Samsung loses patent suit to Apple

[asiufy]

Apple was arguing that Samsung copied mostly Apple's SOFTWARE, its behaviour and look-and-feel, and to a lesser degree, its external visuals, mostly the part where it could lead potential customers to error.
And it's fairly obvious that Samsung shamelessly did just that. Same as they copied Nokia before, while THEY were the leaders.
Software IS innovation. Apple's contribution is not software alone, it's integrating all these disparate parts into a cohesive role. Again, Nokia used to do that well, being able to "do the whole thing" (software AND hardware), but they fell behind. Samsung was never in the lead, maybe in one of two specific hardware areas, same as Motorola.
And it's clear now that it takes much more than pure technology to make a product a winner. Apple didn't invent USB, yet they made it popular. Apple didn't invent video calling, yet they made it popular and acessible. THAT is innovation. Show me something similar that Samsung has cop...erm...created, that has reached this kind of broad acceptance? Flooding the market with a zillion similar smartphones, to cover every inch and every segment doesn't make you an innovator, just a dumb follower that's shooting in all directions...


alexandre

 

[Gregadd]

Not so dumb if you got a Billion dollars to spend!

 

[Keith_W]

Well alexandre, name a single thing that Apple invented on the iPhone. Given that you seem to think they are so innovative, it shouldn't be too difficult. Remember, they have had to be first to the market with this invention, and nobody else had it first. Up for it?

 

[asiufy]

Sure, that's why I said Samsung got a great deal. They "bought" their current leadership in the Android market segment with this US$ 1 billion, awfully cheap if you ask me... And it's no coincidence that the other guys, who didn't copy Apple as blatantly, didn't do so well...

KeithW, Apple invented the OS itself, its behaviours and its appearance. Apple invented the icons, the very same icons that Samsung copied shamelessly. Heck, Samsung even copied the "Voice Recorder" app, down to the microphone images and all.

The iPhone was the first mass market phone with no keyboard. There was an LG phone before that, but it sold marginally. I distinctly remember watching the iPhone introduction keynote, and thinking "wtf, no keyboard?". It was such a shift back then, but now we take it for granted. Nobody wants a phone with keyboards anymore (see how RIM is doing for more proof of that...)

Besides, I've already mentioned two of Apple's innovations (USB and video calling/Facetime). These might not be Apple's CREATIONS, but they were definitely innovations, for their implementation.

OK, I did mine, now tell me some great Samsung innovations in this segment

 

[amirm]

Apple then goes around saying, "I will license you my technology for $40 per phone, and I will license YOUR technology for 5 cents".

Just a note that as a practical matter, there is a ceiling of 5% of the cost of the product for patent licenses. Anything more than that might trigger anti-trust claims and such. I don't know what the carrier costs are for these smartphones. Assuming 2X of contract price, a typical smartphone would be $400 so 5% would be $20.

 

[Keith_W]

KeithW, Apple invented the OS itself, its behaviours and its appearance. Apple invented the icons, the very same icons that Samsung copied shamelessly. Heck, Samsung even copied the "Voice Recorder" app, down to the microphone images and all.

Incorrect. The OS is derived from UNIX. As for the "behaviour" (maybe you mean touch screen, pinch, swipe, etc), these were demonstrated by Microsoft 10 years ago. As for Apple "inventing" icons ... are you serious!?!?!? Where have you been for the past 30 years? You have never seen an icon before you bought an iPhone???

The iPhone was the first mass market phone with no keyboard. There was an LG phone before that, but it sold marginally.

Incorrect. See O2 XDA, 2002. I was toting one of these back then. Just because you are ignorant of history doesn't mean that Apple invented it.

Besides, I've already mentioned two of Apple's innovations (USB and video calling/Facetime). These might not be Apple's CREATIONS, but they were definitely innovations, for their implementation.

USB was not invented by Apple.

Video calling has existed in various forms for years. The idea is not Apple's - every sci-fi flick since the 1950's has had some kind of video calling, and video calling has existed on the PC and Mac platforms for years.

