Samsung Claims iPad Mini, iPad 4, New iPod Touch Also Infringe Patents 124
A reader writes "Here we go again. Korean electronics giant Samsung has added three new Apple products to the list of products that the company claims infringes on its patents. In a filing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Samsung has added the iPad mini, the new iPad 4, and the fifth-generation iPod touch to an existing lawsuit that covers devices such as the iPhone 5, iPad 4, and earlier iPod touch devices. According to the filing, Samsung believes that 'good cause exists' to add these three devices to the original infringement claim, 'because Apple's new products were not yet available when Samsung submitted its original contentions on June 15, 2012 or its first motion to supplement its infringement contentions on October 1, 2012.'"
Global Thermonuclear Patent War (Score:5, Funny)
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Re:Global Thermonuclear Patent War (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. Apparently this is what we now call "innovation".
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Aside from that, Apple don't owe its existence to cozy relations with a murderous dictatorship like most, if not all korean mega-conglomerates. After all, South Korea became a more or less democratic country until 1987 even if they kept being ruled by a member of the party of their last dictator,Chun Doo-hwan . Still, I must admire of them that at least their dictators and oligarchs weren't as stupid that the latinoamerican dictators/oligarchs. If our oligarchs were 20% as smart than the south korean ones,
Re:Global Thermonuclear Patent War (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can also play the "launch all the missiles for the hell of it" card. Which is what's happening - these devices are on convergent evolutions and they're arguing over the current tiny ideas instead of the next big ones. Good reference though.
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what pisses me off is that the lawsuites between Apple and Samsung are raising the prices of the items I would have considered purchasing. We just bought a Lenova tablet at a great deal price. It was 1/3 less than the equivalent Samsung or at the price that Samsung had to sell it at, if there was no lawsuits.
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"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Strange? If the other side nukes you, you'd be a fool not to nuke them back.
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That's exactly why it's strange; both sides lose.
Re:Global Thermonuclear Patent War (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global Thermonuclear Patent War (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, in the patent game, both sides get to increase their cost-to-customer as well as barriers to market entry for small players and startups. For big companies, patent wars are a win, which is why they so willingly participate.
For their customers, on the other hand...
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That's accurate, but highly depressing.
And it highlights the problem -- this doesn't help consumers or foster innovation, it mostly just makes sure the big companies have no competition.
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Psssst... "Pity" is a noun, not an adjective.
"It's a pity (that)..." or "It's too bad (that)...".
It is a pity that there is no "+1 Grammer Nazi"
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It is a pity that there is no "+1 Grammer Nazi"
Need I say more?
Re:Global Thermonuclear Patent War (Score:5, Insightful)
Or be the lawyers.
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And, in other news - Black Friday Patent sales.... (Score:5, Funny)
And, in other news - Black Friday Patent sales are expected to open at 10 pm this evening.
Patents on "Duh", "Obvious", and "Send me a memo titled Shit I Already Know" are expected to go quickly.
Re:And, in other news - Black Friday Patent sales. (Score:4, Funny)
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Just not purple [guardian.co.uk] unless you want to incur the wrath of Cadbury.
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Black Friday
Black Friday, Orange Wednesday [orange.co.uk], ... any other days with colours?
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Bloody Sunday
Not strictly a colour, but better than Gloomy Sunday [wikipedia.org].
That does it! (Score:2, Funny)
I'm copyrighting infringing a patent. Anybody who violates my trademark will have to undergo an auto-da-fe.
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"This, being the best of all possible worlds, God saw it fit to invent the Rope. [youtube.com]"
(Sound of gallows trap door opening.)
Mooooooooommmmm! (Score:4, Funny)
Samsung: 'Apple's looking at me!!!!' ...
Apple: 'Am not!'
Samsung: 'Are too!'
Apple: 'Am not!'
Samsung: 'Are too!'
Apple: 'Am not!'
Samsung: 'Are too!'
Apple: 'Am not!'
Samsung: 'Are too!'
Previously from our last episode:
Apple: 'Samsung's looking at me!!!!'
Samsung: 'Am not!'
Apple: 'Are too!'
Samsung: 'Am not!'
Apple: 'Are too!'
Samsung: 'Am not!'
Apple: 'Are too!'
Samsung: 'Am not!'
Apple: 'Are too!'
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Yehbut... Apple started it.
Did too.
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What you have wrong is that it's the same episode. So you've inverted the timing of the claims.
This is Samsung responding to Apple attacking them. If the judge is fair, Apple will probably be forced to sign a patent pool agreement with Samsung. This preserves the patents to be allowed to attack newcomers. (So are the judge has seem biased towards Apple. Samsung is creating multiple grounds for appeal, as is legally required, because if you don't claim now, you won't be able to claim it in the appeal.)
C
And the winner is RIM (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone noticed that while Apple and Samsung are fighting each other in court, RIM stock is going up? Of course nobody will say that an obsolete, buggy device on an unreliably network is infringing on their patents. Quite brilliant: let the big boys beat each other down and step up as the safest choice for nervous enterprise customers.
