Judge Koh Rules: Samsung Did Not Willfully Infringe 111
sfcrazy writes "In a nutshell there won't be a new trial in the Apple V. Samsung case, as Samsung wanted, because the judge thinks that the trial was fair despite allegations that the jury foreman could have been biased. She also ruled that there won't be any more money for Apple as the iPhone maker failed to prove they were 'undercompensated' by the jury. The most important ruling was that she found that 'Samsung did not willfully infringe.'"
Sensible for both sides to appeal (Score:5, Insightful)
With this ruling neither side are going to be happy (and frankly it's somewhat self-contradictory as well)...
Both sides will be writing up appeals no doubt so this story is far from over yet - it'll be very interesting to hear what gets presented to the higher court and what their take on the foreman is.
Re:Sensible for both sides to appeal (Score:5, Interesting)
General consensus on Groklaw is that she's sick of the whole mess and knows everyone is appealing everything, so she's just kicking it upstairs.
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Yeah, that seems to be the case. So how is this not a case of doing a half-assed job, making wrong conclusions and then passing the buck?
If you or I did that in a business environment, we'd probably get fired. Will she get a free pass after this?
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Higher instances take into consideration the results of lower instances.
Normally that'd be true, but this is the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit we're talking about here.
Re:Sensible for both sides to appeal (Score:4, Informative)
lol at all the teenage fandroid rage
I shouldn't reply to an immature cunt, but
Samsung will eventually settle this and cross-license patents
Apple are refusing to allow licence Samsung to licence them. And Apple's patents are utter bullshit. And Apple is refusing to pay for FRAND licences.
I'm not seeing much misbehaviour from Samsung on this one. Why would they settle?
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General feelings from the Apple side is that this is unfortunate but would rather Apple stop wasting time on it. General opinion from the Samsung/Android side is, **** Apple, waste as much money as possible.
The thing is, this is really a cry for overall IP (Patent, Copyright, Trademark, Design Rights, etc) reform to stop being able to patent stupid, obvious things. Software developers create things all the time that they don't know if it's patentable or someone they're in communication with is patenting all
There are no sides only facts. (Score:5, Interesting)
General feelings from the Apple side is that this is unfortunate but would rather Apple stop wasting time on it. General opinion from the Samsung/Android side is, **** Apple, waste as much money as possible.
This had *nothing* to do with feelings. Apple is unable to maintain its massive mark-ups of rebadged foxconn phones through innovation; its massive market share gone; the days of the iPhone killer long behind us; its marketing machine pushing it as the *one* phone turning on Apple. When Jobs went thermonuclear on Android he should have been spending money on diverse product lines; Company acquisitions....hell competed on price, but instead he deicide to *litigate* over a few interface patents on devices covered by thousands of patents, often shared at little or no cost between traditional phone manufactures.
This court case was a massive win for Apple, but without product bans...toothless. I suspect even with them there are simply too many compelling Android phones; from a diverse collection of manufactures. All with an Mountain!? of there own patents [Hell even Google has them now]...Apple is terrified of them forming a cartel.
The bottom line is this is nothing to do with feelings this is everything about poor corporate strategy.
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General feelings from the Apple side is that this is unfortunate but would rather Apple stop wasting time on it. General opinion from the Samsung/Android side is, **** Apple, waste as much money as possible.
This had *nothing* to do with feelings. Apple is unable to maintain its massive mark-ups of rebadged foxconn phones through innovation; its massive market share gone; the days of the iPhone killer long behind us; its marketing machine pushing it as the *one* phone turning on Apple.
[cough]iPhone snags its highest U.S. market share ever [cnet.com][/cough]
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In Europe (similar market to the US) the market share of the iPhone is 25% compared to 44% to Samsung. Same article you quote.
Seriously Market Share (Score:5, Informative)
[cough]iPhone snags its highest U.S. market share ever [cnet.com][/cough]
https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23916413#.UQte-5G3PGg [idc.com] *Worldwide* Q4 post earning release from a real market analyst. However you spin it Apples share of the pie is shrinking. In Larger markets than the US like China Apple have no market share...and don't have a competitive product in that market. You should reread my post, its pretty good.
