hold on..
They've gone and invalidated the slide-to-unlock?
Of all the miracles....
A US appeals court has handed Samsung a legal victory in its never-ending patent war with Apple. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned an infringement verdict against Samsung and invalidated two other patent claims made by Apple related to the operation of smartphones. The court now says that Samsung did …
Ah, well, you see, now that Apple are "sponsoring" terrorism, they're agin the guvmint.
Therefore, I would not be at all surprised to watch as lots of their patents (initially those where litigation is in progress) will suddenly be revealed to have been "obvious", or invalidated by examples of prior art, etc, etc. And, no doubt, the USPTO will soon be under instructions to reject all future applications from Apple.
(several of ElReg's icons would suit this post, but I'm going with the obligatory helicopters to match the "conspiracy theory" tone)
Stranger things have happened so I'll hold off with ordering a tinfoil hat for now. But... it was the court=judge who invalidated the patent. Maybe.... or the judge/court got a clue that two invalidated were "obvious". Needless to say, I'm surprised also.
I'm actually wondering if a few of my conservative Christian acquaintances are correct, these are the "end times" and so cats and dogs will be living together.
"wondering if a few of my conservative Christian acquaintances are correct,
End times indeed - well illustrated by the photo. A ginger domestic winning over Siamese instead of its bits and pieces being collected for the cat equivalent of organ donations.
Disclaimer - I am a Siamese ex-staff so my view may be a bit biased.
Samsung get a few dozen million this time, Apple got a few dozen million last time.
The lawsuits, counter-lawsuits and appeals continue with sums being swapped that are a pittance to either company.
And when the dust finally settles down, neither gains anything but willy-waving, and the sums earned are a fraction of what they paid their lawyers.
Seems like there could have been something more productive they could be doing with all that time and money, no?
No. Because their willingness to piss away millions on pointless lawsuits means they have a much easier time of keeping any possible competition from gaining any sort of footing ni the market by pelting them with sueballs until they give up. Because the competition will realise there is just no way for a 1m a year in sales company to compete with a company that spends that just on lunch for its lawyers in a week.
Is America the only country in the world with such a piss poor patent scheme, or has Apple got other jurisdictions where it can manipulate the market?
Because, thinking about it, by not even entering the American market, companies could save huge amounts of money avoiding the monopolistic behemoths of American industry in court, while still feeding the beast through the grey market. ie. American retailers buy on the world market, themselves.
The overall saving, by not having to pay the obligatory American court tax, could be passed on to the customer.
I see a time when America no longer controls the markets with an iron fist, and its citizens begin to realise everything they buy is specially priced for retail in America to include:-
Idiot fees - the time and effort that is required to think of every safety precaution necessary to avoid being sued by someone who clearly should be neutered for the sake of the future gene pool.
Waddington fees - The price of passing Go in a country that has mastered the art of complaining that everyone else is protecting their domestic market, whilst doing more than any other nation on Earth to protect its domestic market.
Apple fees- Go on. Have a bite. I dare you.
USPTO fees- Anagram of STOP U, nuff said
"This could be one reason why Xaiomi/ Huwaei have not pushed hard into America."
Huawei on the other hand are moving into the UK and Germany. American protectionism is in this case a good thing, I think, because we get some benefit (e.g. in R&D spend) which would otherwise end up in the Bay Area.
A lot of that protectionism has worked to the advantage of Microsoft, IBM, Apple and Oracle. Companies like Huawei and Xiaomi getting into the UK market means that we can buy stuff for less - if someone buys a Huawei phone for £300 rather than an Apple one for £700, that's an improvement in our balance of payments. If they get an open door to the US, guess where the sales effort will go, and prices in Europe will go up.
Appreciating that the court system is how it is because we accept courts make mistakes which can be corrected upon appeal; just how did the District Court get it so wrong that they made a $120m award which has now been overturned?
It would seem the District Court was entirely mistaken on something fundamental to this case.
@Tom13
In absolutely EVERY case presented in court, no matter whether it is civil or criminal, the rules of evidence are in effect, and adjudicated upon by the judge.
Your statement is true for ALL court cases, and therefore a canard
Trademark and Patent suits have their own path of appeal separate from the run of the mill civil suits. I forget the exact formal name but the Washington, D. C., district has a Circuit Court of Appeals that hears these. And it's been repeatedly bitch-slapped by the Supreme Court lately for not doing their jobs as instructed. Apparently they've been listening now (Alice v. C. L. S. Holdings being the most recent). Software patents are on life-support for the moment. Those are going to start falling like dominoes. It's already had an effect on various suits in East Texas as a few of these claims by non-performing (patent) entities are hurriedly settling rather that letting the verdicts go up the appeals ladder.
?
You new here or what?
Just be thankful there was actually a new story over the weekend. They have clamped down on the weekend edition over some sort of drivel about having days off or some such lunacy.
I think it was a passive agressive stance because the kind of people who read this site are the kind of people who use ad blockers.
The funny thing here is that I usually read El Reg on my tablet now and I haven't got any ad blockers going. If the tablet gets pwned, no worries as its connected to nothing* important. Even the notebook is on that tier.
I think the Weekend Edition was given a shot and didn't drum up enough foot traffic judging by the comment volumes but I could be wrong.
* - All the good stuff is not air-gapped now. Internet storm clouds looming, tornadoes expected.
It seems that the lawyers are the winners in all of this. They must have been raking in fortunes from Apple and Samsung.
I think the lawyers and managers should be sued for encouraging such behaviour. So, can we have a summarised list of the patents that have been accepted and rejected? I have lost track of them.
.... I hate conflating issues, but let''s have some fun? Al USPTO software / IT patents invalid in EU, until a replacement Safe Harbour in place (including making it an extraditable offence for a US judge to interfere with or rule on personal data of EU citizens, or for any US-based software vendor to collect personal data from a computer operating system)
Wot the 'ell. I like the sound of that extraditable offense. We have quite a few judiciary that could benefit with a mandatory vacation in England. I know the people would! You might even develop a market as I wouldn't be surprised if those of us under those bastards turnout to create a massively successful Kickstarter for Merry, ol' England.
I solve the issue by don't bother having a Cell Phone. It's because I become a slave to the technology, and more so, a slave to the people calling me on the Cell Phone.
They can ring my flat, if they leave a message I can listen to it later. I'll call one of these days, I'm sure!