Ye gods.
OK, let's go without a trial, then, not bother with the tedious hearing and examination of evidence, and oh yeah, make a few punitive assumptions as well.
How the HELL did this moron get appointed to the bench?!
Apple has scored its second legal victory of the week with a court ruling on Friday that effectively bans sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone in the US. Fresh from her ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier in the week, US District Judge Lucy Koh has issued a pre-trial injunction against Samsung over the Android …
It's the hypocrisy which stinks the worst - this is almost at Prescott levels. You can absolutely guarantee there will be no problem when Apple bring out a large, flat, black, rectangular device for watching moving pictures on with sound, powered by a remote, which looks and feels identical to the ones Samsung and a zillion others have been selling for the past 10 years.
Its only a pre-trial injunction, these things happen just in case the other party 'may' suffer financial loss before a ruling is made. It is just precautionary for the courts.
The outcome may well be different, could even be turned on its head.
Let's hope it is sorted before the iPhone 5 na iOS 6 rears its head, then even if Samsung etc win if it is after the release of the new iPad mini or iPhone 5 and iOS 6 the nexus and Tab may find themselves yesterday's products and will suffer sales.
Could this be the reason of this court case?
> Its only a pre-trial injunction
When is the trial? The reason I ask is because if the trial was next week then a pre-trial ban wouldn't be an issue. If the trial is in six months (and that would be quick) then the hardware will be "old" by the time any ban is lifted. Apple can use legal manoeuvres to delay any trial, possibly by years, which would make the hardware obsolete when any ban is lifted.
The problem is this is another example of how the patent system makes no sense for software and modern electronics. According to the story, the trial is likely to take place after the holidays, so that's 6 months away. A six month sales ban essentially kills a cellphone dead. Who the hell is going to want to buy a Galaxy Nexus at full price in six months? No-one. By that time it's obsolete.
A six month injunction might be fine for a product with an expected sales lifetime of ten years. If the product's expected sales lifetime is about a year, with half of that at deep discounts, it's ludicrous; the system just doesn't work.
Here's the thing.
Firstly this is not about look and feel. So arguments about Apple making a TV in a few months are irrelevant. There are 4 Patents up for grabs and make no mistake Samsung just got in the way these four patents infringements lie heavily at the feet of Google and Android.
Also this is the Galaxy Nexus phone that has been banned which was released in November last year and not the new Galaxy SIII which also infringes but has not as yet had an injunction against it.
The thing is if Apple does win this case then ALL of Android will be culpable.
It might be simpler for Google to code around this stuff or take features out, like Motorola made Apple remove push emails from iOS5 in Germany.
When Judge Koh is dishing it out to Apple or prosecuting them she's a smart judge of the highest morals. When she sides with Apple she's a moron.
It all seems very convinient [sic].
...it's starting to become time to ask if the US market is worth it. Patents are being used to wage a commercial war with scant regard to decent competitive practice. Plus patents are being handed out for things such as rounded corners and slide-to-unlock (gee, those are novel ideas...) seemingly with the idea of "oh well, let 'em fight it out in court". Now, however, it has turned nastier with patents being used to block sales of a product in the country. NOTE WELL: The devices barred have not been proven to infringe upon any patents. If it infringes, fine, punish them for it. But what we are seeing here is a punishment before such legal process has occurred.
So, yes, non-US companies ought to think long and hard about their position in such a marketplace.
"If the patent was just for a single piece of wire then bicycle spokes, springs, staples and many other things that are manufactured from a single piece or wire would be infringing."
With the massively broad definitions used in modern patents, that's the sort of scenario we are now looking at.
My my. Let me see....
* I believe it's "novel and non-obvious", not practical.
* Black is a color. Colors cannot be patented, though it's possible the specific chemical composition of a material with that color might be.
* Location of controls is not patentable, or at least should fail hard for being too broad. So no requirement for them to be on the front, can be on the sides where lots of stuff (tvs!) have them.
* Standard geometric shapes are not patentable, so the rounded rectangle can't be patented. Also, according to http://www.uiandus.com/blog/2009/7/26/realizations-of-rounded-rectangles.html , Jobs took his inspiration for the shape for OSX's rounded rectangle interface from stuff already in existence, such as the "No Parking" sign. So prior art there anyway.