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[cough]iPhone snags its highest U.S. market share ever [cnet.com][/cough]
Hrmm... that's weird: Checks cnet article, "the research firm pegged Apple's U.S. smartphone share at 53.3 percent"
Ok where's that source: Follows to sub article, "Apple has achieved its highest ever share in the US (53.3%) in the latest 12 weeks"
Ok where's the actual data: No, link. Checks google. Oh here's the actual data, "This data is exclusively focused on the sales within this 12 week period rather than market share figures." http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/News/news-articles/US-iOS-Maintains [kantarworldpanel.com]
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their userbase growth is still accelerating.
Wow, an AC using a third derivative to argue his case. That's gotta be a first (though oinly for ACs, not for sitting US presidents [smc.edu]). Actually, from the first chart I found when googling [businessinsider.com], it looks as if the userbase has been linearly rising since November 2010, so the rise is not growing, much less accelerating.
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I do actually see the rise growing (err...growth rising) in that chart (eg. the 4s section is steeper than the 4 section), but I agree that I certainly don't see it accelerating.
Unsustainable Business Model (Score:2)
And the facts are that they're retaining their 70% profit share of the industry, and their userbase growth is still accelerating. Samsung are not eating into Apple's potential market, they're hoovering up the standard phone market as it transitions to an all-smartphone industry. Apple have never, ever expressed an interest in that section of the market, making their *relative* decline in it irrelevant. So their corporate strategy is in fact still serving them very well - and given they're the second biggest company in the world I'd say it's objectively one of the best corporate strategies there is.
There is no such thing as *profit share* there are only profits, and nobody will ever suggest that Apple *right now* are not making money hand over fist, although that [dubious] 70% figure for *hardware profits* does not include *future profits* or profits from *advertising* *content* [ignoring intangibles], ironically its why Apple have lost 35% of their market cap losing the crown of *largest* company in the world.
[Part of] My point is that Apple are none existent in certain markets China/Brazil, markets
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Interpret 'profit share' the share of the overall profits within the specific market.
Apple does make more profit from the mobile business than their competitors.
(It does this by employing cheap Chinese labour, hammering its supply chain costs, leveraging efficiencies of scale and taking advantage of the cash wealth of the people that want a shiny status symbol)
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Apple is selling more phones that it ever has...but is experiencing slower growth that the market is growing, with its potential customers reaching saturation, with customers opting for its cheaper [lower margin] models.
While, obviously, as much market share as possible is generally better than less, that's not as important to Apple as you might think.
Apple already has an incredibly strong business, and as you point out, they are growing, not shrinking. So what if the market outpaces them? They are doing fantastic now (better than any other tech company ever), and are consistently growing.
And this works out great for Apple, potentially even better than simply going for market share. That's because a lot of that market grow
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This had *nothing* to do with feelings. Apple is unable to maintain its massive mark-ups of rebadged foxconn phones through innovation; its massive market share gone; the days of the iPhone killer long behind us; its marketing machine pushing it as the *one* phone turning on Apple.
Apple has been consistently selling ever more iPhones and iPads, they just had their best quarter ever, and their highest profits ever, reached their highest level of market share ever...
In Q4, the iPhone was the top selling phone of all phones (not just smart phones) in the US. For the entire year of 2012, 1/4 phones in the US (again, all phones) was an iPhone.
In other words, Apple is doing better than ever, better than when they started this lawsuit. The lawsuit isn't about waning importance, it's about s
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Where this entire farcical trial will be laughed at and the judgement thrown out.
exactly.. "there won't be a new trial" is pretty bullshitty on that level.
what's strange though.. isn't the whole jury's damages that they came up with(quite randomly) based on that it was willful(so damages were crazy)? so wtf? it's not news on any level that Koh took it as a fair trial - Koh being very unlikely to fess up to having fucked up.
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If there was any deity up there in the sky then this would be thrown out on appeal. However, I'm afraid that's not the case.
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Samsung isn't your friend (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeking treble damages is SOP for these kinds of suits. You do it because you have a reasonable chance of succeeding and there is no penalty for the attempt.
