After Knocked-Down Damages Claim, Apple Again Seeks to Ban Some Samsung Phones 114
Bloomberg reports that after Apple's patent victory in court last week over smart-phone rival Samsung, Apple is
seeking a sales ban on several specific phones from Samsung; none of them are currently flagship devices. "The nine devices targeted by Cupertino, California-based Apple for a U.S. sales ban include the Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S2 Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, Galaxy S3 and Stratosphere." Getting the competition blocked from the marketplace over patent claims is something that Apple's tried before in connection with its beef with Samsung, and the company has had mixed results, depending on jurisdiction. Last week's decision in favor of Apple hints that the jury didn't think the company deserved the entire $2.2 billion it was seeking, awarding (a mere) $120 million, instead.
Trolling Company Is Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
Ban the fruit company!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
seriously, i mean you would think with how the apple culture is they would live and let be while continuing to look down upon those cretins who use android instead of the OBVIOUS superior ios. but nope, cant do that, have to try and get the courts to ban the competition
Hey, be glad they want to prevent you guys from buying copies of their designs - else somebody might think your phone is an overly expensive Apple product.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:I am Steve's complete lack of surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
This lawsuit makes no business sense whatsoever. Why the hell don't Apple and Samsung settle with a cross-licensing agreement?
This suit is making a bunch of lawyers very rich, which in this case I'm OK with. If the two companies don't come to their senses and settle, I will enjoy seeing them get milked by their lawyers.
Re:I am Steve's complete lack of surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
This lawsuit makes no business sense whatsoever. Why the hell don't Apple and Samsung settle with a cross-licensing agreement?
This suit is making a bunch of lawyers very rich, which in this case I'm OK with. If the two companies don't come to their senses and settle, I will enjoy seeing them get milked by their lawyers.
You can be sure Samsung doesn't want to continue this farce.
It's basically Apple. They're too caught up in their own bullshit to understand that, hey, they AREN'T the only game in town, and that they don't have a hard-lock monopoly on good ideas and engineering.
Maybe some day, they'll pull their heads out of their asses. Until then, they'll continue burning money on these dumbshit lawsuits.
Re: (Score:2)
Why the hell don't Apple and Samsung settle with a cross-licensing agreement? Because Apple are dickheads and their patents are as solid as soap bubbles, then there is no reason to make an agreement with them.
So Apple doesn't want to cross-license, because their patents are worthless while Samsung's are gold - yeah, that makes sense.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This lawsuit makes no business sense whatsoever. Why the hell don't Apple and Samsung settle with a cross-licensing agreement?
Because Apple does not want to compete in an open market, they want to be the ONLY market. There is a reason they only have a 14% global market share vs Android (2013), their products are overpriced crap. You can get an iPhone 5S for $249.99 (AT&T) versus a Samsung Galaxy S5 for $199.99 (AT&T). But of course on the Galaxy S5 you'll have to put up with such things as a larger higher resolution screen, twice as many megapixels on your camera, twice as much internal memory, removable battery, removable
iLawyer (Score:1)
Apple should open its own law school. They gotta be running out of lawyers by now.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple opening a law school, how silly.
They'll just lobby to get a new kind of H1 visa. Much cheaper!
Latest Phones (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
if you're illiterate, don't try to be clever (Score:1, Troll)
Last week's decision in favor of Apple hints that the jury didn't think the company deserved the entire $2.2 billion it was seeking, awarding (a mere) $120 million, instead.
The jury decision does not "hint" any such thing. It states as a finding of fact in a court of law. Dipshit.
Re: (Score:3)
dipshits
Re: (Score:2)
Pedants are far more annoying. At least dipshits are fun to make fun of.
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on your definition of "pedant".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, since the jury awarded $120 million instead of the $2.2 billion, it says there was a reason the jury didn't think it was necessary to award the entire amount. "Deserve" is speculative. Nothing "dipshit" about guessing without polling the jury's motive. Comments like this (and most articles these days) are why I left Slashdot. I come back from time to time to see if Slashdot returned to "News for Nerds"... but it hasn't.
Apple is no longer competitive... (Score:3)
If Apple is indeed competitive, because it has more lawyers than engineers.