BTW, every Apple fanboy goes on about the retina display as if Apple invented it. Well, here's news for you. Guess who makes it? Samsung! Guess who owns the patents for that particular manufacturing technique? Samsung! What about something on Samsung's phones that they invented themselves? The AMOLED display.

So, keep trying. What has Apple invented?

 

[asiufy]

Keith_W,

I made the distinction very clear between "invention" and "innovation". Two different things. One may invent something, but do nothing with it. In that case, it doesn't become an innovation. What Apple does better than most is simply bring inventions, their own (Firewire) or someone else's (in case of USB) and turn them into innovative products, things that people actually can use, and most importantly, WANT to use. See, Cisco makes great products, but you can't pay me to use them. There's innovation in making complex things simple enough so people can actually use it.
I never claimed Apple invented USB, I did say it was one of their innovations. I remember PCs before the original iMac had those nasty PS/2 connectors for mice and keyboards, not to mention parallel and serial ports. After the iMac? USB, USB, USB.
It's the same thing here with Samsung and smartphones. Before iPhone? They copied RIM and Nokia, with business phones with keyboards. After the iPhone? Touchscreens everywhere!
And let's try again: I did say "mass market phone". Care to tell me how many tens of millions this O2 XDA sold (actually from HTC, see, I'm not so ignorant after all, even though O2 is a mostly european carrier, and I live in South America) ?
Oh, let's continue then... OS is derived from Unix. And Android is from Linux. So what? Do you really want to dispute that iOS was not wholly created by Apple? It'd be WAY easier to claim Android is not Samsung's creation... Actually, all they created are lame copycat apps that poorly mimic Apple's.
You need to undersand the distintiction between a fanboy and a person who just prefers X over Y. I like Apple's products, but I'm not blind to them. Apple makes plenty of wrong moves, if you ask me. Calling people who don't agree with you a "fanboy" is very, very old and tired, not to mention extremely pointless.
You said it yourself, Apple doesn't need to create the Retina display and manufacture it themselves, even though they have the resources ($$$) to do it. If Samsung had the patent for such a display, why didn't they go to market with it first? THAT would be true innovation. Heck, why don't they go to market with that NOW? I'd buy an external monitor from Samsung with such beautiful panel. Just coming up with technology X and sitting on it doesn't make you an innovator, just a creator.
One thing is very clear, there are leaders and there are followers. Apple is a leader, always been. Samsung is a follower, always been. Nothing wrong with that.


alexandre

 

[audioguy]

Apple didn't invent the original Mac user interface. It was developed by Palo Alto Research Center. Xerox first used it commercially for a document processing application but completely dropped the ball. Apple took it and turned it (and a few other concepts) into a bazillioin dollar corporation. I call that innovation. And Ketih, if you think because Apple didn't invent a specific concept that they are not an incredibly innovative company, I provide the following definition of innovation:

Definition

The process by which an idea or invention is translated into a good or service for which people will pay, or something that results from this process.

To be called an innovation, an idea must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. Innovation involves deliberate application of information, imagination, and initiative in deriving greater or different value from resources, and encompasses all processes by which new ideas are generated and converted into useful products. In business, innovation often results from the application of a scientific or technical idea in decreasing the gap between the needs or expectations of the customers and the performance of a company's products.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/innovation.html#ixzz24nwoHrWv

And I certainly don't think alexandre is an Apple fan boy any more than I think you are an Apple hater just because you refuse to carefully read what he wrote.

 

[Keith_W]

You call that innovation, I call that marketing. Throw into it a healthy amount of confirmation bias and you have Apple.

Come on, how can any of you possibly justify the "rectangle with rounded corners" BS they are throwing around. Do you guys really believe that Apple invented the rectangle?

Given that nobody has succeeded in citing a single example of an Apple invention, let's see if we can agree with this: Apple never really invented anything by themselves, they just put existing ideas or products into an appealing form and hype them up with their marketing halo.