Anyway, don't be quick to jump to Samsung's defense because they're on the other end of Apple in this suit, or because they make your favorite smartphone. Samsung pretty much owns the SK govt and aggressively attacks its overseas competitors in every manner you could imagine. There are plenty of blogs detailing Samsung's domestic abuses of power (That far predate any smartphone). Samsung isn't a friendly company and they aren't looking out for you. Like any company, they just want your money.
Re:Samsung wasn't the beligerant party (Score:4, Informative)
Samsung was manufacturing real products and not using litigation as a business method until Apple started the legal war.
Couldn't agree more. I'm posting anonymously for reasons that will become obvious below...
I work for a direct competitor of Samsung in a different space to smartphones. Samsung is a relative newcomer in our market, and are comparatively tiny compared to the big players (such as my employer, one of the "big 5" in our industry).
Right now, we're shitting our pants over them. Their product is half the price of ours and around 3/4 the quality. They'll bump the quality up to ours or higher and easily keep their price below. I KNOW they can do this, because they manufacture a lot of the components that we have to buy; and can integrate their technologies much more fluidly than we can.
Our management are looking at all kinds of legal ways to try to fight them, including digging through our patents to figure out what we can sue them for. The simple fact of the matter is, they've got a product that WILL be better than ours and instead of improving our devices to stay ahead, we want to try to squash them down before they become too big.
I'm seriously considering looking in to employment at Samsung in the coming years...
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Allow me to rephrase:
I don't work for samsung, I'm a definitely-not-Samsung-person, buuuuut . . .
The monolithic competitors to the small, agile little tech/phone startup company, Samsung, want to squash it with legal action because they have no prayer of defeating the high-value, unmatched technological innovations Samsung is or will be offering shortly! Samsung's victory is inevitable! ALL HAIL SAMSUNG!
I say again, I am not a Samsung employee. However, as an insightful, intelligent employee, I am lookin
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I hate to break this to you but Apple is still getting $1 billion. The only bitch here is Samsung. :)
State Taxes on Winnings? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Apple don't pay tax (Score:2)
If I'm not mistaken Apple will have to pay California income tax on the money they get from Samsung. With a corporate tax of nearly 9% that'd be close to $90M added to the coffers. If one was into conspiracy theories this would be an interesting avenue to pursue.
I don't think you have any idea how much money the state gets in Tax. State spending was $127 billion in 2011
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can't even write a summary accurately (Score:2)
She also ruled that there won't be any more money for Apple
From the article:
So, Samsung owes Apple US $1 billion for a non will ful infringement.
Re:can't even write a summary accurately (Score:5, Informative)
From the summary:
She also ruled that there won't be any more money for Apple
From the article:
So, Samsung owes Apple US $1 billion for a non will ful infringement.
"More" in this case would be $3B as da,ages may be tripled for willful infringement.
Please... (Score:2)
how did Samsung unwillingly infringe? By copying the complete design of the original iPhone, they were just doing what a lot of Koreans do: make copies of original American products. My ex-gf was involved in a sportswear company and it was part of her job to create infringing designs so people would believe they were buying original clothes from the famous labels she stole the look from.
... like we're supposed to believe a Slashdotter even has an ex-gf?
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Jury verdict notwithstanding, it's pretty hard to demonstrate that Samsung infringed, let alone wilfully.
Provided a misquote wont change that.
Apple is spending its patent portfolio (Score:5, Interesting)
One very important sentence in the groklaw article:
Am I reading this correctly? Apple has invalid patents but still got damages out of them? Does this mean they are a one-shot deal and that other manufacturers can infringe now? In this case 1 billion dollars to render Apple's portfolio irrelevant was effectively very cheap, given the size of the relevant market.
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Am I reading this correctly? Apple has invalid patents but still got damages out of them? Does this mean they are a one-shot deal and that other manufacturers can infringe now? In this case 1 billion dollars to render Apple's portfolio irrelevant was effectively very cheap, given the size of the relevant market
Yes. This is standard operating practice for a thug protection racket operation like Apple.