Re: (Score:2)
I was trying to say that these days Apple probably has more lawyers than engineers... I can't delete/edit my comment...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From Wikipedia:
"The IBM Simon Personal Communicator, ca. 1993, the first touchscreen phone."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
Touchscreen phone running Windows Mobile was quite common in Asian market before iPhone. It is true that they weren't as polished.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
It is true that they weren't as polished.
And that's the point isn't it? Prior to Apple releasing the iPhone, Android resembled the Blackberry. iPhone caused them to change who they were copying. There never was anything original about it. Without others to copy, it's spec team wouldn't have known what to do.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with that meme is that in the Apple vs Samsung case, designs for the iPhone were presented in evidence dating back to August 2005. More than a year before LG announced the LG Prada.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with that meme is that in the Apple vs Samsung case, designs for the iPhone were presented in evidence dating back to August 2005. More than a year before LG announced the LG Prada.
Which shows that nobody had to copy anybody to come up with a form factor like that, it was obvious as is proven by the fact that Apple and LG both ended up developing the same form factor device in parallel without influence from eachother.
Re: (Score:2)
Which would be significant if it was simply the form factor that Apple sued for. Apple was successful, so you're arguing against what already proved.
Re: (Score:2)
Which would be significant if it was simply the form factor that Apple sued for.
Why? All you said was that designs for the iPhone existed before the LG device was announced and since the LG device was announced before the iPhone it shows that the current form factor for smartphones was not some innovative thing Apple invented but was obvious. I don't know what else you're arguing but I'm only talking about the form factor, just like the original post you replied to.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what else you're arguing but I'm only talking about the form factor, just like the original post you replied to.
I don't believe the post I replied to was talking about the form factor only.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't believe the post I replied to was talking about the form factor only.
No, you are wrong. They all copied the form-factor of the LG Prada, just like Apple did.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5199901&cid=47090883 [slashdot.org]
I'm not quite sure why you want to read things that aren't there to argue against a point nobody was making. In any case I was talking about the form factor and it has been proven that the form factor was obvious.
Re: (Score:2)
That was not "the original post [I] replied to". It was a response to my reply. The "original post [I] replied to" was earlier in the thread.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
What makes you imagine that one particular person, answering my message somehow defined the parameters of the thread. Was it a sock puppet of yours or something? At no stage was this thread limited to form factor. Now stop being a twat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with that meme is that in the Apple vs Samsung case, designs for the iPhone were presented in evidence dating back to August 2005. More than a year before LG announced the LG Prada.
Which shows that nobody had to copy anybody to come up with a form factor like that, it was obvious as is proven by the fact that Apple and LG both ended up developing the same form factor device in parallel without influence from eachother.
Similar is not the same. Form factor is not design. A copy is a copy.
Re: (Score:2)
Similar is not the same.
Obviously, and Android is similar to iOS, but not the same. The Galaxy S2 was similar to the iPhone when viewed from the front, but not the same (and not even really similar from any other angle).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Only similar enough to violate the design patent.
Apparently so (well the court case is ongoing) but why are you talking about design patents? What's that got to do with the fact that the form factor was obvious? I specifically said form factor [slashdot.org], as did the GP to the post. Not design, not design patents but form factor. Is that unclear to you?
And don't pretend Samsung doesn't have thousands of them.
Why would I pretend that?
Re: (Score:2)
Simon looks like a prototype... no consumer would touch that thing. The reality is Apple designed the iPhone, without which the smartphone market would not exist today. Apple is pissed at Samsung for copying its phone to the tiniest details and stealing its profits. Unfortunately, the iPhone has many design innovations but not many (strong) patentable innovations which means it's easy prey to companies in the mobile phone field that can clone a phone's design.
I think the tech field needs a combination desig
Re: (Score:2)
For example, a smartphone combination patent would claim: touchscreen only UI + rectangular case + fast CPU + lots of RAM + phone functionality. The period of protection would only be 5 to 7 years since it's not as innovative as a utility patent.
The iPhone was hardly the first phone that had this combination of features.
Also, the iPhone was leading in market share for quite a while after Android came along, and is still the most profitable phone on the US market, despite the fact that Apple's patents have basically done little to deter others from developing features.
A 7 year patent would mean that we'd be seeing our first android phones in a month. Apple sells something like 30-40M phones per quarter, making quite a bit of profit on each.
