The results of this trial are exactly what proponents of no software patents were looking for. Now they can go full speed ahead and force the bogus USPTO to get rid of all software patents. After all, software is just a bunch of words and how can you patent words? /s
I relate Samsung's penalty to driving 120mph through a residential neighborhood and getting a $10 fine. This fine won't stop Samsung and it won't stop any other company from willfully using Apple's patented products. The only thing that would stop them would be an injunction and Judge Koh would never do that.
What bother's me more than these results, however, is how Americans view Apple and Samsung. In many ways, I see Samsung being looked at as the better product producing company and Apple looking like the old "made in Japan," then "Made in China" products of a few decades ago. So many stores carry Samsung products while refusing to carry Apple products (either because they can't get good margins or Apple won't let them). What is the unknowing person supposed to think? Obviously that Samsung has better products because Costco, Best Buy, Walmart, Sam's Club, the local grocery store, and the corner 7-11 all carry their products so they must be the best ones on the market. Yes, marketing does convert a whole lot of people, including, in the case of this trial, the eight jurists who also obviously didn't find that much wrong with what Samsung did.
You do realize that the patent that Apple was found to have infringed was not even Samsung's own patent, it's one that they purchased to serve as patent chaff and a decoy for the trial. This is something a patent troll typically does, not a company looking to be innovative based on its on merits.
The bottom line is that almost no level of monetary fines, penalties, and damages are going to change the behavior of mega companies like Samsung who openly steal the intellectual property of others without remorse. It simply becomes a cost of doing business that gets passed on to their customers or absorbed by their shareholders. Samsung can simply find a cheaper source for the cheap plastic they use in their phones and tablets to recover billions in fines and penalties. Or sell the infringing products into countries who don't value or enforce IP protection rights. In Samsung's case they also have the backing of another mega company, Google, to provide them with protection and relief from their crimes. Their financial risk for IP infringement is so laughably tiny compared to the payback they receive from doing so. If the jury came up with a $10 billion dollar fine it still would not make them blink or lose a minute of sleep as long as they continue to be able to sell their wares into the markets that were more than happy to buy their knock-off products.
So this is really about sport, i.e., who wins and who loses the game that is being played. It may make armchair quarterbacks and rabid fans feel vindicated to see what appear to be onerous fines in the billions being handed out, or huge fines being avoided, based on clueless juries/referees. But unless it results in the world wide cessation of the ability to sell products with infringing behavior it may as well be a $1.00 fine for each infringement. They may as well be handing out trophies and holding parades. It truly has become so disconnected from reality and made such a public spectacle for laypeople (rather than a business to business matter) that it has become no more than another spectator sport.
Does anyone know if Patent 6226449, the Hitachi patent Samsung used against Apple, was ever used by Hitachi against another company? It was filed in 1997 and is for a digital camera. Did Hitachi ever attempt to protect its patent when they owned it? Pulling an almost 20 year old patent out of Hitachi's garbage can to use against Apple should have been attacked by Apple during the trial or maybe the jury foreman from IBM pushed the jury on this one because he feels all of IBM's old, outdated patents should be treated the same way.
$119M > $158K. Clearly the jury felt Samsung was the bigger infringer. They also said Samsung willfully infringed, I'm not aware they said the same about the one infringement they dinged Apple for.
The Willful Infringement they found was for the single patent ('172 auto-complete) Judge Koh had preemptively ruled as infringed before the trial started. I mentioned this somewhere already but she'll have a difficult time now drafting a ruling that agrees with the jury's finding. Since her initial determination the USPTO has announced it has significant doubts as to the patent's validity. That was also one of Samsung;s legal arguments I think. It may be infringed at this point, but IMHO a finding of willfulness probably not. While the jury was not permitted to be notified of the Patent Office action (Federal court rules) Judge Koh would have to consider it or I don't believe it will pass the almost certain Appeals Court smell test.
As far as the level of damages why would that particularly matter to whether each was infringing? Samsung asked for very little and received even less, Apple wanted a lot and received very little, about 6% of it so far I think. Using your reasoning the jury didn't think Samsung was much of an infringer either.
FWIW I personally disagree with the way this whole thing was done on multiple levels, beginning with broad software patents as a whole and proceeding from there. Buying patents for the sole purpose of suing another company, much less a market competitor, is sad and needs to have some limiting factors put in place (Samsung). Suing a marketplace competitor for damages for using some of your products patented features when you yourself don't use the claims you're suing over doesn't sound worthy of a major ding either (Apple). You would assume both, or at least Apple in this particular case, are relying on their strongest and easiest to win patent claims. If this is the best they've got, and Koh doesn't mail Apple a fig-leaf in the guise of an injunction, then I think both need to get on with things and hammer out the details on a cross-licensing agreement. These trials aren't fixing it.
