iPhone 4, iPad 2 Get US Import Ban 213
Bent Spoke writes "The U.S. trade agency has banned the import of older Apple iPhone and iPad models due to the violation of a patent held by Samsung (PDF). 'The president can overturn the import ban on public-policy grounds, though that rarely happens. Apple can keep selling the devices during the 60-day review period. ... Apple pledged to appeal the ITC decision. The underlying findings will be reviewed by a U.S. appeals court specializing in patent cases. ... The decision could mean fewer choices for AT&T and T-Mobile customers who want to get an iPhone without paying the higher cost of the iPhone 5. Samsung told the commission that Cupertino, California-based Apple could drop the price of the iPhone 5 if it was worried about losing potential customers. All of the iPhones are made in Asia.' It's getting so complicated we need a scorecard to keep track of who's winning these offensive patent battles in the smartphone coliseum."
Sigh (Score:2)
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Component sales to Apple are a relatively small percentage of Samsung's profits from the mobile sector. They've probably calculated that the potential gain in market share, and related profits, easily outstrips any drop in component orders by Apple.
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Given this involves the 4 and the older iPads, I'm not sure how that follows.
The bulk of Apple's orders from Samsung are for the iPhone 5 and retina iPad (Samsung makes the CPU and other components).
Winning an abuse-the-frand-process lawsuit on a selection of products that Apple barely sells any more (the 4 is still available as an entry level, but it is not long for this world) is hardly beneficial for Samsung.
There's certainly an element of biting the hand that feeds you, but Samsung also knows it is in a
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You get two choices, pay the fair rate, or negotiate an alternative. Apple is apparently unwilling to do either.
Because there are more than just two choices available.
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Component sales to Apple are a relatively small percentage of Samsung's profits...
Even assuming the numbers in these two articles are off a bit and slightly dated, I don't think "relatively small" is an accurate representation of Apple's impact on Samsung's revenue. Feel free to cite contradicting numbers if you can find any but I seriously doubt you will - Apple is a massive client for Samsung.
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/08/07/apple-now-accounts-for-8-8-of-samsungs-revenue/ [idownloadblog.com]
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2269565/apples-iphone-and-ipad-chips-generated-83-percent-of-samsung [theinquirer.net]
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Apple presumably will continue manufacturing them and paying Samsung for the parts. And after a $1B payout to Apple I imagine that Samsung just wants vengeance a this point. Both of them are already going to lose when the scorecard gets rung up but I doubt Samsung wants Apple to come out ahead.
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Samsung wants to let Apple know that they will not be bullied. They are able to fight them back.
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Samsung wants to let Apple know that they will not be bullied. They are able to fight them back.
Apple reacted when Samsung copied the design of their products. That's not exactly "bullying". On the other hand, Samsung seems to be very good at bullying. Like journalists and even members of parliament in Korea losing their jobs when they critisize Samsung.
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Please humour me for a moment and take a look at this photo [forbes.com] which shows the iPhone 3GS and Galaxy S side by side. Then try to tell me with a straight face that you can't see the similarity.
A few interesting points/questions:
- The Galaxy S interface looks nothing like stock Android. If they felt it necessary to create their own interface, why create one with similar UI elements such as the shaded area for the four icons at the bottom?
- The Galaxy S hardware design has rounded corners with chrome edging. Thes
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It's shitty when Apple does this, and it's shitty when Samsung does this. With that said I'm astounded. A good share of those iPhone internals are Samsung parts; isn't this biting the hand that feeds a bit for Samsung - indirectly blocking the import of their own parts? When you have your finger in every pie...
So what if the components implementing the infringed patent are actually made by Samsung?
Sony v. Hotz (Score:2)
So what if the components implementing the infringed patent are actually made by Samsung?
It matters not. The PlayStation 3 console is made by Sony. Yet Sony was still able to threaten George Hotz for misusing Sony's copyrighted work on Sony hardware.
Those who live by the sword... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not swords, Jobs talked of ThermoNuclear warfare. By definition both parties are destroyed in such a warfare. Jobs foolishness is tanking Apple big time. He deserved to be alive to see his warfare panning out like this.
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Jobs foolishness is tanking Apple big time.
You have an odd definition of tanking.
Re:Those who live by the sword... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Something's broken with this app. It's only showing "-3 Arse". Oh wait...