 

[asiufy]

Keith_W,

I guess it's transparent enough that you simply don't read what I write, but silly old me is here writing some lines that you won't read anyway...
If you think all the hard work Apple's engineers (in software and hardware) put into every detail of an Apple product is just "marketing", then so be it. For my part, I enjoy it, and I'm able to recognise the legitimate effort of a company trying to do its best, even if it means souping up or improving things already invented.
The whole point of the "rectangle with rounded corners" was that Apple was trying to establish that, before the iPhone, phones looked different. By adoting iPhone/iPad's exterior design cues, the "rectange with rounded corners", Samsung was simply trying to cash in, given that Apple wasn't able to satisfy demand for its product. This much was admitted by Samsung during trial! And of course, we all know that Samsung didn't stop there, at the exterior appearance.
People dismissing Apple like you do is exactly how Apple got where they are right now. Competitors always dismissed them, just like you do. Ballmer is very prone to do such things, remember his opinion of the iPhone? See how "right" he was?
The whole point of Apple is picking something that was fundamentally flawed, and creating something people can use. And by all accounts, they're suceeding. As for Samsung, it's very clear to me how they got to be the #2 most profitable phone manufacturer: by copying the #1. And there's little invention, or innovation, there.


alexandre

 

[audioguy]

You call that innovation, I call that marketing. .

Maybe you just can't read. That definition of innovation is not mine. It is from an on-line business dictionary. So we are all wrong and you are right.

But so be it. You have made it abundantly clear you are not an Apple fan.

So why don't you list a few major companies who, in your mind, are innovators? That should be revealing.

By the way, I would suggest that you go to a dictionary and look up the definitions of innovation and invention -- they are not the same.

 

[RBFC]

Let's keep it civil, please.

Lee

 

[amirm]

Adding on to what Lee said, the fight is between Apple and Samsung, both of whom make money from this business. No need for us non-salary folks to fight for them .

 

[amirm]

I have the honor or dubious history of having had to compete with Apple in my previous job. So maybe I can share some perspective .

On innovation, having a wheel on the first gen iPod was clearly one. Yes, wheels had existed in pro video equipment and such. But at the time, everyone was using up/down or some other screwy scheme on music players. Apple realized that with a large hard disk, people would stuff a lot of music in there and hence needed a better way to navigate. The wheel solved that problem and was an iconic part of the design (circle inside of a rectangle).

What stifled innovation is that Apple took an exclusive on the world's smallest hard disk -- built by Toshiba -- for iPod. So no one else could source that and hence build a small device to compete with Apple. That gave a good two year lead to Apple.

They then did the impossible: throw out their own innovation -- the wheel -- and replaced it with touchscreen and browsing with your finger. I remember at the time no one believed that you could create a mass market phone with touch alone. BTW, I had a Windows CE based phone that did not have a keyboard. But required stylus to use which was cumbersome. You could use it with your finger but the system was a clone of desktop Windows and had small icons that made navigation hard. So while the idea of smartphone was 10 years old by then probably, they made critical enough changes to make it wildly more usable.

Apps. I don't think anyone had done apps like they did. There never was an online app store like that with such ease of use and some promise of safety. This was a remarkable move coming on them initially not letting any apps in there. And then doing a 180 degree and going farther than anyone ever had.

On the other hand for the longest time no one thought Apple would do a phone. The rumor was very strong but everyone thought that they would never be in a position patent wise to get there. You have to remember that there is a cartel that gets together and decides what the next phone standard is and with it, making sure all of their patents are firmly planted there. As a new guy on a block, you have no prayer of being able to ship a phone without paying a lot of royalties. Existing companies are cross licensed to each other so it is not a big deal to them to include each other's patents. To build a blu-ray player you probably have to pay $10+ in royalties on a player that retails for $80!!! Same type of deal exists in phones. So the notion that Apple did not step on Samsung's patents just doesn't sound right to me.