Also, co
Re: (Score:2)
Congrats you just described my Motorola world traveller. Oh wait did you think apple invented touch screens, or smart phones, or internet capable devices without keyboards? I had the phone you described before color screens were introduced. Guess your patent is invalid on prior art then. Better stick to the usual stupidly finely worded and questionable patents like round corners or slide to unlock instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apologies. Ericson world traveler. Can't find exact reference to it but it was similar to the R380. When flipped closed it looks like a phone with buttons but the buttons flip aside to reveal a large touchscreen to use as a PDA. Best of all if you're ballsey enough or clumsy as in my case you can snap of the buttons completely and use it just as a touchscreen device. I had one in 2001. Fondly remember that phone. It was way ahead of its time.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm something of a Rip Van Winkle when it comes to smartphones because I had several Palm Pilots and PocketPCs, but I don't like how cell service is sold here in the US and I am normally near a phone at work anyways. So my wife and I just had blackberry clones until I recently got her a standard-issue Android. To me, it feels immediately very familiar to the Palm Pilot, especially that Sony
Re: (Score:2)
Yes.
Android development started a long time before the iphone was released. Taken into account the first target market for any mobile company back in that day (Japan), it seems indeed likely that there were *many* other devices which influenced the design of samsungs mobile phones. (Most notably the huge amount of PIM devices in japan like the Sony Clie Series).
What indeed was manifested by the Iphone is that even mobile phones should not be designed as PIM devices but as media players (thus the loss of bu
Patent troll (Score:1)
Apple is patent trolling so that they don't have to make better products
Apple is to phones as Microsoft was to PCs (Score:2)
It seems Apple is trying to be to phones, what Microsoft was to PCs, right before the DOJ went after Microsoft for antitrust *irritated sigh*
Re: (Score:3)
I dont like the idea of nuking apple if for the only reason being competition. I believe android would become stagnant if they dont have any competition
Re:Turn the tables around (Score:5, Interesting)
I definitely don't like the idea of nuking Apple. Let the market do that for us. But Apple needs to stop using our tax dollars to defeat their competitors outside the market. They've done so since way back in the Apple II days.
We wouldn't be stuck using Windows, either, if Apple hadn't killed the competetive GUI market on the PC. They drove the GEM Desktop and GeoWorks out of competition, and set a tone where no third parties could produce windowing environments. It's Apple's fault for clearing the market entirely which made way a deep pocket competitor like Microsoft the ultimate winner.
Re: (Score:2)
We wouldn't be stuck using Windows, either, if Apple hadn't killed the competetive GUI market on the PC. They drove the GEM Desktop and GeoWorks out of competition, and set a tone where no third parties could produce windowing environments.
Now that was a good one. Apple killed the Windows competitors.
Re:Turn the tables around (Score:5, Insightful)
Be honest, if Apple were the one who had stolen physical designs and software innovations from Android, you nerds would ask nothing less than nuking Apple from orbit.
Eh. Their new ring-HQ-thing would make an attractive target from high altitude I suppose; but I don't think I'd be as worked up as you give me credit for:
As with so many things patent-and-tech-related, whatever ends up being the killer app always looks simultaneously brilliantly innovative and obvious in hindsight; but attempts to actually put your finger on precisely what is patentably special about it frequently run into trouble on some mixture of university research projects that just got shelved after somebody finished his PhD, stuff IBM did in 1980 but charged approximately a zillion dollars a month to lease and hid behind an interface designed to sell you consulting services through sheer pain, or assorted bits and pieces identifiably but unhelpfully introduced in prior products that were dragged down by mediocrity in other areas.
That's what I find most unsympathetic about Apple's protracted litigation on what are basically broad look-and-feel grounds. Were they the first ones to use a capacitive touchscreen to make a smartphone that doesn't suck? Sure, no problem. And look at the giant pile of first mover advantage and cash that they got for it. Does this entitle them to a monopoly on rectangular touch sensitive objects for two decades? Less impressive case to be made. And, much to their chagrin, less impressive legal payout. As much as Apple might prefer otherwise, nailing the execution is not a patentable achievement, and a great many elegant executions break down into a lot of substantially nonpatentable, or already commonplace, bits and pieces put together correctly.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Were they the first ones to use a capacitive touchscreen to make a smartphone that doesn't suck? Sure, no problem. And look at the giant pile of first mover advantage and cash that they got for it. Does this entitle them to a monopoly on rectangular touch sensitive objects for two decades? ... As much as Apple might prefer otherwise, nailing the execution is not a patentable achievement, and a great many elegant executions break down into a lot of substantially nonpatentable, or already commonplace, bits and pieces put together correctly.