Wait, what? (Score:2)
It's getting so complicated we need a scorecard to keep track of who's winning these offensive patent battles
You serious? Whos winning?
My take from past few years is more along the lines of... this [youtube.com]
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Does anybody else find it funny... (Score:5, Funny)
...that a US company can't sell their product in the US because of an import ban on that product?
Re:Does anybody else find it funny... (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is not a US company. It doesn't pay taxes there or in any country.
Re: Does anybody else find it funny... (Score:3, Informative)
Complete fucking nonsense rated insightful. Apple has an effective tax rate around 24% [forbes.com] which I'd venture is higher than most companies. If course, that doesn't fit the anti-Apple narrative.
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Goodness me, that is the most chafed neckbeard I have ever seen! How do you cope?!
"iPods were popular but shit" is just a weak argument. It works better with hipster glasses, but then, I thought it was all the Apple users who were the hipsters. I get so confused!
The amount of butthurt from nerds on slashdot over the success of the iPod and subsequent iOS devices is hilarious. The tangible sense of "not getting it" swirls around like a dark cloud, just because something became popular that wasn't exactly wha
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If Palm had been able to put one foot in front of the other, we would have had an iphone-like device a couple of years earlier. Instead they forfeited that opportunity and instead of the natural fit of integrating telephony into a PDA, we had it shoehorned into a music player instead.
Re:Does anybody else find it funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPod succeeded because Apple built a store front where you could easily buy music and install music for it. You didn't have to read a bunch of geeky stuff, you didn't have to download stolen music, you just clicked a few buttons. The specs on the device itself only matter to...uh...you and two friends.
Re:Does anybody else find it funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
There were plenty of better and cheaper mp3 players on the market.
In your opinion. This is the point I'm making, and the point that Apple realised. Better in what way?
- Sound quality? At first yes - the amp in the early iPods wasn't as good as some of the others out there, but this is no longer the case (everyone pretty much uses the same chips for standard parts like this now)
- Storage space? Depends what you're looking for. The first iPod didn't have as much space as a Nomad (so lame!) but it was physically smaller.
- Price? It cost more, but if it's still value for money for the people that buy it, what's the issue? You are not obligated to buy one.
- UI? Hands down this is where the iPod beat everything else and the reason it became so popular. It was easy to use, and people loved it.
I can see that you're not going to be swayed from your rock solid opinion that Apple's success is anything other than some sort of black magic marketing and convincing people to buy something over many generations by somehow making them ignore "how shit" it is, over and over and over again, but such is life. If you're unwilling to look at the reasons for the success of a product then there;s not much debate.
Personally, if someone wants to get a mac for either the fact it's 'cooler' or they have a reasoned preference for that machine, that's their issue but don't get all defensive because someone else doesn't like it or want it.
But that's not what you're doing. You are saying that people are being fooled by the marketing and are not buying products that would be better for them. You are free to hate Apple as much as you like. Froth, wail, scrunch up your eyes and wish really, really hard that all their success has nothing to do with making products that people actually want to buy all you like, but don't be surprised if people call you on it.
There's a difference between not liking a product (even call it shit if you like - it's an opinion), and stating that the success of that product and its successors/derivatives in the marketplace over a decade are solely down to clueless sheep falling for a marketing trick.
Marketing will only take you so far before the shit starts to stink. No matter how hard you try to wish it wasn't so, but consumers actually *like* Apple's products. You don;t have to - that's fine - but you can't dismiss people who buy them as somehow being "fooled" because they didn't make the same choices as you did.
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Sure ipods now are a lot better than they were back then but they're still no better than the competition and more expensive.
Sadly, that's not even true anymore. To my knowledge, the iPod classic is the only hard-drive based music player (not media player) available anymore, and I've been looking. Everything else has either gone to flash, which is all the rage but gives significantly less storage for the price, or the "media player" route, with oversized screens and controls even less suited for eyes-free use than the thumbwheel thing (that I still loathe).
It's a strange, scary world when Apple is wins in "bang-for-the-buck" in a
Pot. Kettle. Black. (Score:4, Interesting)
“We believe the ITC’s Final Determination has confirmed Apple’s history of free-riding on Samsung’s technological innovations,” Samsung said in a statement to AllThingsD.
http://allthingsd.com/20130604/samsung-wins-import-ban-against-older-iphones-ipads/ [allthingsd.com]
I can't imagine them saying it without at least some irony in their voice. Seriously though, Apple has all but confirmed that they're violating patents for various reasons (e.g. FRAND terms were not offered) and has always been rather blasé about much of this stuff, while Samsung has at times blatantly ripped off a number of its competitors, most recently Apple (before Apple, a number of their designs ripped off Blackberry and others), sometimes doing so rather shamelessly yet denying it entirely.