Re:And the winner is RIM (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting, but not relevant. I work for a corporation that just standardized on the iPhone (against my recommendations). RIM was never even at the table. Sales, Marketing and even IT guys just don't want to be seen with a BB device anymore - they all want either an iPhone (mostly) or a Samsung GIII (minority). That's it. Its more about cool factor and being seen with the device, even in the business world.
As part of the evaluation, we spoke to close to a dozen other companies that recently went through the same process, and pretty much got the same response - that the users overwhelmingly refused to have anything to do with a RIM product, and wanted the flashy new iPhone or GIII.
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At my 100K employee company the key criterion is that it be remotely wipe-able with ActiveSync, and NOT require BES backend - so iPhone (3+ I think), and Android 2.2+ qualify (oh, and my old Win Mob 6.x phones, but not WP 7.x - dunno about WP 8).
YMMV
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As part of the evaluation, we spoke to close to a dozen other companies that recently went through the same process, and pretty much got the same response - that the users overwhelmingly refused to have anything to do with a RIM product, and wanted the flashy new iPhone or GIII.
I'd be curious to know where people put the Windows 8 phone in that lineup.
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not a single one had it as part of the evaluation. Including us.
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As part of the evaluation, we spoke to close to a dozen other companies that recently went through the same process, and pretty much got the same response - that the users overwhelmingly refused to have anything to do with a RIM product, and wanted the flashy new iPhone or GIII.
I'd be curious to know where people put the Windows 8 phone in that lineup.
You know, what's funny is that Microsoft's Win7 phone has only partial support on activesync protocol, so I imagine that people might a little bit wary about this on win8 phone as well
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I did as well... that experience turned me away from RIM forever. I still have nightmares.
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it shows that it's about the glitz and the bling. the blackberry 9900 is a fantastic business device. don't worry, i'm not a shill, and i don't have one. my main phone right now is an iPhone 4, and my secondary phone to play with is an older Android running gingerbread 2.3
the new BB10 OS will be quite a game changer in my opinion, as will be RIM's two devices - a touchscreen device and a keyboard device. i can't wait for their release. they have a lot of things
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Dual zones? Is that like multi-users?
I have 2 (amongst others) accounts on my N7, one is my personal account and one is just for my business. They are nicely separated. If they go to this model on the phone version of Android then it will be great for keeping personal and business apart (as opposed to giving the device to different users which doesn't make as much sense for a phone as it does a tablet).
Or is the BB dual zone thing completely different to this?
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Re:And the winner is RIM (Score:5, Insightful)
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This coming from a diehard android fan
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What gave you the impression this was a new development? Do your executive's vehicles come from BMW or Kia?
A big part of business is appearances, and that's not cynical, that's the facts. The idea that "business" is about utilitarian efficiency and grinding commoditization is wrongheaded and moralistic in all the wrong ways.
We can't celebrate the free market and then concern-troll it with accusations of superficiality or
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Sorry but you're offering nothing more than a meaningless anecdote.
Looking at the actual Q3 figures, RIM is shifting 2 Blackberrys for every Windows Phone, and Apple is only shifting 2.6 iPhones for every Blackberry, which given Apple's high sales figures doesn't exactly put RIMs sales in too bad a light. You've also got to consider that the the smartphone market has seen explosive growth in recent years, so RIM is still shifting far more devices now, than it was prior to the iPhones release in 2007. It's s
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I'd question the wisdom of any company who basis their purchasing decision on users simply wanting to have a flashy phone, rather than wanting to actually get work done and be productive.
I completely agree here. I argued to hold out until the BB 10 comes out to at least have a look-see, but corporate didn't want to wait, and the sales guys are beating down the doors to get the new flash iPhones. I can't stand my job, and this is one of the reasons why - we don't make business decisions based on facts, evidence, ability to get job done, etc, its all based on screaming the loudest and raw emotions. I imagine it's that way in quite a few companies nowadays. *sigh*
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Actually, I'm more than happy to have my BB bold for work.
For email, calendar, and work-stuff (not to mention battery life) it works very well.
For my personal stuff, which includes looking up movies, web browsing, playing games, etc etc, I prefer my SG2.
A bit part of the problem isn't that BB's aren't cool, it's that the separation between "work" and "personal" devices is becoming a lot thinner. What are the business advantages of an iPhone/Android over a blackberry?
Re:And the winner is RIM (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont know that i would consider that trend significant given the stock history over the last 5 years.
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I think Fama would disagree with you
Re:And the winner is RIM (Score:5, Insightful)
RIM may not be taking punches from the big players, but that's only because they're being trod underfoot by them. And if you look at their long-term stock trends, rather than focusing on just a small part of it, you'd see that as well.
It's not like Apple or Samsung are going away anytime soon. Either Apple loses and has to pay damages + licensing fees for these patents (which they have plenty of money to be able to handle), or Samsung loses and things continue on as they have. Either way, RIM continues to lose major contracts with governments (as was reported here last week), loses even more contracts with businesses that are switching to newer devices that can do more (e.g. so many software developers at the company I work for use iDevices that the company bought Apple TVs for all of the conference rooms so that any of us with iDevices can use AirPlay to show our mobile screen on the projectors or TVs; not to mention Yahoo letting employees get any major smartphone except for a BB), continues to be viewed as the has-been brand that few people want for personal use, and gets pushed into more and more niche markets overseas, where they'll eventually disappear due to lower margins and increasing demands (e.g. being forced to give up private data on their network in India).
