to be very fast in picking up the innovation part, but if the world's history is anything to go by, sooner or later they will.
Re:It isn't very easy to tell an original from a c (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK lost out because at a certain point, the innovations necessary to continue to progress required more and more specialized technical education. The British University system was simply not set up to handle that. It was designed to turn the sons of Lords into Lords, and the upper middle-class into educated Lordly-like young men, optimized for leading business, but NOT in leading technical innovation (or military strategy, for that matter). Such a hands-on education was beneath them.
In addition, they always felt they didn't need such innovation in re-inventing that which they already had because of their extensive colonial might. Why invent a blue dye and undercut the price tag you were already commanding by being able to bring in the dye from the east-asian source?
Germany, on the other hand, spent most of the last decades of the 19th century realizing that trade schools, which the British wouldn't invest in, were precisely the means by which Germany could catch up to the rest of the world. German innovation happened most in the field of chemistry, where they were more and more able to invent (from coal and coal tar) products that could make up for places they lacked both colonies or military power. The process for sodium-nitrates alone (originally to be a fertilizer) produced enough explosives to preserve the German army for years through WW1.
Apple Did stop Innovating. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't true. Apple DID stop innovating. You missed the section of time where Apple was minutes from bankrupt before Jobs came back with a load of money.
The bullshit myth that won't die (Score:3)
“Apple, which ended its third quarter with $1.2 billion in cash, will use the additional $150 million to invest in its core markets of education and creative content, Anderson said.”
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/592FE887-5CA1-4F30-BD62-407362B533B9.html [roughlydrafted.com]
http://lightbox.time.com/2011/10/06/in-a-private-light-diana-walkers-photos-of-steve-jobs/#10 [time.com]
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/05/apples-stock-rise-could-have-mea [arstechnica.com]
Re:Apple Did stop Innovating. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure... Here you go. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/08/dayintech_0806/ [wired.com]
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-comeback-story-2010-10?op=1 [businessinsider.com]
http://macdailynews.com/2009/04/14/steve_jobs_engineered_apples_resurrection/ [macdailynews.com]
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-return-19972011-10062011.html [businessweek.com]
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html [cnet.com]
I could go on forever on this one. It's very well documented that in 1997 Apple was extremely close to bankruptcy (some speculate days away) when Steve Jobs, then brought back to Apple as an "interim CEO", negotiated with Bill Gates to have Microsoft invest in Apple to the tune of $150M.
Re:Sure... Here you go. (Score:5, Informative)
Samsung Must Be Made an Example (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though in doing so, they actually may increase the sales of Samsung tablets. Some percentage of people who wouldn't have given a non-Apple-tablet a second glance may now decide "Hey, if Apple is 'worried' enough to sue over this, it must be pretty good."
However, Apple really has no choice. If they don't sue, then that would be the "green light" for the "Allwinners" of the world to come in and just crank out $40 blister-pack 'ePads', absolutely indistinguishable-from-iPad (until you actually tried to use them!) tablets.
Not only would that eat into Apple's sales/profits, but it would eventually (and wrongly) leak into the consumer mindset that ALL tablets are shit. And that could make the iPad market dry up as quickly as it was created.
Re:Samsung Must Be Made an Example (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because Yugos eventually (and wrongly) leaked into the consumer mindset that ALL cars are shit.
Spare us the confused consumer nonsense Fanboi Wan.
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Right, because Yugos eventually (and wrongly) leaked into the consumer mindset that ALL cars are shit.
If those early Yugos had looked almost exactly like Fords, to the point that Yugo's own counsel mistook a Ford for one of their own products, then Ford would have indeed been concerned that their brand value had been diluted...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And the harm in that would be what?
Turn the argument around. (Score:5, Insightful)
Having other people copy your designs doesn't mean you can't innovate anymore. On the contrary: by innovating you will stay ahead of the pack.
Also, copies always mean the copier is playing catch-up. They always have to wait and see what you've done, before they can try to do the same. By innovating you will keep the advantage, having everybody copy your work just means you have to innovate even harder and faster. That's tough of course, much easier to stop the rest from picking up your innovative ideas.