You're wrong, there - nailing the execution of something frequently requires additional invention. It's not just putting together bits and pieces that already exist, but adding on an intuitive user interface or other feature that makes them easy to use. But, any patent only covers that new invention - the bits and pieces that already exist are, by definition, in the prior art, and making them wouldn't be infringement. However, making that intuitive user interface or other feature would be. The monopoly woul
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, but is "intuitive user interface for capacitive touchscreen device" actually patentable? If it is, then Apple's got a case and the patent system is even worse than I thought. If it's not, then Apple's just scum trying to manipulate the legal system to win what they can't win in the market.
As for nuking Apple from orbit? I'd happily do it even if there was no such thing as iOS, Android or even cell phones. I'd nuke them even if I had to give the launch order over a landline with a rotary phone.
Re: (Score:3)
How about if nobody has stolen anything?
I don't think anyone objects to Apple also using the obvious designs, they just object to them claiming an exclusive right to the obvious.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Things only ever seem obvious AFTER someone else has done them.
Before iPhone, Android looked like Blackberry. There was nothing obvious about Apple's design features to them then. They were too busy copying Blackberry's "obvious" design.
Re: (Score:2)
There was also the issue of capacitive touchscreens getting to a reasonable price point. The less obvious aspect would be the public liking the fondleslab style, but fashion isn't subject to patent or copyright. The basic design appeared in sci-fi for decades including 2001, Space 1999, and Star Trek.
For that matter, consider the Palm Pilot. It used a stylus (commonly) due to the inferior touch screens available at that time, but I did see people occasionally use their fingers.
Re: (Score:1)
The basic design appeared in sci-fi for decades including 2001, Space 1999, and Star Trek.
That's becoming a bit of a meme. 2001 had a flat video screen on a table, about the same dimensions as an iPad. No indication of it being any kind of computing device though. Indeed it was a basic plot point that the computing was done by centralised mainframe like computers like HAL. HAL was the vision of computing in 2001, not tablets, let alone smartphones,
Likewise Space 1999 did all their computing on wall panels or desk bound keyboards.
Star Trek TOS had some electronic clipboard devices, About 2 inches
Re: (Score:2)
In Space 1999, future Earth (when they passed by it) had devices looking a lot more like fondle slabs. All of Apple's patents are based on look and feel, so the 2001 device applies just fine. The Palm pilot had the form, but not the function due to the technology available at that time. Had capacitive touch in appropriate resolutions been available, the resemblance would have been striking. The design was obvious then, but the tech wasn't there yet.
It's funny how minor differences are enough for you to excu
Re: (Score:2)
Because it's a funny name for them and seems more in line with many of the users actual purpose in owning one.
I didn't coin the term BTW.
Re: (Score:2)
Minor differences? You haven't presented a single computer in the same form factor, let alone a smartphone. That's before we even start looking at the UI.
You're clutching at straws.
Re: (Score:2)
I have presented examples going back to the '60s.
Re: (Score:2)
What was it, then? I didn't see anyone with a mahl stick and beret, so it wasn't an easel. Perhaps it was for frying bacon on...
It was only pretend, so I don't see how you can come to any conclusion about how it worked.
I like how you tried to move on from that. Not fast enou
Re: (Score:2)
Seems your memory isn't too good.
What was it, then? I didn't see anyone with a mahl stick and beret, so it wasn't an easel. Perhaps it was for frying bacon on...
It was at the breakfast table. A device they were staring at whilst eating. No interaction. I already said what it was presented as: a video screen. And it's context was a newspaper replacement.
"But the [Star Trek TOS] phone design was decidedly both flipphone and analogue."
It was only pretend, so I don't see how you can come to any conclusion about how it worked.
All Sci-Fi is only pretend. It doesn't mean they aren't presenting certain technologies by what they do with them. With the ST communicator, when atmospheric conditions were bad, James Kirk would turn a little dial on the communicator and all he'd get is static. Which is a presentatio
Re: (Score:2)
What was it, then? I didn't see anyone with a mahl stick and beret, so it wasn't an easel. Perhaps it was for frying bacon on...