* Screen in the middle - Form factors are pretty standardized, borrowed from existing monitor
The point of all that? Mostly me being utterly gobsmacked at the fact that the US patent system can be used to force a company to put some sort of pointless tat on their design, and/or prevent them from simplifying its appearance/construction.
I heard it was to do with swipe to unlock. It's another crappy american patent that apple are using to hurt competition. Why the nexus? They must be embarrassed about their poor showing at their mobile show compared to android. Apple had innovation once in 2005 now they are just patent trolls.
Following the link, it appears that there are multiple examples of prior art and prior patents. So essentially this is a "... on a phone" patent. This, plus the fact that Google's search engine predates the filing of this patent by almost 10 years (yes I know it's evolved, but that's essentially what they're trying to target and that doesn't wash) makes me wonder if this wasn't granted just so the injunction could be reversed once funded, casually sweeping nearly $100M onto Samsung's balance sheet in under a week.
in the quality of some of the posts here.
Firstly there are those who blame the judge or the legal system. For the most part they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do - settling commercial disputes based on evidence and the law. Sometimes they come down in favour of one side, sometimes the other. If a particular decision comes down against your side of choice that doesn't imply bias, mostly it implies that you're not in possession of the full facts and/or bias of your own.
Secondly the patent system. While it is far from perfect, it doesn't let you do things like take an existing invention, slap the words "on a mobile device" on the end and call it your own. There has to be an inventive step of your own that makes it work on a mobile device (it's actually ONLY that bit that's covered, the previous inventor(s) own the prior bits). A patent that references many others doesn't make it invalid, it just limits what is being claimed. It is saying "we acknowledge this prior art, we are doing something patentable above any beyond what it covers".
Next bothering to check the detail of a patent. The number of commenters who don't bother to check what it patented, or who scan it only briefly and come up with a ridiculously simplified view of what's covered. This patent is a prime example. It actually covers how to take the results from multiple search sources and, using heuristic methods, filter and order them to give the most likely results first.
Finally failing to realise that most patents can be worked around. Companies can find other ways of solving a problem (some actually better than the patented method). Many of the best invention of the past were work-arounds for other people's patents, so no, they don't stifle invention, quite the opposite.
It's to do with unified search from a simple UI. You type your query into a box, which then goes on to search multiple places for your results.
Sounds like how all searches are performed to me. Where did I leave my keys? On the table? No. In the bowl? no. In the front door? Yes. Time for Apple to sue me for searching.
At the very most patents last for 25 years. That's the whole point of a patent. The deal is that a company provides full details of how an invention works in exchange for a limited time, government backed monopoly in the use and/or licensing of the invention. The data detectors patent that Apple has used against HTC has only 4 more years of life for example.
"At the very most patents last for 25 years. That's the whole point of a patent. The deal is that a company provides full details of how an invention works in exchange for a limited time, "
And there is one problem when it's applied to technology/software... When the steam engine was invented, 25 years was well beyond the time an invention would be used. Steam train locomotives for example started becoming common in the 1830's, and were still being built over 100 years later.
Software on the other hand. Well, when was the last time you used some software older than around 5 years (excluding Windows XP)? Now try and pick something that was more than 25 years old....
Samsung produced the Galaxy Nexus on behalf of Google, primarily as a developer device. In that role it has already served its purpose. It is not Samsung's flagship product, that role has been taken by the Galaxy S3. The main result of this is increasingly bad PR for Apple as more people start to believe that they are competing in the courtroom because they are no longer capable of competing in the open market. The whole thing is a joke, imagine if cars, hi-fis or TVs had such ridiculous patent encumbrance. Apple appear to be the biggest comedians of them all.
There's a precedent of sorts; Edison managed to collect sufficiently many patents for film equipment that he was able to force a ridiculous array of rules on the nascent industry, including permissible running times, subjects that could be covered and a bunch more. The net effect? American filmmakers moved to Hollywood, about as far as they could get from Edison, and ignored him.
I guess skipping the US would be analogous here.