And all of this won't matter much in the end anyway, since sixty days will get us darn close to the post-back-to-school time when Apple typically announces new versions of their devices anyway, including the heavily rumored low-cost iPhone that will be replacing the iPhone 4 (quick note: this injunction only applies to the iPhone 4 model used by AT&T, apparently, since the iPhone 4 had different chipsets for GSM and CDMA in all but one of the models (the late-released white iPhone 4)), and a new version of the iPad and iPad mini, which will be obviating the need to keep the iPad 2 in the lineup.
So, kudos to Samsung for winning a victory where one was deserved, but in the end, it's all just more of the same.
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This is AFAIK the first import ban granted on a FRAND patent: one can expect soon a lot of bans from FRAND patent holders in any standard technology. Nokia for example could become immensely profitable by suing everybody on their FRAND patents and asking for an absurd 2.5% royalty rate as Samsung did. The Pandora box is open: hopefully the ITC ban will be quickly canceled by the appeal court.
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Nothing unless you don't want to pay it for whatever reason. I think because of the legal entanglements of Apple v. Samsung it's probably more of a principal thing than a money issue. Besides Apple can afford to sit on it's massive cash stash and just keep throwing lawyers at Samsung. The same goes for Samsung, they're not going away anytime soon.
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In this case, everyone else would also have to pay the same 110% (since even holders have to get patents from other holders), so yeah, sounds reasonable. Those R&D costs have to be factored into the price somehow, after all.
Re:Pot. Kettle. Black. (Score:4, Informative)
FRAND terms were not offered
Yes they were, Apple just didn't like them. Most companies do a patent exchange to avoid paying any actual cash, but Apple doesn't have any tech patents to offer and it refuses to license design patents. So Apple was obliged to pay the same percentage as everyone else, it's just that because Apple products are rather expensive that translated into a several dollars per device which they thought was too much. Well, you know what Apple, too bad, everyone else agreed to this deal and now the court agreed that it was fair.
Samsung has at times blatantly ripped off a number of its competitors, most recently Apple
If you mean that they look somewhat similar then I would direct your attention to Braun's product line [gizmodo.com] which pre-dates Apple's [visual.ly].
And all of this won't matter much in the end anyway
It certainly will because this isn't the only tech patent that falls under FRAND rules which Apple has tried to ignore, and Samsung isn't going to relent on those. Its the nature of litigation that it takes years and in the mean time new products come out, so at the end you apply for a quick judgement on other patents and the new gear based on the arguments that were resolved during the trial. On top of that you can expect Samsung to press for damages and of course the unpaid license fees.
This has been coming to Apple for a long time. You can't just ignore patents vital to implementing standards because you don't like the FRAND terms that everyone else has agreed to. That is the price of joining the club, the alternative being to go set up your own world-wide cell data network.
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. Put differently, they'll copy elements without demonstrating that they have an understanding of why those elements are that way. In contrast, Apple outright stole Braun's/Rams' designs by owning them, in that they demonstrated a clear understanding of why the form of the design was the way it was and then modified it appropriately to suit their different needs.
That's a pretty bad case of rampant fanboism you seem to have there. :)
I'm reminded of a story I heard from an astronaut friend about the Russians
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For the shuttle story, I provided the only citation I can: I heard it directly from the mouth of an astronaut who's been a family friend for a number of years (she's flown on four missions and has since retired; living in the suburb immediately adjacent to where JSC is located, pretty much everyone there knows an astronaut or two). As I recall, she was not repeating a firsthand account from her own experiences in Russia, so I'd guess it was simply something she picked up during her time at NASA.
As for Samsu
Not getting complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
No need for a scorecard. As always, the patent lawyers are winning, and the consumers are losing.
This sort of shitty competition through litigation was vile when Apple did it to Samsung, and it's equally vile when Samsung do it to Apple. Showing more and more why we desperately need patent reform. I'm not even that concerned about the impact on Apple and Samsung - it's the smaller players who can be crushed by litigation like this that I've got more sympathy for.