EDIT: A side-note from this mornings TV news (no not Fox). They reported Samsung was found to infringe on two Apple's patents, but for no where near what Apple wanted. They also reported tho that Apple was found to infringe on a Samsung patent. Most listeners would have no knowledge of the details and only know they both infringe and both lost.
I can't imagine Apple would really consider this a win in the court of public opinion.
Does Samsung have to pay Apples legal bill which is probably equivalent to the amount they recieve in damages?
Not in the US system. It sounds good on paper but there are serious downsides to that system as well. I sue you for whatever reason for $100,000. You hire a lawyer for $10,000 to defend you. I bring my team of the worlds top lawyers for $1,000,000. My team of lawyers wins. You owe me $100,000 in damages and $1,000,000 in legal fees. Plus you still owe your lawyer $10,000.
So the 'loser pays' system would need all kinds of even more jargon in it to prevent abuse. We're lawsuit trigger happy enough in the US already.
In this case it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing for Apple. I believe Samsung's legal fees were higher. Since Apple lost their portion of the case should they then be required to pick up Samsung's legal fees as well?
Are there any phones Samsung is currently selling that are infringing on any of these patents?
Supposedly most of the newest Samsung phones have already implemented acceptable work arounds, therefore, this trial should have been the biggest slam against Samsung but it turned out to be a whimper.
The worst part about these trials is that Judge Koh would only allow a few patents to be asserted at a time. Apple has plenty more and could have brought upwards of 20-50 (I'm guessing) while Samsung had very few. It's obvious Samsung won on several counts because this trial will be used on future trials, reducing anything Apple asserts to a couple pennies per phone.
Not in the US system. It sounds good on paper but there are serious downsides to that system as well. I sue you for whatever reason for $100,000. You hire a lawyer for $10,000 to defend you. I bring my team of the worlds top lawyers for $1,000,000. My team of lawyers wins. You owe me $100,000 in damages and $1,000,000 in legal fees. Plus you still owe your lawyer $10,000.
So the 'loser pays' system would need all kinds of even more jargon in it to prevent abuse. We're lawsuit trigger happy enough in the US already.
In this case it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing for Apple. I believe Samsung's legal fees were higher. Since Apple lost their portion of the case should they then be required to pick up Samsung's legal fees as well?
Apple should buy a controlling stake in Xiaomi and gut the low-end Android market, thus robbing Samsung of their marketshare. Disembowel the enemy before he has time to think.
It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.
At a retreat in September 1982, as quoted in John Sculley and John A. Byrne, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple – A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (1987), p. 157
Variant: Why join the Navy . . . if you can be a pirate?
Now that the results of the second patent trial in California are in I, for one, am glad to see (judging from the pitiful amount that Apple has been awarded) that the judge and jurors did not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by that uninnovative company that brought the GUI, the mouse, the modern personal computer (along with colour and style), the iPod, the iTunes Store, Apple Retail Stores, the online App Store, the iPhone, the MacBook Air, the iPad, the Mac Pro, and the world's most insecure and unreliable operating system, to the masses.
After finally having proven, not only their innocence, but that Korea, in general, is able to draw from a well of innovation that is incredibly deep,<span style="line-height:1.4em;"> I can only assume that both Samsung Executive Management and their legal team will be taking some sorely deserved time off at the Lotte World Amusement Park in Seoul.</span>
Good on you guys!
Keep up the hard work!
Why do you think Apple won those trials? Its because Apple innovated and samsung infringed on those patents. Did you see the email they sent to their heads? The screenshot of "slide to unlock" right next to the other option for the lock screen? The infringed the patents on purpose. The samsung store they has that had the iTunes and App Store app icons on the wall? That they decided to put a finger print scanner in the galaxy s5 after Apple released the very well selling iPhone 5s. There is so many more reasons why you are soooo, wrong. And if you haven't noticed, samsung devices became how they are today because of Apple. The company that's awarded innovative along side Orbotix, Amazon, google. The link for Top Ten Innovative companies http://m.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2014/industry/consumer-electronics
Sarcasm sometimes goes right over folks heads, particularly "haters" as they're called sometimes (I'm no fan of "tags" but some here immediately relate to them). Not always the best choice to use it in emotionally-driven threads. WE know what you meant GTR. Casual members or new visitors maybe not so much.
What an ugly fucking form. Using a row of parenthesis as a divider? Really? Was this done using a typewriter from the 1950s? I feel bad for Jurors having to fill out this confusing piece of shit form.
Steve Jobs would have never allowed a legal form to be this ugly. " src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Originally Posted by GTR
…Lotte World Amusement Park in Seoul.
