radarthekat

TheDude121 said:

Whew, forum is bias to the max

Anyway - with Apples 500+ lawyers, I don't think it'll get anywhere.

Plus, they're the kings at suing people ... remember a few years ago they just sued and banned their competitors from certain markets, rather just upping their game? 
Didn't they sue because of rectangle and squares and corners?

Here you go, I’ll help you reduce your ignorance on the topic... (this is an essay on the topic I wrote a long while back)

Since the Apple vs Samsung trial there has been much written about the merit of design patents.  I thought I'd provide a bit of insight here for those who might not be conversant in the topic.

Among Apple's assertions in its lawsuit was that Samsung copied elements of the iPhone and iPad for which Apple holds several patents.  These particular patents are known as design patents.  It seems a lot of folks don't take these patents seriously and go as far as to suggest that they should not exist.  There is a good reason why they do exist, but to explain this we have to begin with a bit of a side trip and requires that we speak about trademark law.  Bear with me on this and hopefully I'll be able to clarify the purpose of design patents and provide some insights into the Apple versus Samsung trial.

Most people are familiar with the idea of a trademark.  By way of example, Kellogg, the cereal maker, has a trademark on Tony the Tiger and fought a battle with Exxon over Kellogs' claim that the use of an unnamed tiger in Exxon's advertising violates Kellogg's trademark for Tony the Tiger.  Why?  For 30 years, Exxon used its tiger character exclusively to promote its gasoline blend, but then, in the 1990's began using it to sell food. Kellogg said consumers are confused by the similarity between the cartoon tigers and may conclude that Kellogg is somehow behind soda, coffee and other items for sale at Exxon's TigerMart stores.  The case went back and forth for several years, with Exxon initially winning the case, but ultimately losing on appeal.  This case would not seem extraordinary to most people as most folks understand the concept of protecting a unique trademark like Kellogg's Tony the Tiger character.

Now let's look at another case, one that comes closer to the Apple vs Samsung case, but still an application of trademark law.  This case is Ferrari vs Robert's Replicas.  Back in the 1980's Robert's Replica's was in the business of manufacturing fiberglass kits that replicated the exterior features of Ferrari's Daytona Spyder and Testarossa automobiles. Roberts' copies were called the Miami Spyder and the Miami Coupe, respectively.  Ferrari brought suit against Roberts in March 1988 alleging trademark infringement. 

Here's what this case was about:  After Ferrari vehicles have been on the market for a number of years, the design of those vehicles acquires what's called "secondary meaning", a concept at the heart of trademark law.  Secondary meaning refers to an association of a design, like the design of a Ferrari vehicle, with quality and craftsmanship or other positive attributes one might associate with the Ferrari brand.  After a design has acquired secondary meaning, trademark law can be applied to protect the company from those who would copy its designs and use them to promote their own products.  Robert's copying of Ferrari's iconic designs could confuse the public and dilute the strength of Ferrari's brand.  Just the presence of large numbers of replicas would dilute Ferrari's image of exclusivity, causing financial harm to Ferrari.  Trademark law, under the concept of secondary meaning, protected Ferrari.  The courts ruled in favor of Ferrari in this case and enjoined Roberts from producing the Miami Spyder and the Miami Coupe.

But how does this relate to design patent law? 

The problem with using trademark law to protect a company's designs (under trademark law a product design or package design is referred to as "trade dress") is that a product has to be on the market for a long time before its design acquires secondary meaning (i.e. before the design becomes iconic and is seen by consumers as representative of the company behind the product). When competitors come in immediately after a new product design is introduced and copy it, as is the assertion in the Apple vs Samsung case, the originator of the design doesn't have the luxury of time needed for its product design to acquire secondary meaning in the eyes of consumers.  Consumers immediately see the same design from multiple companies and so don't grow to associate the design with the company that originated that design.

This is where design patents come in. Where trademark protection of an iconic product design has no expiration, it takes time for a new product to acquire that protection (as stated above). A design patent offers immediate protection of a new and novel design and for a period of 14 years thereafter, giving a company protection of its original designs until they acquire secondary meaning in the market and therefore protection under trademark law. So the design patent serves a valuable function for companies like Ferrari, and Apple.

zoetmb said:

I still don't understand just what all these employees actually do.   For the size of the product line and the pace of new releases, it doesn't seem like Apple should need the number of employees that it has, unless they're planning an entirely new line of businesses that we don't yet know about.

The other strange thing is that for all the employees, when we hear reports about specific development teams, those teams tend to be relatively small.   Or, we hear about people being moved from one team to another, as if Apple doesn't have enough employees.   None of this makes sense to me. 