Having participated in creating standards like above, I can tell you that there is a lot of innovation in them. There are races to win as far as performance and huge amount of R&D goes into for example making your voice sound better. Or being cheaper to build a radio.

Net, net, I think both sides should have lost as they did in the Korean version of this.

 

[NorthStar]

---...But we (us, the people, the customers) should all win, benefit. :b

 

[audioguy]

---...But we (us, the people, the customers) should all win, benefit. :b

And so far we have. Apple is not the only technology company with smart and innovative employees. Samsung is filled with them (my daughter worked for their cell phone group for years )

While Apple is certainly a product company, they also seem to have some kind of overview plan that ties all of their products together --- either directly or indirectly (iCloud, App store, iTunes, ...)

Samsung is, in some ways, even better positioned to do the same thing but with a different product suite --- Appliances (Washers, Dryers, Refrigerators), TV's, Bluray players, Cameras, Tablets, Smart Phones, Printers, Computers, and on and on.

I'm not smart enough to figure out how to tie all of that stuff together, but I bet someone is --- and then we win again.

I LOVE Samsung products (we have their monitors, Plasma TV's, refrigerators, etc)

 

[NorthStar]

---Yes, Samsung has some cool products, and I own few of them myself.
...And some Sony and LG products as well. ...And Panasonic.

Of all these manufacturers of HDTVs, BD players, Cell phones, Pocket Cameras, Laptops, Tablets, iPads, iPods, Fridges, Washers & Dryers, etc., some of their products are better than others (depending of the year, and also the implementation with the quality/manufacturing control; because some are real lemons too).

I guess that at the end it is up to us the consumers to do our own research to choose wisely.
But it isn't always a given, if you know what I mean.

It should be always fun, but fun sometimes could be quite expensive.
And we all know a thing or two regarding that.

The "best" always/often changes, from one year to another; we just have to keep on the edge,
by being well informed. :b

 

[Keith_W]

Just a note that as a practical matter, there is a ceiling of 5% of the cost of the product for patent licenses. Anything more than that might trigger anti-trust claims and such. I don't know what the carrier costs are for these smartphones. Assuming 2X of contract price, a typical smartphone would be $400 so 5% would be $20.

I knew I saw it somewhere: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/10/3234909/apple-samsung-patent-royalty-rates

"In court documents released today, we now learn that Apple had a dollar figure in mind in an October 2010 meeting — it was proposing that Samsung pay a base rate of $30 per touchscreen phone and $40 per tablet [...]"

 

[rblnr]

Well alexandre, name a single thing that Apple invented on the iPhone. Given that you seem to think they are so innovative, it shouldn't be too difficult. Remember, they have had to be first to the market with this invention, and nobody else had it first. Up for it?

A ecosystem that actually works, and easily, powered by interfaces more intuitive than anything done before. The elegant hardware is the gravy to me.

And iOS is a derivative of Unix in only the most rudimentary sense.

 

[Keith_W]

So why don't you list a few major companies who, in your mind, are innovators? That should be revealing.

Microsoft, IBM, Google, Adobe, Xerox, and Sony.

And by the way, I can read I just don't agree with you that's all!!

As for being an Apple fan, I owned several iPods, an iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, and iPad. I also owned a Macbook Air. But the very moment Apple started these legal shenanigans, I sold all these Apple products. I rid myself of everything Apple, down to uninstalling Quicktime on my PC. What they are doing is very bad for the tech world, and very bad for you ... unless you are Amish or something. Imagine if someone patented a "rectangular box covered with wood veneer" and went around suing every speaker manufacturer trying to force them out of business. That is what Apple is doing.

Their "innovation" is to patent the bleeding obvious (see rounded rectangular box patent) and sue everyone else. Click through the link I provided to see their patent on the rounded rectangle (granted May 2005), then feast your eyes on this 2002 Hewlett-Packard TC1000 tablet. It even has a flat glass touch screen:

That is innovation, i'll give them that. Nobody else has had the gall to steal someone else's idea, patent it as if they invented it, and then go around suing everyone else for infringing on their "innovations".