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I think you might be misreading it.
"their" refers to Samsung. So she's saying since Sasmsung's experts testified that there was prior art, she's assuming they genuinely believed the prior art to be valid. The jury disagreed, but without other evidence she has assumed the experts genuinely believed there to be prior art.
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Which is a bit schizophrenic if you consider that most of the attempts Samsung made at raising prior art were thrown out at the beginning of the trail.
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You're missing the point.
There's a difference between disagreeing with what someone says (throwing out the claims of prior art), and believing they believe what they're saying (agreeing the alleged infringement was not willful). They're not mutually exclusive.
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One very important sentence in the groklaw article:
Am I reading this correctly? Apple has invalid patents but still got damages out of them? Does this mean they are a one-shot deal and that other manufacturers can infringe now? In this case 1 billion dollars to render Apple's portfolio irrelevant was effectively very cheap, given the size of the relevant market.
No, you're misreading it. To willfully infringe a patent, you must know about the patent, believe its valid, and go ahead and infringe anyway. What she's saying is that Samsung got expert opinions that said that Apple's patents weren't valid. Those experts were apparently wrong, according to the jury, but that belief takes out the second prong of willfulness, so Samsung didn't willfully infringe, and damages are not tripled.
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No, you're misreading it. To willfully infringe a patent, you must know about the patent, believe its valid, and go ahead and infringe anyway. What she's saying is that Samsung got expert opinions that said that Apple's patents weren't valid. Those experts were apparently wrong, according to the jury, but that belief takes out the second prong of willfulness, so Samsung didn't willfully infringe, and damages are not tripled.
But why wern't the 'damages' reduced? At least two of the patents from the trial were invalidated since.
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No, you're misreading it. To willfully infringe a patent, you must know about the patent, believe its valid, and go ahead and infringe anyway. What she's saying is that Samsung got expert opinions that said that Apple's patents weren't valid. Those experts were apparently wrong, according to the jury, but that belief takes out the second prong of willfulness, so Samsung didn't willfully infringe, and damages are not tripled.
But why wern't the 'damages' reduced? At least two of the patents from the trial were invalidated since.
That's an issue for appeal, not this stage of trial.
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No. Because she doesn't find her jury foreman to be a disturbing failure of vor dire. It's a patent case and he's a wannabe patent troll. If she doesn't find that problematic, one wonders what it would take.
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No. Because she doesn't find her jury foreman to be a disturbing failure of vor dire. It's a patent case and he's a wannabe patent troll. If she doesn't find that problematic, one wonders what it would take.
A "disturbing failure of voir dire" means "Samsung's lawyers failed to ask relevant questions of the jury, failed to investigate the jurors, and failed to look through their own records of who they've sued in the past"... or really, it means Samsung absolutely knew who Hogan was and held the past conflict in check in case the jury decided against them. Who are we kidding - if the jury had decided for Samsung on every count, would they be demanding a new trial because of Hogan's past? Of course not. Since th
Re:Koh . . . (Score:5, Informative)
The relevant questions were asked of the jury. Hogan gave misleading answers to those questions.
If the jury had found for Samsung on every point, despite Hogan's possible bias against Samsung and their position, of course there wouldn't be a basis to demand a new trial. A better question might be whether Apple would be demanding a new trial had an anti-Apple zealot made it onto the jury by concealing their past history with Apple and then browbeating the other jurors into ignoring and misinterpreting law in a way that favoured Samsung.
And I think we all know the answer to that one.
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Can you explain to me exactly how he was a) a wannabe patent troll, how b) that makes a damned bit of difference either way to the case and c) what exactly the judge is supposed to do about it even if he was?
The guy had filed for a patent before, doesn't make him a troll, he might be, but I certainly don't have enough info to say he was and I doubt you do either
Samsung wasn't arguing against patents, or against design patents, they were arguing that they didn't violate Apple's patents and only as a backup t
Re:Koh . . . (Score:4, Informative)
how he was a) a wannabe patent troll
I'm not the original poster, so can't comment on this. I would just say more generally that he was a possible patent enforcer
how b) that makes a damned bit of difference either way to the case
He has a vested interest on patent infringement damages being awarded regardless of the content of the patent. In this concrete case he manipulated the jury to disregard the instructions to consider the validity of the patents. It's like having an insurance company owner deciding on a case of insurance coverage.
c) what exactly the judge is supposed to do about it even if he was?