Just in engineering roles, in addition to the obvious work of designing existing Apple products, which requires a good number of engineers, Apple also is engaged in

the design and development of specialized factory equipment and processes used to create those products,

the design and development of a growing number of chips and SIPs used in those products, 

basic materials research to create specialized materials used in those products,

the support of a growing (already exceeding billion) user base engaged with those products,

QA and QC efforts associated with those products.

Then there’s the design of Apple’s facilities, stores, data centers, website,

engineers supporting Apple’s product partners, like IBM et al,

engineers supporting telecom partners, like AT&T, Verizon and 350 more around the world,

engineers supporting Apple’s salesforce,

health future product R&D initiatives,

transportation future product R&D initiatives,

AR future product R&D initiatives,

digital content future services R&D initiatives,

ongoing development and support of the App Store,

ongoing development of MacOS, iOS, TVOS, WatchOS, CarPlay, ApplePay, Apple Music, the suite of apps included with Apple hardware products, 

cross-team development initiatives to share features and capabilities among Apple products, like continuity, iPhone/Watch integration, HomeKit, HealthKit, etc,

patent review, defense, and development initiatives,

participation with standards bodies to assist in the definition and advancement of engineering standards of interest to Apple; WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, etc,

social and environmental initiatives,

marketing big-data development initiatives,

machine learning R&D,

software development tools (Swift, Metal, etc) R&D,

Apple’s Today At Apple course development,

engineers supporting Apple in education,

cloud services R&D,

and a fairly large number of IT staff to support local networks in each facility, support users and keep the internal Apple machine running smoothly. 

Have I left anyone out?  

The list truly does go on, doesn’t it?  It’s not a matter of just current products versus future products, there’s a lot of richness and detail to creating and advancing a $220 billion+ revenue beast. 

I’d think the damage to consumers in this spat would exceed the damage done to the patent holder.  On that basis alone I imagine Qualcomm will not be successful in persuading toward its goal.  

Just looked at the screen shots.  The word ‘select’
isrught there between ‘when you buy’ and ‘Mac models.’  If you are seeing the offer at all you have to read all the way to ‘Mac models’ to know what the offer applies to, and so there’s zero chance you could know the offer applies to Mac models without having read that it applies to ‘select Mac Models.’

melgross said:

I don’t agree with this. It was a mistake for Apple to do this. We really don’t know the reason for it, no matter what some people may be writing, as though they have special knowledge, which they don’t.

but if this isn’t to just hide declining sales numbers across several product lines, which the investment and reporting community believes it is, as it has been for other companies, then this was the worst time to have done it. Right at the time where Apple gave disappointing guidance for their biggest quarter of the year, which we were in when the guidance was given, that has lead many to think that Apple did this because of the modest guidance, and a poor start for the first month of the quarter.

if that isn’t true, then Apple should have done it before, when their sales were very robust, and growing well. Then it couldn’t have been thought of as an attempt to hide disappointment.

as a customer, and a long term investor in Apple, I look forwards to the quarterly numbers. One reason is to see how they did when compared to the estimates given by those firms that earn their living from it. But now, Apple won’t be able to rebut their often inaccurate numbers, which, more often than not, are below the actual numbers.

so yes, I’m disappointed in this, and I haven’t seen a logical and good reason for them doing it.

I’m surprised by your reaction, Mel.  I’m down $500k from the top and I think you’re down $6 million, but the facts are different from your characterization. 

A few of us for years have been hoping Apple would stop reporting unit sales, precisely to take the focus off them and for exactly the reason Apple indicated; because a unit of iPhone sales or Mac sales is less relavent to the business results than it used to be.  As painful as this transition is, that’s a fact.  Apple is diversifying with new products and services (Watch, AirPods, HomePod, Apple Music, etc) while also adjusting prices higher, to maintain gross margins and  to reflect higher R&D expenditures and the resulting more sophisticated technology it’s delivering to customers,  

You suggest this is the worst time to make this change and then suggest the best time would have been when sales were very robust.  Mel, sales were VERY robust the last four quarters, so Apple made the change exactly as you would have wanted.  Plus, the forecast for this quarter is some $7-9 billion above last year’s holiday quarter, so again, Apple is taking the focus off unit sales just at the time you’d like them to, it seems.  At a time when sales are robust and forecasts are projecting additional growth in sales.  I fail to see the disconnect between what you think would be the ideal timing and the actual context within which Apple announced the change.  

As to Apple not being able to rebut the often inaccurate unit sales estimates, don’t you see that it will become futile to even make such estimates in the future, at least none that anyone will bother listening to, for the very fact that there will be no actual unit sales numbers reported by Apple to which the estimates can eventually be compared.  Analysts pushing unit sales numbers will increasing feel foolish shouting into a vacuum.