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I'm saying that punching people in the street, whatever the reason, is a bad thing that we should want not to happen, if that's what you're asking, yes.
You, on the other hand, appear to be taking the kindergarten line of argument. "But... but... but he did it first!" Doesn't make it any better, I'm afraid.
The reality is that your analogy is bad. In the real world we can't make it impossible for anyone to punch someone else in the face. In terms of abuse of patents, we can do that - or at least make the pena
I'm a rebel (Score:2)
I feel like a rebel, reading this story on my iPad 2 while in the USA. Quite exhilarating actually.
Ha take that Apple (Score:2)
So Samsung filed this motion nearly 2 years ago for an import ban of then relevant product. it been delayed and delayed and now is an irrelevant product, So Apple cannot import any more iPad2's or iPhone4's but isnt stopped from importing iPhone4S's, iPhone5's, iPad3's, iPad4's and iPad Mini's, with no consequence.
I'm happy that Samsung won but what did they really win Apple cant sell products it doesn't care about any more ?
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It seems to me that if Apple was supposed to pay Samsung 2.5% of each iPhone4 then when they were sold doesn't really matter. Apple may wish that they had been banned sooner so that they owed less.
Who's winning? (Score:2)
The lawyers are the only winners here, they get paid whether their client wins or loses.
They're all stupid (Score:2)
It's absurd that patent fees have to be determined by the cost of the whole device instead of the ICs using the patent. The cost should be a fixed part of the cost of the ICs themselves so everyone would pay exactly the same.
Let's say you buy an IC that uses 5 patents. It cost 75 cents. Each patent cost 10 cents (example) so the manufacturer gets 25 cents for his IC and each of the 5 patents holders get 10 cents.
Total cost of the patents: 50 cents
Let's say you buy a smartphone that uses the same IC and so t
Apple probably thinks this is great (Score:4, Insightful)
Now it will force users to buy iPhone 5 and iPad 3 or Mini instead of cheaping out on an older model. Its a win win here.
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If Apple wanted to "force users to buy iPhone 5" they would've stopped selling the older models. It's not like they unleashed some unpredicable iPhone-4-building robot out into the world when they launched the device and have no means of reining it in.
oh, noes, they've enjoined stagecoach wheels! (Score:2)
what next, is some lawsuit going to stop manufacture of Carborundum radio detectors? axe heads? our society is in danger if we can't crank out obsolete crap!
Who's winning? Me (Score:2)
I win because I'm still using an Env3 which does voice, text messages, and email just fine, thank you. Plus it can run over a week on standby before recharging.
And thanks to the huge cost & popularity of "smartphones," DumbPhones (TM) are really cheap.
WTFV (Score:2)
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're lucky Apple will realise that patent reform is in their best interests as well as ours. More likely though is that this will be seen by Apple as a sign they need to step up their legal activities even further.
I know there will be apologists but Apple really brought this upon themselves with their frivolous lawsuits based on patenting rounded corners and their seeking of bans of other devices. Whilst the rest of the phone manufacturers have all joined in the same rotten game, and many were playing at it before Apple, it was the Cupertino based company that (in my view) turned to the courts as their primary competitive strategy.
Let the flamewar begin!!
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're lucky Apple will realise that patent reform is in their best interests as well as ours. More likely though is that this will be seen by Apple as a sign they need to step up their legal activities even further.
If Apple and others conclude that Patent Reform is unavoidable, or in their interest, they will refocus part of their lobby and legal teams to ensure that it is as much in their interests(...) as possible, and as little-as-possible in ours (the public).
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:4, Informative)
It's actually worse than that.
Apple's patents are on design, silly things like rounded corners and page bounce. They are easy to work around. Everyone else's patents are on the technology needed to connect to mobile networks and other standards essential stuff which, as demonstrated here, is clearly enforceable and impossible to avoid.
Samsung did offer to license the patent to Apple, as they are required to do under FRAND rules. Most companies don't pay cash for this, they just cross license their own technology patents and call it even. Apple doesn't have any tech patents to bargain with and its design patents are worthless, so they have to pay $$$ instead. Apple didn't like the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory rates so refused to pay, and now the court is punishing them for it.
Patent reform won't help them. Patent reform is only going to destroy their own design patents, not the technology patents they don't want to pay for.
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple has more than 400 FRAND patents mostly acquired from Nortel, but they decided to never sue based on FRAND patents.