It’s a world of copying, a world of thieves;
It’s a world where innovation’s bereaved.
There’s so much that we share
So just give literally everything you’ve ever done directly to us!
It’s a Lotte World After All~…
Originally Posted by pfisher
Disney is BAD. For everyone.
Hear hear. Never mind their monolithic ownership of so many properties.
quoting the same post twice (copying just like Samsung)
unnecessarily quoting the entire post (twice) (again, copying just like Samsung)
not able to read sarcasm
Quote:
And if you haven't noticed, samsung devices became how they are today because of Apple.
and if you hadn't noticed, Lotte World Amusement Park in Seoul (S Korea) (the pictures you kindly quoted twice) became how they are today because of Disneyland. Do ya' see the "innovation"?
Comments
The results of this trial are exactly what proponents of no software patents were looking for. Now they can go full speed ahead and force the bogus USPTO to get rid of all software patents. After all, software is just a bunch of words and how can you patent words? /s
I relate Samsung's penalty to driving 120mph through a residential neighborhood and getting a $10 fine. This fine won't stop Samsung and it won't stop any other company from willfully using Apple's patented products. The only thing that would stop them would be an injunction and Judge Koh would never do that.
What bother's me more than these results, however, is how Americans view Apple and Samsung. In many ways, I see Samsung being looked at as the better product producing company and Apple looking like the old "made in Japan," then "Made in China" products of a few decades ago. So many stores carry Samsung products while refusing to carry Apple products (either because they can't get good margins or Apple won't let them). What is the unknowing person supposed to think? Obviously that Samsung has better products because Costco, Best Buy, Walmart, Sam's Club, the local grocery store, and the corner 7-11 all carry their products so they must be the best ones on the market. Yes, marketing does convert a whole lot of people, including, in the case of this trial, the eight jurists who also obviously didn't find that much wrong with what Samsung did.
You do realize that the patent that Apple was found to have infringed was not even Samsung's own patent, it's one that they purchased to serve as patent chaff and a decoy for the trial. This is something a patent troll typically does, not a company looking to be innovative based on its on merits.
The bottom line is that almost no level of monetary fines, penalties, and damages are going to change the behavior of mega companies like Samsung who openly steal the intellectual property of others without remorse. It simply becomes a cost of doing business that gets passed on to their customers or absorbed by their shareholders. Samsung can simply find a cheaper source for the cheap plastic they use in their phones and tablets to recover billions in fines and penalties. Or sell the infringing products into countries who don't value or enforce IP protection rights. In Samsung's case they also have the backing of another mega company, Google, to provide them with protection and relief from their crimes. Their financial risk for IP infringement is so laughably tiny compared to the payback they receive from doing so. If the jury came up with a $10 billion dollar fine it still would not make them blink or lose a minute of sleep as long as they continue to be able to sell their wares into the markets that were more than happy to buy their knock-off products.
So this is really about sport, i.e., who wins and who loses the game that is being played. It may make armchair quarterbacks and rabid fans feel vindicated to see what appear to be onerous fines in the billions being handed out, or huge fines being avoided, based on clueless juries/referees. But unless it results in the world wide cessation of the ability to sell products with infringing behavior it may as well be a $1.00 fine for each infringement. They may as well be handing out trophies and holding parades. It truly has become so disconnected from reality and made such a public spectacle for laypeople (rather than a business to business matter) that it has become no more than another spectator sport.
Does anyone know if Patent 6226449, the Hitachi patent Samsung used against Apple, was ever used by Hitachi against another company? It was filed in 1997 and is for a digital camera. Did Hitachi ever attempt to protect its patent when they owned it? Pulling an almost 20 year old patent out of Hitachi's garbage can to use against Apple should have been attacked by Apple during the trial or maybe the jury foreman from IBM pushed the jury on this one because he feels all of IBM's old, outdated patents should be treated the same way.
Are there any phones Samsung is currently selling that are infringing on any of these patents?
Don't they all run Droid?
'Nuff said.
As far as the level of damages why would that particularly matter to whether each was infringing? Samsung asked for very little and received even less, Apple wanted a lot and received very little, about 6% of it so far I think. Using your reasoning the jury didn't think Samsung was much of an infringer either.
FWIW I personally disagree with the way this whole thing was done on multiple levels, beginning with broad software patents as a whole and proceeding from there. Buying patents for the sole purpose of suing another company, much less a market competitor, is sad and needs to have some limiting factors put in place (Samsung). Suing a marketplace competitor for damages for using some of your products patented features when you yourself don't use the claims you're suing over doesn't sound worthy of a major ding either (Apple). You would assume both, or at least Apple in this particular case, are relying on their strongest and easiest to win patent claims. If this is the best they've got, and Koh doesn't mail Apple a fig-leaf in the guise of an injunction, then I think both need to get on with things and hammer out the details on a cross-licensing agreement. These trials aren't fixing it.
