I just read the first two pages but didn't feel motivated to read the rest. The writer clearly has no idea of how the tech industry works. Or even the legal system. For example he keeps harping on the notion that Samsung countersues when sued for patent infringement. That is *standard* practice when you get sued and you have your portfolio of patents. It is a signal to the other side that you too have some nuclear weapons of your own that is pointed at them. It has no connotation of ill intentions.
Then there are factual issues like this:
"Even when other companies have honored competitors’ patents, Samsung has used the same technology for years without paying royalties. For example, a small Pennsylvania company named InterDigital developed and patented technology and was paid for its use under licensing agreements with such giant corporations as Apple and LG Electronics. But for years Samsung refused to cough up any cash, forcing InterDigital to go to court to enforce its patents. In 2008, shortly before the International Trade Commission was set to make a decision that could have banned the importation of some of Samsung’s most popular phones into the United States, Samsung settled, agreeing to pay $400 million to the tiny American company."
Once again the writer is out of touch with reality. InterDigital is considered a patent troll -- a company who patents technology not for incorporating them into products it sells but rather to extract money from others. Here is the latest chapter on that from 2013:
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/12/standard-essential-patent-troll.html
"Standard-essential patent troll InterDigital keeps failing: ITC clears Nokia, Huawei, ZTE, soon LG
At close of business on Thursday, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC, or just ITC) handed down its final ruling on InterDigital's July 2011 complaint against Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE. The Commission, the six-member decision-making body at the top of the U.S. trade agency with quasijudicial powers, affirmed the bottom line -- a finding of no violation whatsoever by these three defendants -- of a June 2013 preliminary ruling by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ)."
Along the same lines article says this:
Around the same time, Kodak also got fed up with Samsung’s shenanigans. It filed suit against the Korean company, contending that it was stealing Kodak’s patented digital imaging technology to use in mobile phones.
What he doesn't know or say is that Kodak became broke when digital photography took over film. The last investors decided to sue every company they could find that sold a camera. Fact that they also sued Samsung means nothing. Indeed they even sued apple!
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406047,00.asp
"Kodak Sues Apple Over Digital Imaging Patents...JUNE 19, 2012"
The article seems to be completely planted by the PR team for Apple. There is way too much detail for the reporter for a rag like Vanity Fair to have known, and to position one after the other as anti-samsung and pro-apple.
Fact of the matter is that this is "dirty business." There are no saints. Patent system is broken and companies use any and all tools at their disposal to deal with them -- some ethical -- many not.
No doubt there is corruption and such in the Samsung management ranks. That kind of thing is a lot more accepted and the norm in that part of the world than it is here. But no way could anyone paint Apple as the good guy and Samsung the bad guy.
Maybe the writer should have commented on price fixing accusation of e-books by Apple that raised e-book prices for all of us:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304444604577337573054615152
"U.S. Alleges E-Book Scheme
Lawsuit Says Apple, Publishers Colluded to Raise Prices; Three Will Settle"
Jobs/Apple pushed the e-book business to become an "agency model" and with it, set retail prices forcing amazon to raise its prices.
By layman standard which the article uses, any tech company can be made to look evil. Apple included.