Samsung ask 2.5% of the price of the whole iPhone as a "reasonable and fair" price. This is exactly what Motorola ask to Apple and Microsoft as well for FRAND patentd. Recently, a court has considered that in a Motorola vs Microsoft case, a fair price would be 1/2000 to what Motorola asked.
Nobody can seriously think that 2.5% rate is a fair price as there are thousands of FRAND patents involved in any smartphone concerning 3G, 4G, WiFi, Bluetooth etc.
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not per patent. For an entire portfolio, it seems an entirely reasonable place to start bargaining from. And that's what happened in the Microsoft/Motorola case -- Motorola put in an opening bid, and Microsoft immediately (with no counteroffer) when running to friendly local court asking that court to decide that the negotiations (to which they'd declined to respond at all) were innately unfair.
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Microsoft running to the courts seems pretty much inline with that sort of opening offer. Bring a gun to a knife fight...
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice spin. You can say that the rate was "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" but that doesn't make it so. Apple certainly didn't believe so, hence the lawsuit. If they felt it was fair they would have paid up right away, like they did for the many, many hundreds of other FRAND patents that are essential to the iPhone's function.
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Clearly the court disagrees.
Utility patents (Score:2)
Apple's patents are on design, silly things like rounded corners and page bounce.
Demonstrably not true [patentlyapple.com] with even a casual [itproportal.com] investigation.
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You did not see the S1 and S2 packagings and shape and look of the phones as well as icons and so on?
You might just want to do a simple google search. Plenty of things like the following exist:
http://samsungcopiesapple.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com]
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You are either claiming the site forged those pictures, if so, just show evidence, since Samsung's so popular, pictures of undoctored Galaxy Android phones must be easy to find.
Or for whatever reason, you simply cannot believe they are true, in which case, collect your fandroid pass on your way out.
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And you clearly never owned a smartphone pre-iPhone.
Hint: the rounded corner button-at-the-bottom design predates the iPhone by a lot. I have an iPaQ and an HTC Win CE phone both of which predate the iPhone by years which had that design.
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Are you still going on about that? Samsung would really love for you and everyone else to believe the case is about rounded corners, but, do try to base your criticisms on reality. Read the actual lawsuits, and what the jury and judge actually wrote in their decisions rather than Samsung talking points, ok?
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You mean multiple manufacturers build devices which perform a similar function, and they have similar traits in common (especially the obvious/trivial ones)? I'm shocked!
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How quickly people forget what smartphones were like before the iPhone. Blackberry's CEO was quoted as saying he didn't believe the iPhone was real because what he saw couldn't really be done.
Android v1 and v2 sucked rats ass, and it wasn't until ICSW where it was decent. And yet fandroids everywhere always conveniently forgets that.
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How quickly people forget what smartphones were like before the iPhone.
Who cares? The iPhone was built from the products and innovation of others just as post-iPhone products have built upon the innovation of it, look at the similarities across the dumbphones of different manufacturers of years past, or how Motorola's invention of the flip phone spawned so many others of that form factor from different manufacturers, or the common "menu button -> grid of icons" workflow that ended up spreading to virtually every phone (not sure who had that first and it doesn't matter anywa
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Plenty of things like the following exist:
http://samsungcopiesapple.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com]
That's about as much evidence as you need to see that free sharing of information and the FOSS movement is going virtually nowhere. You can't even make products that look similar to other products and the funny thing is it even angers people that aren't associated with the companies in question, why do such people get so emotional and angry about that? What sort of person buys a device and ends up so defined by their ownership of it that they get angry when another company makes something that looks similar
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you honestly suggesting that Apple had Samsung make their iPhones and then Samsung took those designs and made identical copies on their own?
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I'm not saying that at all. Though I can see that if you take my 6 dot points 100% literally you could say that I am making that judgement :)
It's not as if way back when Steve Jobs had his first keynote showcasing his new iPhone creation it had a "Powered by Samsung" logo underneath the iPhone logo. Why not? I've seen plenty of PC's with "Intel Inside" stickers plastered on it.
Samsung created the IP that ensured that Apple's IP would work. I guess you could then argue that Samsung should be sued by the crea
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I'm not saying that at all. Though I can see that if you take my 6 dot points 100% literally...
Religious fundamentalists tend to do that ;-)
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Does it have to be identical? Designing and building the parts give you knowledge on how your competitor's phone work.