BB10 is their only hope at this point, but it's unlikely that it will be able to turn things around for them, I'd guess. I might feel differently about it if they had a recent history of putting out products that were well-received, but they haven't exactly been doing that. Besides which, Palm went under after putting out WebOS, which was universally acclaimed as being an excellent OS, which is more than I'm expecting with BB10. RIM seems to be in a bad spot at this point, so I don't see how they can hope to recover. I even have a friend working for them...we've been trying to tell him to get out for years, but he staunchly refuses to believe that they're in trouble, despite thousands of employees getting laid off and other signs of impending trouble happening all around him.
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Just because an OS company isn't going to survive long term doesn't mean you can't make money off their stock. I made decent cash off of BeOS stock in the 90s.
We have to get rid of software patents (Score:5, Informative)
This level of insanity cannot continue. It stifles innovation, and practically guarantees no small players will ever design a new mobile device or OS.
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Re:We have to get rid of software patents (Score:4, Insightful)
What better a way to compete than stopping the competition.
A pre-emptive strike to neutralise an attack before it occurs.
Let the others know that they are welcome to try and compete, but you had better have a huge legal fund.
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I'm pretty sure cost to manufacture and certify your device as safe are larger barriers to entry than the cost of a patent lawyer.
I mean in theory that sounds nice but, just not feasible for a host of other reasons that have nothing to do with patents. Why haven't we seen massive amounts of innovation in places like china where there aren't the same level of patent protections in place?
Hint: the answer is very long, nuanced and likely boring unless you're a nerd(where it's fascinating) or a racist(where the
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What are you talking about? I regularly get asked to submit translations for Chinese papers to be used as a prior art defence against patent threats/suits. It's truly amazing the amount of prior art out there that is not found in English.
I also get a lot of work translating potential inventions from Chinese authors into something a US patent lawyer can work with. Of course the inventors are generally listed as from US based holding companies, or the US division management. The engineers, however, live in Ch
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I was pulling a random example out of thin air of a place that might not have patent protections the way America does.
Still, given operating costs, it's not unfeasible to imagine that the real barriers to entry aren't going to be patent fees or suits. Rather, you know, manufacturing or regulatory issues.
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This level of insanity cannot continue. It stifles innovation, and practically guarantees no small players will ever design a new mobile device or OS.
Given the number of new OSs coming in, I'd say we've got more than enough.
Arghh.... (Score:4, Funny)
Let's put an end to this please. Void all current and ban any further patent suits. Then, everybody can go home and have a party with Warren (Warren Cuccurullo) to celebrate the end of patent wars!
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Let's put an end to this please. Void all current and ban any further patent suits. Then, everybody can go home and have a party with Warren (Warren Cuccurullo) to celebrate the end of patent wars!
Bahahahaha, this is a stupid post. AND THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT.
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Somebody got the reference right for sure, for sure... From somewhere in the Valley...
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Oppa gangster style! (Score:2)
Finally! I knew after what Samsung had to go through with Apple few months ago, Oppa would come back with revenge.
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Since Apple introduced the iPhone 5 its stock dropped $140, about 20%, or $132 billion of shareholder value evaporated. Could this have something to do with forgetting to innovate while putting all its energy into litigate?
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If you can tell the difference between an iPhone4S and an iPhone5 then you have one ... and by that time you have already bought it ..
What are the advantages of the iPhone5 .... I have no idea and I have seen adverts for it?
but of course that doesn't apply... (Score:2)
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The problem for Apple is that Samsung's patents actually matter. If they get a reasonable jury (e.g. not in Apple's back yard with a highly biased foreman) there is a good chance that they should prevail. Apple used Samsung's tech without a license, then made the mistake to sue Samsung as a proxy for Google.
The problem for Apple is Samsung's corporate philosophy: they're all about competing in all technical aspects (Samsung produces many many things) and in all markets, and they have a take-no-prisoner approach. Samsung is like the old IBM in some ways, just with claws. Apple worked really hard to piss Samsung off, but now that they succeeded, the process is irreversible: Samsung has been pushed around a bit when Apple went nuclear on them with the litigations, but Samsung is learning the game.
I've seen their
Lawyers game (Score:4, Insightful)
Well it's going to be another good year for law firms. I expect Samsung to have their fun as well but it's unlikely they'll have much of a case vs Apple. They might win some but lose many. Lawyers, they will all the time.
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Sigh (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember when patents were for cool inventions designed to solve a real-world problem.
Samsung can suck it (Score:1)
Market Share (Score:2)
It isn't about winning the lawsuits necessarily. It's also about delaying the competition 'to market'. The more one player can block the other, the longer they have to establish market share in a given area.
"Here we go again" (Score:2)
Again? when did it really end?
Where will it end? ( most likely when you cant even pee without being sued and all commerce comes to a grinding halt. )