The judge could have annulled the jury decision based on them not following the jury instructions and she could have sent them back to do their work properly.
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He has a vested interest on patent infringement damages being awarded regardless of the content of the patent. In this concrete case he manipulated the jury to disregard the instructions to consider the validity of the patents. It's like having an insurance company owner deciding on a case of insurance coverage.
Vested interest... I do not think that means what you think it means. I'm looking for details on the 20-year old patent lawsuit that bankrupted [Hogan]... but there is so much trash in the news, I can really only see that he also "purchased a house under mysterious circumstances."
I'm sure he has not forgotten the lawsuit that bankrupted him. But a 20 year old patent would have expired, well, up to 20 years ago. A vendetta is not a vested interest. So, how does he make money off of this? Apple stock?
c) what exactly the judge is supposed to do about it even if he was?
The judge could have annulled the jury decision based on them not following the jury instructions and she could have sent them back to do their work properly.
I a
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No. Because she doesn't find her jury foreman to be a disturbing failure of vor dire. It's a patent case and he's a wannabe patent troll. If she doesn't find that problematic, one wonders what it would take.
Because, in a trial concerning patents, they allowed someone on the jury who supports and makes money using patents? Wow, how so very disturbing indeed!
Face saving (Score:5, Insightful)
Judge Koh knew that she has seriously fcuked up in the original trial.
This second round ruling - that Samsung does not "willfully" infringe on Apple's patents - is nothing less than a face saving move.
Re:Face saving (Score:5, Interesting)
Judge Koh knew that she has seriously fcuked up in the original trial.
I'm sure you have some precedent or legal doctrine to cite in support of this beyond "I hate people who disagree with me"?
This second round ruling - that Samsung does not "willfully" infringe on Apple's patents - is nothing less than a face saving move.
No, it's pretty reasonable. Willful infringement, under the current law, requires almost malicious behavior in which the infringer acknowledges that they infringe the patent, but then go ahead anyway. Basically, they have to be evildoers: "I think the patent is invalid" or "I think our system is different" isn't enough - they have to actually say "the patent is valid, and our system is an identical copy, and fark those bastards because muwahahaha!" And that results in potentially tripled damages.
But patents aren't about who's good and moral and who's evil and malicious... they're about who stepped up and publicized an innovation to share it with everyone else, and who hid documents as trade secrets in an attempt to capitalize on them forever. As Jefferson said, an exclusive monopoly is an embarrassment to society that is only conscionable if society benefits from granting it. It's a flat economic decision: I give you exclusive rights to an invention, in exchange for you publishing your technical specifications, white papers, etc., because society takes the long view and giving exclusive rights for 20 years isn't so bad if you're thinking in terms of centuries or milleniums.
So to get to a level of "this person infringed a patent willingly" requires that they haven't just harmed the patent owner, but they've harmed society because they're diminishing the exclusive incentive behind granting that patent. If willful infringement causes inventors to decide to keep trade secrets, then we're all farked and those infringers should be harshly punished. But until then and particularly where infringers aren't willful, tripling damages seems incredibly out of proportion to the wrong.
Disclaimer: I'm a very pro-patent patent attorney, though I am on the drafting and prosecution side, and not litigation. We tend to be pro-inventor, and less pro-cut everyone's throat and get as much blood as possible.
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I give you exclusive rights to an invention, in exchange for you publishing your technical specifications, white papers, etc.
But current patents don't actually require you to publish your technical specifications, white papers, etc. You just have to publish the patent application. Samsung didn't copy from that patent application -- they copied from the actual device. In this case, society would have been better off if the patent had not been granted. It would have saved a wasteful litigation process.
Patents should be reserved for cases where significant research is done to achieve a result. Then they give value to striving.