Additionally, did you not see the 250 pages of competitive design notes that Samsung created, *FROM THE TEAM THAT MADE PARTS FOR THE IPHONE*?
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Informative)
Are you honestly suggesting that Apple had Samsung make their iPhones and then Samsung took those designs and made identical copies on their own?
What... are you stupid? No, of course not. Samsung had no choice. Apple forced Samsung to copy Apple's innovations... by innovating in the first place. You have a lot to learn about Chinese culture, my friend.
What does Chinese culture have to do with it? Samsung are a Korean company.
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You have a lot to learn about Chinese culture, my friend.
Too easy. Bet you're glad you posted AC as you look a right fucking numpty now. ;)
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Funny)
1. Phones exist (very important logical point I believe).
What a revelation.
2. American company asks an Asian company to make a new type of phone based on a set of blue prints that the American company provides.
Yeah.
3. Asian company builds a machine that makes said blue prints.
'said blue prints'? So a machine that makes the exact blueprints that were sent to them such that the american company did nothing other than turn on the machine that makes the blue prints and sent the output to the asian company? Or did the american company create them somewhere and just print them out on the blue print making machine?
4. American company asks for X number of phones to be built. Asian company delivers X number of phones.
That's generally how it works.
5. Asian company realises they can make Y number of phones which is x2 as much as X.
Y number of what phones? The ones the American company contracted them to make? Or different ones? Or are they built from the output of the asian blue print making machine?
6. Asian company sells X-Y=Z phones
So they sell -X phones? According to point 5 Y = 2X so given the above Z = -X.
which in turn pisses off the American company.
Damn straight, they're selling negative phones instead of building phones they were contracted to build!
So who sues who?
The guy who came up with the idiotic math, then we praise the blue print making machine that made the Americans redundant and wonder what the fuck the Asians are doing.
Free rider problem (Score:2)
I find it totally mind boggling that after an American organisation shows an Asian company how to create a successful product and when the Asian company actually does so the American's get pissed off?
The problem is called the free rider problem [wikipedia.org] and it shouldn't boggle your mind at all. Patents were created specifically to deal with that problem. Research and product design are expensive. It is MUCH cheaper to just copy some else's solution. Problem is that the company that actually did the heavy lifting in figuring out the problem in the first place now can no longer compete because they still need to recoup their costs. And yes, that pisses off the company that solved the problem in the first plac
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I get that but for me the problem always goes back to the fact that something had to come from somewhere beforehand. The wheel dawns the horse and cart, the horse and cart, horse and cart dawns the car.
Take Kodak for instance. They kept selling film and photo developing services all the way up to bankruptcy. Sort of like selling horseshoes in today's society when they should of gone with the times and started selling rubber tyres.
Look at Nokia for example. They were a massive company before smart phones. Th
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It was a dumb typo, I know that, most level headed people would see that. I'm concerned that you don't.
Courtroom sales (Score:2)
You must be kidding. Apple is a law firm that happens to sell consumer electronics.
Right, because a courtroom is a great place to sell millions of smartphones and computers. I know I buy all my gear based on which company has the best lawyers. I trust you will point out the line on Apple's income statement where they highlight their earnings from lawsuits? [/sarcasm]
Seriously, none of Apple's competitors are a bit more ethical than Apple when it comes to patent litigation and all of them engage in the same behavior. A pox on ALL their houses.
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Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Interesting)
What strikes me as how both the interviewee's in the news clip shown in the TFA constantly confuse the terms "around the country" and "around the world". Americans' are bred thinking that the country and the world are one of the same. These Freudian slips are just proof of their cultural ignorance.
If Obama did overturn the ITC I'd ask the question, why even allow Samsung the freedom to file cases against Apple in the first place? I'd say if Obama did overturn the decision (no matter the ethics behind the decision) it's just proof that the USA is doomed. Ideally the Govt should be held accountable to it's respective laws, that fact a committee even exists for this sort of thing just highlights how Totalitarian the US has become.
And someone explain WTF "public-policy" is?
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It's interesting that all this mention of Obama is being mentioned. It's as if they are literally calling on him to intervene... or announcing it.
He would do well to steer clear of this one. After all, his push for patent reform is in no small part addressing the issue of software patents among other things like patent trolls. Samsung is a practicing and participating entity. Ideologically, they are precisely what Obama's patent reform push would serve to protect. For Obama to act against the ITC now w
US is supermajority of anglophone world (Score:2)
What strikes me as how both the interviewee's in the news clip shown in the TFA constantly confuse the terms "around the country" and "around the world". Americans' are bred thinking that the country and the world are one of the same.