Re:Turn the argument around. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I do like the irony that you took the content of an article that says copying is good for innovation, and just copied it.
Fair point (Score:3, Insightful)
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Decreasing the time you can monetize any new idea serves to decrease the monetary value of that innovation. Decreasing the value of innovations doesn't sound like a winning formula for fostering innova
Re:Fair point (Score:5, Insightful)
And more importantly, if an "innovation" can be copied by a competitor in nearly no time, then it's probably not an innovation at all (e.g. rounded corners)
Steve Jobs (RIP) was fond of this axiom (Score:5, Interesting)
"Good artists copy. Great artists steal. And at Apple, we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
[Source: Isaac's authorized biography]
Apparently he never liked it if someone else followed this axiom, though.
Apple and the GUI (Score:3, Insightful)
However extracting this out, does apple really invent anything? Siri is just voice analysis which isn't new or clever or even that hard, as I did music genre detection for my final project in University, so I can tell you it's pretty simple. Apple didn't invent the smart phone, they didn't create the tablet, they didn't create Unix which is what OS X is based on and they didn't invent the intel CPU they run. So what does Apple invent? Having a little bit of software for messages or screen locking or even a GUI layout is hardly inventing anything, I consider more a look and feel which personally I don't think should be protected I mean anyone could do the same thing, you don't have to be a leader in the computer field.
So I rest with what does Apple invent? Seems to me they take and sue but thats about it.
Re:Apple and the GUI (Score:5, Informative)
What has Google ever invented? (Score:3)
Using that type of analysis, then no company has ever invented anything. Everything is just some tweak or combination of existing technologies.
Seriously, name a single invention.
Re: (Score:3)
"Invent" means a lot more than making a YouTube video. You need to bring a product to market at a reasonable cost.
Invention != Marketing.
[Marketing] is where Apple excels and Samsung excels in copying.
Welcome to Capitalism, comrade.
Parallels (Score:5, Insightful)
The parallels of current Apple to early 90s Apple are numerous.
- They were first widely used in multitouch and gui
- Their OS is more user-friendly
- Development and modification of their OS is more tightly controlled
- Crucially, they don't license their OS
- Steve Jobs isn't there to save them with brand-new product lines
So now, they're stuck with a market-leading position that is being slowly eroded by the open ARM + Android platform (Armdroid as the new Wintel?), and are being forced to fight on several fronts at once: hardware design, OS design, and developer loyalty.
The litigation strategy is just one more parallel, and it seems destined to fail.
Apple infringed first (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple should start playing by they own rules.
If a company infringes someone elses patents then they should lose the right to defend their own.
Apple doesn't license other peoples patented technologies - they just infringe. Ask Nokia how they magically got around $650 million from Apple last year along with an ongoing royalty payment for every iPhone. Because Apple refused to license key Nokia technology and just blatently infringed when they refused the terms Nokia offered. They then went to the courts claiming that Nokia were unfair to them in the terms and so shouldn't be allowed to hold the patent.
And it wasn't a "key technology" like rounded corners - it was GSM to make it work like a phone!
Re:Apple infringed first (Score:5, Interesting)
those were FRAND
if you develop new tech for wireless, wifi and other open technologies and the patents get accepted into an open standard you have to agree to license them to everyone who asks at a similar rate. usually a penny or two per device
Apple doesn't innovate..... (Score:4, Informative)
Seeing both sides (Score:4, Interesting)
Whilst I am hoping that Samsung largely wins its case, I can see that there should be limits to what can be copied and how much a rival product can simply imitate the originator. Apple should be able to protect the unique aspects of its design, and both Samsung and Apple should be able to patent technological innovation where it is appropriate to do so.
Having said that, I feel Apple is trying to grab too much in this case. It is obvious that Apple didn't come up with the general idea for the layout of a tablet, even if they were the first to market with a genuine product that consumers wanted. It is similarly obvious that everyone wanted to go to a touch screen phone layout at around the same time, and the ergonomics and layout for that are obvious.