EDIT: A side-note from this mornings TV news (no not Fox). They reported Samsung was found to infringe on two Apple's patents, but for no where near what Apple wanted. They also reported tho that Apple was found to infringe on a Samsung patent. Most listeners would have no knowledge of the details and only know they both infringe and both lost.
I can't imagine Apple would really consider this a win in the court of public opinion.
Does Samsung have to pay Apples legal bill which is probably equivalent to the amount they recieve in damages?
Not in the US system. It sounds good on paper but there are serious downsides to that system as well. I sue you for whatever reason for $100,000. You hire a lawyer for $10,000 to defend you. I bring my team of the worlds top lawyers for $1,000,000. My team of lawyers wins. You owe me $100,000 in damages and $1,000,000 in legal fees. Plus you still owe your lawyer $10,000.
So the 'loser pays' system would need all kinds of even more jargon in it to prevent abuse. We're lawsuit trigger happy enough in the US already.
In this case it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing for Apple. I believe Samsung's legal fees were higher. Since Apple lost their portion of the case should they then be required to pick up Samsung's legal fees as well?
Are there any phones Samsung is currently selling that are infringing on any of these patents?
Supposedly most of the newest Samsung phones have already implemented acceptable work arounds, therefore, this trial should have been the biggest slam against Samsung but it turned out to be a whimper.
The worst part about these trials is that Judge Koh would only allow a few patents to be asserted at a time. Apple has plenty more and could have brought upwards of 20-50 (I'm guessing) while Samsung had very few. It's obvious Samsung won on several counts because this trial will be used on future trials, reducing anything Apple asserts to a couple pennies per phone.
Maybe a poor choice of Disney for copying.
Disney has taken public domain stories and made butt-loads of money.
They have also tried to copyright public domain stories.
They were behind extending the copyright laws to forever it seems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Disney is BAD. For everyone.
There's been some "modifications" in the past week, tho I don't think they'd have a monetary affect on this case. In any event Fee-shifting is very much alive:
http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/04/shifting-supreme-congress.html
Steve Jobs quotes come back to haunt Apple:
It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.
Steve Jobs:
Samesung is just a crappy copier out to cheapen the style. They degrade great style.
Apple "copies" ideas, but makes things much better.
Why do you think Apple won those trials? Its because Apple innovated and samsung infringed on those patents. Did you see the email they sent to their heads? The screenshot of "slide to unlock" right next to the other option for the lock screen? The infringed the patents on purpose. The samsung store they has that had the iTunes and App Store app icons on the wall? That they decided to put a finger print scanner in the galaxy s5 after Apple released the very well selling iPhone 5s. There is so many more reasons why you are soooo, wrong. And if you haven't noticed, samsung devices became how they are today because of Apple. The company that's awarded innovative along side Orbotix, Amazon, google. The link for Top Ten Innovative companies http://m.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2014/industry/consumer-electronics
Pirates...
https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+pirate+flag&es_sm=91&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=zvRkU9rgJc34oATygoGIBQ&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1490&bih=936&dpr=0.75#facrc=_&imgdii=tCuMZ8IYnqZl8M:;M3oYoerdAPXA8M;tCuMZ8IYnqZl8M:&imgrc=tCuMZ8IYnqZl8M%3A;CfemlXKWjNZQIM;http%3A%2F%2Fwww.folklore.org%2Fimages%2FMacintosh%2Fpirate_flag.jpg;http%3A%2F%2Fwww.folklore.org%2FStoryView.py%3Fstory%3DPirate_Flag.txt;420;323
Copying from Samesung and MS, does force Apple to lower prices.
Anyone remember buying a $2500 MacSE in 1990? What a ripoff.
And Apple computers used to only have a 90 DAY warranty for new products.
$500 for printers.
Competition is good, sadly, even if done in a bad way.
Steve Jobs would have never allowed a legal form to be this ugly.
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
…Lotte World Amusement Park in Seoul.
It’s a world of copying, a world of thieves;
It’s a world where innovation’s bereaved.
There’s so much that we share
So just give literally everything you’ve ever done directly to us!
It’s a Lotte World After All~…
Hear hear. Never mind their monolithic ownership of so many properties.
Somebody pass Dilger a tissue please...
I think you just won the biggest idiot award.
and I KNOW you just won 3 idiot awards!
and if you hadn't noticed, Lotte World Amusement Park in Seoul (S Korea) (the pictures you kindly quoted twice) became how they are today because of Disneyland. Do ya' see the "innovation"?