But I do see how. Among people living in industrialized anglophone countries, two-thirds live in the United States, and three-fourths live in either the United States or Canada.
Re: (Score:3)
.. those who can't compete, litigate.
Seems like something morons say, if that was the case then it suggests nobody is capable of competing, all these companies are suing and counter-suing eachother.
Re:You know what they say.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shorting APPL (Score:5, Informative)
Why?
Who cares if they can't sell their old, dull junk?
Nobody any more - only out of touch wanna-be desperates and old people still use iPhones
I'll try to ignore the juvenile condescension dripping off that post and try to stay factual. Millions of people who do not fit your description still buy the iPhone, the iPhone 4 is Apple's entry level phone and entry level devices are kind of important for enticing new customers. The problem (for Samsung) is that firstly, this will be appealed and secondly, the iPhone 4 is about to be succeeded as the entry level model by the unaffected 4S and possibly the rumoured low cost iPhone model. So for Samsung this is mostly a propaganda victory whose magnitude depends on how much the Samsung PR department and Samsung/Google's army of fanboys can inflate it's importance
I found the article linked to in the summary to be a bit confused, there is a somewhat better analysis available here [forbes.com]
U.S. Patent No. 7,706,348 concerns an “apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system” (an allegedly UMTS-essential patent). Newer iPhones and iPads coming with Qualcomm QCOM +0.84% baseband chips (starting with the iPhone 4S) are definitely not affected, limiting the potential impact of this decision on Apple’s revenues — basically, Apple would have to make the iPhone 4S its entry-level iPhone model and discontinue U.S. sales of older iPhones (and the “new iPad 4G”, the third-generation iPad, its entry-level model for iPads with cellular connectivity; WiFi iPads are not affected at all). Formally the decision also relates only to the AT&T versions of those older products, but Samsung reserved the right to allege infringement by Apple products running on other networks (unless they come with Qualcomm baseband chips).”
Re: (Score:2)
What goes around comes around. Apple did the same thing to Samsung and got a ban on an older Galaxy S model. Even back then the S2 was out so it didn't have much of an affect. No difference here.
Remember, Apple started all this and now they're on the receiving end. No sympathy from me.
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Samsung buys Qualcomm and breaks all contracts to supply with Apple.
Hey, dumbass, Samsung hasn't stopped supplying displays to Apple, so why would they break supply contracts from Qualcomm?
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Well,.........? How does it feel?
You started it.
I'm sure it feels amusing. Losing a patent lawsuit on a FRAND patent opens up a whole new can of worms. Do you know how many Apple holds? They're free to go out in force, guns blazing, with that sort of precedent behind them. You thought they were litigious before now?!
Re: (Score:2)
This was a FRAND lawsuit - I'm amazed it got as far as it did (Samsung's litigation is... well, if not illegal, it's certainly wide of the gentlemanly thing to do), so it's not like the damages suit that Apple won over the design patents it held. There's no financial losses to Samsung from Apple using this patent, other than the licencing fees, since it's in the pool. Samsung's got no claim to loss of earnings or brand confusion, or any of that angle of attack (whether you believe it's bullshit or not), jus
Re: (Score:2)
That's exactly the point - Apple contended that the fees Samsung was asking were not Fair and Non-discriminatory. It's not easy to determine exactly what the value is, due to the way many companies simply cross licence, but I think it's 'reasonable' to assume that 2.4% per device is not it as a cash sum. Apple absolutely wants to pay a fair rate, as they do for every other frand patent they licence.
Remember, this is for a single patent in a large pool of standards-essential patents. If a single, relatively
Re: (Score:2)
There aren't that many FRAND suits being thrown at them, relative to the number of patents they licence, and it seems to be specifically with companies they have got into a beef with. If Apple really weren't playing by the rules (and negotiating the fair rate is part of those rules, as much as Samsung wants to class that as "refusing to pay") then there would be a hell of a lot more suits.
Nokia's suit against Apple was for a patent included in a radio chip that Nokia did not make, but was a third party part
Re: (Score:2)
It was filed in June 2011, when the products were still relevant, and then delayed twice.
I wonder how many backhanders it takes to get 2 delays ?