Whilst the gap is narrowing, Apple should realise that they really make their money from producing a product that, whilst on the leading edge of techology, is a polished design where all the parts have been carefully put together. I have a Samsung phone at the moment, and whilst there are aspects of it that are probably better than an iPhone, the whole product lacks the design harmony of its rival. The UK judge who, in dismissing Apples case, said that the Samsung product was 'not as cool' probably expressed it best.
Poor understanding of IP categories (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go back to the mid-1990s, there was their famous "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft. Apple's case there was eerily similar to the one they're running today: "we innovated in creating the graphical user interface; Microsoft copied us; if our competitors simply copy us, it's impossible for us to keep innovating." Apple ended up losing the case.
The Apple v. Microsoft case was on copyright, not patents. Specifically, the court ruled that:
Apple cannot get patent-like protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor [under copyright law]...
and look-and-feel simply isn't covered there.
With that distinction and proper categorization in mind, the article misses a crucial difference between the 1990s and today: Apple made a significant push to protecting its designs with patents. The lack of such protection almost killed Apple in the 1990s, and its with that protection now that Apple is well on its way to being the largest company ever.
Re: (Score:3)
The lack of such protection almost killed Apple in the 1990s
I disagree. I think an operating system that was cheaper, more open, and had a better variety of hardware killed them. People rememberd what it was like when IBM was in Apple's position and they didn't like it. Most people these days don't remember that, but I'm guessing some of them are finding out why it's a bad thing.
Welcome to the Pirate Party, James (Score:5, Insightful)
The Pirate Party here in Sweden been arguing just these points for a long time now. Innovation is not happening in a vacuum. Great ideas inspire others to come up with even greater ideas. By sharing the information and sharing the data others can look at it and improve it and the speed of research will increase.
The patent system is not something that foster innovation. Its is something that hinder innovation. Remove it
Also the billions of money going to patents trolls and feeding lawyers to hand patents could be instead used to invest in research to further the science of mankind.
TED Talk on innovating without copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
... in this case for the fashion industry, but hey, it's interesting and relevant:
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html [ted.com]
Execution, not innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, they just made it better than most others, and marketed the hell out of it.
Apple didn't invent high-end laptops, they just made them better than most others, and marketed the hell out of them.
Apple didn't invent the smartphone, they just made it better than most others, and marketed the hell out of it.
Apple didn't invent the tablet, they just made it better than the others, and marketed the hell out of it.
That's why they're so threatened by Samsung. Because Samsung is doing the same thing. Samsung didn't invent the "iPhone," they just made it better. Just like they didn't invent the "iPad," they just made it better too.
Re:Execution, not innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Samsung was not interested in making a better iPad or iPhone. They were interested in riding the wave of Apple's success, and hoping to score some cheap marketing by making their products nearly identical to Apple's.
Competative markets: they're pretty neat. (Score:3)
> Apple ended up losing the case. But it's what happened next that's really fascinating. Apple didn't stop innovating at all.'"
Yeah, competition is a bitch. You have to keep working. Much nicer not to have any competition - no innovation required at all. Ask Comcast about that.
Re:Competative markets: they're pretty neat. (Score:4, Funny)
I tried, but I have been on hold since last Tuesday.
In the words of Steve Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Jobs, interviewed in Triumph of the Nerds on PBS (1996)
"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." - Jobs, as quoted in Walter Isaacson's biography (2011)
So it's OK if Apple do it, but not otherwise?
And the next step was even more fascinating... (Score:4, Funny)
"it's what happened next that's really fascinating. Apple didn't stop innovating at all.'"
What followed was even more dramatic. Microsoft, since they could get away with copying, settled for that and stopped innovating. Eventually they imploded and lost their market dominance while Apple has far surpassed them.
I would never bother buying a Samsung as a replacement for the iPhone, iPad, iPod. Samsung has only a tiny part of the puzzle even if they totally copy Apple's hardware and software. They still lack all of the smooth integration with my laptop / desktop, the iTunes store and the enormous depth of software and other media available on the Macintosh which I use daily to get my work done.
The point they miss is all of these pieces of hardware are just tools. Tools to let us get our work done or what ever else we're doing. All alone the simple hardware is next to nothing.
There's another issue too. I don't trust Samsung to continue producing or supporting products. They're too wishy-washy. It is a waste of my time to change every year.
