. . .
So what will non-Apple phones look like now? Back to this?
Presumably, some of them will look like this.
I am no fan of the current patent system, but this really was Apple’s case to lose. I mean, look at this:
http://www.careace.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/iphone4-vs-galaxy-s-head.jpg
It looks like a knockoff someone on a NYC street corner might be selling alongside their “Rollex” watches.
Except that, unlike a cheap Rolex knockoff, the Samsung is (IMO, of course) the superior product, which is the biggest reason why Apple is so litigious about it. You don’t see Rolex worrying so much and going around hassling people hawking knockoffs - they *know *they make a much superior product.
Any way, it’s just a little misunderstanding! 
I don’t see anything (yet) regarding Samsung having to stop production of their products, so if Apple “only” gets $1 billion (after seeking $2.5), they may have won the battle but the war still rages. And Samsung will appeal, of course.
I’m sure that Apple will be glad to donate the $1 billion to the Xerox-PARC welfare fund. 
Anyway, Samsung also sells $5 billion/year worth of microprocessors and other components to Apple. This could end up being a pyrrhic victory for AAPL.
I’d imagine they would leave that out of it. Sure, Apple might have some issues if Samsung stopped selling them the chips, but Samsung probably doesn’t want to take the $5 billion dollar loss in sales. That wouldn’t look so good to their stock holders.
I’m glad I bought a (single) share of AAPL last week, just for kicks. Between that and the iPhone 5 coming out hopefully next month, I’m thinking it’ll go up now. Oddly, I don’t own a single Apple branded product.
Actually, I expect them to look very “appealing”. This is one of the more gratuitously broken verdicts I’ve seen, and in patent/copyright litigation, that’s saying a lot. The jury wasn’t even internally consistent on the verdict form–they awarded damages for things they said didn’t infringe, among other things–and were already sent back to try again once. That’s after any number of potentially reversible bench rulings that went against Samsung. Take a look at the Groklaw article for more details.
So, yeah. It’s going to get appealed, possibly all the way to the Supremes, since the CAFC will just rubber-stamp anything that has the word “patent” in it.
Oh, and it’s not just the chips. Apple’s displays, that they’re so proud of, and which feature heavily in their marketing? Those are also Samsung. If Samsung really wants to punch them in the nads, that would be spot, I think. I don’t think they’d go for that until the appeals are exhausted, though, if then.
The Galaxy S phone does look a little bit like the iPhone but let’s not forget that Apple is fighting against practically every Android phone including the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S3 which don’t look like the iPhone at all. They basically want to achieve in the courts what they have been unable to achieve in the market place: destroy Android, and it would be a huge blow to consumers, including Apple consumers, if they succeed. And let’s not forget that all tech companies including Apple continuously copy from each other. For example the notification system on the iPhone is pretty much a rip-off from Android.
Granting patents for things like bounce-back and swipe-to-unlock is also quite ridiculous. The international patent system is broken with ridiculously broad patents being granted often ignoring prior art. This American Life had an excellent show on this some months back. I suspect that companies like Apple and Microsoft, who have been fighting patent wars for decades are simply more skilled at gaming the patent system than Google which was clearly rather naive about their patent strategy till very recently.
It’s ridiculous. Samsung got burned for:
- pinch to zoom out gesture
- twist to rotate gesture
- dragging documents (huh?)
- bounce when dragging
- double-tap to enlarge and center
- using "grid of rounded icons against a black background*
seriously? I hope this verdict gets thrown out. These “patents” are ridiculous.
But none of these things existed on smartphones before Apple introduced the iPhone. And almost overnight, every cellphone maker was unabashedly aping it. It’d be irresponsible for Apple not to defend their patents on the most egregious copycats, at the least.
This assumes that being the first to put something on a smartphone deserves a patent for that reason alone. Should the first company to put a camera on a phone deserve a patent which blocks other companies from doing the same? What about the first company to put 3G? Or the first to put Wifi? Or GPS?All these are far bigger technological innovations than anything Apple has done on the iPhone. Most of the technology on the iPhone was present on earlier phones first.
It is silly that those patents are allowed to exist. It is stupid that the courts let these patents stand. And it is shameless hypocrisy that Apple, in particular, is abusing the system by dragging this into courts, when it unabashedly stole so much of the early Mac UI from PARC.
The only thing I see that is “unique” is the pinch and zoom. Dragging stuff around the screen? “Rounded corners”? Now some graphic design is now PATENTABLE? Like Apple invented rounded corners?
There’s a difference between not existing and not existing on a cell phone. Apple was the first to create (for example) pinch/zoom feature (to the best of my knowledge). That’s not the same as taking an existing technology like GPS or WiFi and putting it in a phone. Whether either of those should be patentable, I can’t say as really know very little about patents, but I was under the impression that you can patent both new ideas (pinch/zoom) and improvements to ideas (adding wifi or gps to a phone).
I don’t really understand how this works…
is the USA the only country with a legal system stupid enough to let these patents stand?
If so, does that mean the USA will have few options for phones while the rest of the world still has competition?
The patents are in regards to GUI and interaction—all-in-all a revolution to smartphones entirely—not the hardware technologies that made it possible.
As for when Apple “copied” (heh) a lot of the foundational GUI elements from Xerox decades ago is beside the point, and is more myth than reality according to this New Yorker article.
:rolleyes:
Good job on reading the article(s), Carmady!
If you’re going to discuss, at least know something about what you’re discussing, please.
To quote the very first link:
Other countries include Australia, Germany, and others. Apple has already gotten some Samsung products banned throughout the EU, and they’ll continue fighting this fight as long as they keep winning.
Not too sure about where you live, but it’s likely that your country’s court system also has a court system “stupid enough” to let these cases stand.
Apple was not the first to invent pinch and zoom. That and other multi-touch UI’s were already around before the iPhone. For example here is a demoby Jeff Han in 2006.
Even if Apple were the first to invent pinch and zoom, it is too generic an idea to deserve a patent. The idea that every single time a company comes up with some innovation, it deserves a 20 year monopoly on that innovation through the patent system is ridiculous.
Try reading the article yourself. From the link you just posted (about a different issue):
“This decision has nothing to do with patents or copyrights. It has nothing to do with the lawsuits swirling around Android.”
I’m not sure why you thought a decision on a totally different matter that had nothing to do with patents was relevant to what I said. The articles do not mention if this particular smartphone patent issue was resolved in other courts yet (although I believe Apple did much worse in a Korean court, paying a larger fine than Samsung, surprise surprise).
Of course, the former cost $3k per workstation, and the latter $75k ($16k per additional).
Anyhow this such tired, old and convoluted news. Xerox’s management was stupid and nearsighted as hell. Any company should protect their IPs.