Re:Face saving (Score:4, Interesting)
I give you exclusive rights to an invention, in exchange for you publishing your technical specifications, white papers, etc.
But current patents don't actually require you to publish your technical specifications, white papers, etc. You just have to publish the patent application.
And I agree, that's a failing in current patent law that should be addressed by Congress. The current test is whether one of ordinary skill in the art could recreate the invention from the specification, not whether any n00b could do so, but maybe the latter would be preferable.
That said, the specification is not required to be the sole disclosure, and companies can publish technical specifications and white papers without losing their patent rights, unlike with trade secrets. Maybe a better solution is that a compulsory royalty of x% can be increased for each additional piece of documentation that a company publishes. Just the spec? You get n%. Functional descriptions? n+m%. White papers? n+o%. Etc. More disclosure = more money, which is what society really wants, in the end.
Said values of n, m, o, etc. would of course be dependent on market analysis and the value of the invention.
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But current patents don't actually require you to publish your technical specifications, white papers, etc. You just have to publish the patent application. Samsung didn't copy from that patent application -- they copied from the actual device. In this case, society would have been better off if the patent had not been granted. It would have saved a wasteful litigation process.
Samsung is apparently looking for evidence that Apple has been selling any iPhones before the official release date. That's because Apple applied for some patents in Japan the day before the iPhone was officially released, and Samsung feels that selling a single iPhone would have been publication of the idea. That means that clearly Samsung believes copying an invention from the phone is exactly the same as copying from the patent text.
The effect that you claim is _exactly_ why patents have been introdu
Re:Face saving (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone could copy them without any way to sue, why would anyone bother spending money on the invention? Much cheaper to wait for someone else to invent it, and then copy it.
I don't know why this stupid meme just won't die. TO MAKE MONEY of course. Sitting on your ass selling nothing doesn't make money. Sitting on your ass and trying to sell a 10 year old product also doesn't make money when someone else is selling something newer and better. First mover advantage is tremendous. New shit sells. It doesn't even have to be particularly innovative. Just different enough. Eradicate the assinine patent system completely, and nothing changes except we stop enriching lawyers to no purpose. Patents are not just useless for their stated purpose—they actively hinder ALL of their stated purposes. They do not foster innovation. They do not propagate ideas. They do not better society. They do not protect garage inventors. They exist today for the same reason they existed when the term was coined—to enrich the friends of the king. Nothing more.
And I know all of this to be true because of one thing we ALL know to be true. As engineers, we are ordered, in no uncertain terms, not to ever ever read a patent when we're trying to create a new product. And even if we weren't explicitly forbidden to read patents, we wouldn't, because practically none of them save any time at all. The vast majority of them do not contain sufficient information to benefit from reading them. The vast majority of them are redundant, stupid, and obvious. Yes, obvious, even at the time they were first contemplated. Another stupid meme that won't die. We all start from the same place. We all have the same tools at our disposals, we all have exceedingly similar educations, we all leverage the same software libraries and parts, and we're all trying to solve the same problems at the same time, because what's a problem for one of us is invariably a problem for a whole bunch of us. All of these factors cause us to converge on identical solutions. Nor is this a recent phenomenon. We now know from history that even the stuff we considered fundamentally, radically innovative STILL wasn't unique. The telephone. The radio. Independently invented simultaneously multiple times. Trying to solve the same problem with the same resources led to the same solution. The lone genius inventor is a myth. A myth we cling to because it strokes our egos. A myth we should abandon because the ego stroking isn't worth the damage that affects us all.
Patents aren't just worthless: they're an active detriment to society and should be abolished.
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If anyone could copy them without any way to sue, why would anyone bother spending money on the invention? Much cheaper to wait for someone else to invent it, and then copy it.
I don't know why this stupid meme just won't die. TO MAKE MONEY of course. Sitting on your ass selling nothing doesn't make money. Sitting on your ass and trying to sell a 10 year old product also doesn't make money when someone else is selling something newer and better. First mover advantage is tremendous. New shit sells
Tell that to TinyTower or Crush the Castle or any of the indie developers who saw Zynga or another company come out with a nigh-identical product a few weeks later, and then bury them via their better advertising networks.