Apple did stop innovating in the 1990's (Score:5, Informative)
That's a pretty asinine statement. Apple *did* stop innovating for a while (or at least nearly did as all attempts to innovate were dismal failures). They started copying the IBM-clone business model and started looking to outside OS's for the next-gen Mac OS. IIRC BeOS was a strong contender until Apple decided to buy NeXT and turn NeXTStep into Mac OS X. The innovation began again after they brought Steve Jobs back and he killed everything that had been done in the 1990's (after he was ousted). Apple very nearly died not long after that original trial and most analysts thought that even the second coming of Jobs wasn't going to save the company.
All "evidence" of innovation in this article happened *after* Jobs came back when the company was at death's doorstep. Even more damning for the author is that all of that "evidence" was patented trade dress, design, and technology that Apple has successfully defended (e.g. eMachines tried to make a rip-off of the iMac and got sued by Apple, I owned one because it's what my parents bought me in High School).
-OS X - Not really Apple's big innovation. It was their acquisition of NeXTStep that lead to OS X and the return of Steve Jobs and innovation at Apple.
-iMac (original CRT version) - Design championed by Steve Jobs after his return, successfully sued eMachines over copying nearly exactly (even came in several bright colors, I had blue)
-iPod - Several years *after* the company had regained some footing, IIRC several patents involved with the iPod were also successfully defended
-iPhone - MANY years *after* the company had become a powerhouse even bigger than before
I hope this gets corrected soon! (Score:3)
Re:It's a blood feud (Score:5, Insightful)
So, apple "steals" from open source...
How can you steal from open source? Especially when they give back an enormous amount of development to the open source movement (such as http://www.apple.com/opensource/ ).
But, hey, why let facts and logic get in the way of a good ol' Apple bashing, right?...
Re:It's a blood feud (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's a blood feud (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a blood feud (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed the point of the Picasso quote (Score:3)
What Picasso (and Jobs) meant by "Great artists steal" was that:
* mediocre people copy designs without understanding them or improving them
* great artists take designs and add enough to them that everybody forgets about the original
Apple is clearly in the second category - 0.1% of the public remembers the Xerox Star, almost no one bought Windows tablets, etc.
I would have to put Samsung in the first category. Look at their 2010 iPhone analysis [scribd.com] where most of its recommendations boil down to "iPhone does this
Re:Yeah they did stop innovating (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and other people stepped up to innovate. Apple doesn't have some magical innovation juice. They are just a company. If they want to get lazy, then talent will move elsewhere. You mentioned "multi-tasking", but that would have been something that required talented and competent engineers, not innovators. Innovation is something you come up with while half-drunk. Everyone understood how multi-tasking was supposed to work, it was just a matter of "making it work". Apple innovated in the same way that George Selden innovated(the patent holder to the automobile). He didn't exactly create the greatest car in the world, he just had the idea for a car. Henry Ford developed some of the greatest ideas in automotive history, but he did it all while violating Selden's patent.
Re:Yeah they did stop innovating (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and other people stepped up to innovate.
OK, you're going to need to qualify that statement. The Microsoft/Apple user interface case in question was decided in September 1994, and Steve Jobs returned in December 1996 and started pushing innovation in the UI again. So which companies exactly are you claiming "stepped up to innovate" between those dates as a result of Apple's stagnation in the UI?
In theory, there should be others to step in and innovate, but in practice that's simply not what happened. The most innovative UI feature introduced in that timeframe was the Windows Start Button. The only other thing I could think of would be BeOS, which had been in development since 1991, but they didn't suddenly "step up" because there was a void in '94.
Re:Yeah they did stop innovating (Score:5, Insightful)
After Apple lost the "Microsoft coppied our GUI" case, their desktop GUI remained unchanged for 10 years. System 7 through 9 were basically identical..... they couldn't even multitask properly (used cooperative multitasking which led to misbehaving programs refusing to give-up the CPU & freezing the system). Apple said they would stop innovating their GUI if competitors simply copied their ideas, and that's essentially what happened.