In the movie it's used to display the same video on both devices at the same time. A video that starts with a BBC logo. It has a row of buttons at the bottom. It's a TV.
Re: (Score:2)
Now all of these things also predated Android. And yet I repeat, they chose to copy Blackberry's design until the iPhone came out at which point they changed to copying the iPhone. So even if those things you mentioned were pre-cursors, the Android team either didn't recognise them, or didn't want them.
Does that matter? At the time the popular smartphone approach was what RIM was doing with the Blackberry so that's the way Android went, to try and get into that market. Apple changed the game by taking pre-existing ideas, concepts and demos and built their product around those, it was successful, they profited massively from it and owned the market for quite some time. So what's the problem?
Re: (Score:1)
The LG KE850, also known as the LG Prada, is a touchscreen mobile phone made by LG Electronics. It was first announced on December 12, 2006. It was the first mobile phone with a capacitive touchscreen when LG started selling it in May 2007 (iPhone first gen was released at the end of June 2007).
Samsung SGH F700 [wikipedia.org]
The SGH-F700 was a mobile phone manufactured by Samsung. Using Vodafone as its network provider, the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007.
Re: (Score:2)
The ROKR was very much a Motorola phone, that had licensed the ability to play DRMed tunes from the iTunes store. It's physical form and UI had nothing to do with Apple.
I'm well aware what direction the market was moving in. I'm in Europe and I already had a touchscreen phone in 2002. The Sony Ericsson P800. But since that's not the specifics of the Patent dispute it's not relevant.
Re: (Score:1)
Wrong, the ROKR was a collaboration between Motorola and Apple. If not, explain why Steve Jobs was unveiling the phone?
Neonod [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong, the ROKR was a collaboration between Motorola and Apple. If not, explain why Steve Jobs was unveiling the phone?
I didn't say it wasn't a collaboration. The collaboration was the licensing and commercial secrets required to implement it. But if you think that Apple designed the hardware or the UI of it, you're smoking crack.
Why did Jobs unveil it? Because both companies saw that as advantageous for whatever reasons. (Motorola because having Jobs launch it would make big news, as it did. Jobs maybe wanted more licensees, or had something to prove to record companies)
Did you mean the patent with prior art in an actual product?
I mean the patents that they won with in a court of l
Re: (Score:1)
Please correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Apple claim that they had already started working on iphone concepts in 2005? If so, what were they doing looking for licensees? Also, what did Jobs have to prove to the record companies? By this point in time the ipod was almost synonymous with music players.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh you mean like in Netherlands... Or maybe you meant UK...
You're confusing cases for the design patent, with a case about the patents for elements of the UI.
the direction the industry headed in was inevitable.
There was nothing inevitable about the iPhone UI. Android changed from looking like a Blackberry to looking like an iPhone because of a change in the source of their design plagiarism, not inevitability due to increased hardware power. If Windows Phone had been the big success at the time, Android would be a copy of that instead.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, please note that the iPhone 1st Gen wasn't that much of a smartphone, my Nokia 6600 from 2003, running Symbian, could multitask while the iPhone 1st Gen could not. Also, the Samsung F700 had 3G while iPhone 1st Gen did not.
And the Nokia 6600 didn't have 3G, and the F700 couldn't multitask.
Re: (Score:1)
I never thought of the Samsung F700 as a smartphone, it was a glorified feature phone with a pretty nice interface and the convenience of a slideout qwerty keypad. It was a decent enou
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There was also the issue of capacitive touchscreens getting to a reasonable price point.
And that's why the second one was available, Apple had a system ready to announce. While Android had to wait another 9 months to hobble together a demo that didn't even use the touchscreen for much.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of that was a matter of the threshold of pain. Apple was more willing to go with an expensive phone.
Re: (Score:2)
If? You mean notification center? Quick settings?
Re: (Score:2)
both were "stealing" them. neither had new concepts.
(what was new was that the chip fabs for cheap capacitive touch screens were coming online.. and no those chips don't have an apple or samsung logos on them.. which sucks a bit because the current resistive tech can be really, really good)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
We apologise for the fault in the website. Those responsible have been sacked
Re: (Score:1)
I guess today is expired certificate day.
Way to go, Apple [macrumors.com]. /sigh