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Those were creative works; you're confusing copyright with patents. Patents do not apply to Zynga's exploitation of indies.
--Jeremy
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Those were creative works; you're confusing copyright with patents. Patents do not apply to Zynga's exploitation of indies.
Not at all - I'm addressing the false claim that "first mover advantage is tremendous" and therefore patents aren't necessary. It's not always true, as shown by those examples. The fact that they didn't have patents to protect them means that their sole protection was the first mover advantage, and that didn't help them one whit.
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You are wrong. Your premise is correct, but your conclusion is wrong. You're advocating what's effectively a position of anarchy, and if you know history, you'll know that anarchy is not a course that will lead to progress.
See, there's something called economies of scale. A new product is expensive because it costs a lot to manufacture. It costs a lot to manufacture because the company manufacturing it does not know exactly how well it will sell, and hence will only allocate a certain amount of resources in
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With patents, small inventors are even more screwed. Patents do you no good unless you have the money to enforce them in court, and they don't. Worse still, since no invention happens in a vacuum they almost certainly infringe on patents held by their larger competitors who can afford to sue over them - and even if they don't, the bigger companies can drag out the lawsuit for long enough to bankrupt the smaller one through legal fees and buy it up on the cheap. (See for example Creative and Aureal.)
The only
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Your other responders have already mostly told you why you're wrong, but I do have a couple observations to make.
You describe a whole series of consequences of abolishing patents. I found the recitation amusing after a while because you described a long list of circumstances which are already true. WITH patents. Bringing a new product to market is already a significant uphill battle. With patents. Large companies can already casually destroy small companies. With patents. (In both senses of the phras
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"this person infringed a patent willingly" requires that they haven't just harmed the patent owner, but they've harmed society because they're diminishing the exclusive incentive behind granting that patent
Is this only me who can't get the subtle meaning in this statement. Can this be put in more realistic terms?
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Yeah, the outcome does not, to me, logically follow from the willing infringement. It must be lawyer speak so that IP infringement can be portrayed as the most heinous of crimes because it affects the whole of society.
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"this person infringed a patent willingly" requires that they haven't just harmed the patent owner, but they've harmed society because they're diminishing the exclusive incentive behind granting that patent
Is this only me who can't get the subtle meaning in this statement. Can this be put in more realistic terms?
Sure. Simply read the next two sentences:
If willful infringement causes inventors to decide to keep trade secrets, then we're all farked and those infringers should be harshly punished. But until then and particularly where infringers aren't willful, tripling damages seems incredibly out of proportion to the wrong.
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Patenting design of devices. Who could think of that?
Samsung - they have the most US Design Patents by far.
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Samsung - they have the most US Design Patents by far.
To be fair, they also make a crap-load of stuff as well.
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How is a billion dollar fine fair when somebody doesn't willfully infringe?
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How is a billion dollar fine fair when somebody doesn't willfully infringe?
Because it's not three billion dollars? But yes, it would seem that the jury struck the value so ridiculously high (even by the admission of the jury foreman) as punitive damages for willful infringement. The only thing more woefully inadequate as the patent system, at this point, is the court system that is doing all this in the name of upholding the law.
Re:Patent Law doesn't care about Willful Infringem (Score:4)
Yes, you're right, theft is theft. But theft is also completely unrelated to this case as no theft is even alleged to have happened.
This case is not about theft, it's about patent infringment. Something not in any way related to depriving someone of their physical property.
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Is patent law broken in the US? Yes. But just because the Law is an Arse does not mean it's not illegal.
Lots of things are illegal. In my state most of them aren't, cause we're not that insane. Except for patents and copyrights, we're still stuck on stupid.
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I didn't say it wasn't illegal, but I won't call patent infringment theft just as I also don't call shoplifting rape, because they are completely different and unrelated laws.
The only reason anyone ever calls this stuff theft is to try to confuse people and make it sound more serious than it really is.
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Pretty much every South Korean is heavily invested in Samsung through their retirement plans. They are like Brits with BP stock in this respect.