There are two premises in play here; one is that if Apple's IP is not protected that they would choose not to innovate (perhaps so that they can take their ball and go home) and the other is that if their IP is not protected that they are at a competitive financial disadvantage and can no longer innovate since there is no revenue coming in. In the past, it could be argued that Apple was indeed at disadvantage because they lost to Microsoft and therefore had poor sales revenue, and that is what stunted their innovation because they kept creating the same lousy desktop experience over and over. However at this point Apple has more than enough money to innovate to any degree imaginable, so any "missing innovation" would be due solely to their will to restrain themselves.
Re:Yeah they did stop innovating (Score:4, Informative)
. In the past, it could be argued that Apple was indeed at disadvantage because they lost to Microsoft and therefore had poor sales revenue, and that is what stunted their innovation because they kept creating the same lousy desktop experience over and over.
Then why was Microsoft's revenue not stunted by copying their crappy innovation? Even in the 3.1 days, Windows was preferable over a Mac by most.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
After Apple lost the "Microsoft coppied our GUI" case, their desktop GUI remained unchanged for 10 years. System 7 through 9 were basically identical..... they couldn't even multitask properly (used cooperative multitasking which led to misbehaving programs refusing to give-up the CPU & freezing the system). Apple said they would stop innovating their GUI if competitors simply copied their ideas, and that's essentially what happened.
The GUI look-and-feel that has more-or-less been unchanged since MacOS System 1.0, even through OS X, is not a sign of lack-of-innovation. Rather it is part of the consistency that makes users happy.
The LAST thing users want is change in the look-and-feel of their computer's OS.
This is what Apple has always understood, and what Microsoft is about to (doubtfully) learn with Metro.
The instabilities of MacOS are greatly over reported. I have been using Macs since they were Lisas, and crashes of my Macs w
Re:Yeah they did stop innovating (Score:5, Interesting)
How can something be 100% stable and have 2 kernel panics?
If you exclude "sketchy third-party" drivers, you could knock every BSOD that I've experienced with Windows off the table.
With Gnome taking a bit of a dive, Unity a bit on the rise, and Metro just starting out, these are certainly interesting times. Just grab some popcorn and see what happens.
Re: (Score:3)
I say it's pretty good when Kernel Panics are so infrequent that you can remember each of the system-wide OS failures in over a decade of use.
An issue with selective memory [lmgtfy.com] perhaps?
705,000 hits for "Kernel Panic OS X"
Re:Does Apple Truly Innovate? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the ones that Apple copied - after Jobs and Xerox negotiated a deal to allow Xerox to but 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock.
In other words, Apple was happy to give value for value received. Why is this story constantly repeated as an example of Apple being underhanded?
Re:This case is different! (Score:5, Informative)
how can it be counterfeiting? it has samsung written on the front and no apple logo's or other trademarks in sight.
Counterfeiting is about trying to pass 1 product off as another. They certainly look alike but without trying to pass it off as an apple product it can't be counterfeiting.
This... (Score:4, Informative)
Counterfeiting is about trying to pass 1 product off as another. They certainly look alike but without trying to pass it off as an apple product it can't be counterfeiting.
There are some amazing counterfeits out there. A trip to any swap meet/flea market across the US will turn up some good (and terrible) counterfeit goods from Coach bags, Louboutin shoes, to Rolex watches.
The Chinese have mastered the art of counterfeiting goods (and, apparently, entire companies).
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/technology/27iht-nec.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/us-apple-china-fake-idUSTRE77A3U820110811 [reuters.com]
While the Samsung products may have elements of the look of some Apple products, they're not counterfeit.
Re: (Score:3)
Technically, that is correct from a technology sense. Apple never innovated too much in technology - they usually purchase technology.
What Apple does do is innovate in making technology usable. If you want a really technically advanced phone, Japan sells 'em with hundreds of
Re: (Score:3)
It's called a design patent, which I can kind of understand the purpose of. But the ones being sued over appear to be far too basic and obvious. Things like rounded corners should never even be a possible component of a design patent. Sure there's more to it than that, but at the end of the day it's still like having a design patent on a car with four round wheels, four doors with windows, and a window front and rear. Rounded corners on hand-held devices have been around as long as hand-held devices, and us