Monday
Aug272012
Samsung vs. Apple: your thoughts?
Monday, August 27, 2012 at 3:00AM Peter M. has come up with a multi-part question for you all. Good luck...
1. Overall, do you feel more or less positive towards Apple, following their patent win against Samsung?
2. If you are an existing Apple buyer, are you more or less likely to purchase their product in the future?
3. Will the judgement that Samsung infringed Apple patents stifle innovation or force innovation?
4. Should software processes such as Slide to Unlock or bounceback be patentable?
5. Finally, in your view, did Samsung wilfully mimic iPhone look, feel and functionality?
Reader Comments (15)
1. absolutely more negative. It's not the fact that they protect their IP it's WHAT they see as their IP.
2. No, my MBP was my 5th and last Apple product.
3. Yes, i've read somewhere that the smartphone industry has to deal with over 200.000 patents. Starters and small companies don't have the funds to deal with that or even lawsuits. Apple, for example, is known to sue you for the smallest details (example: Apple sued a small coffeeshop in Germany for an Apple like logo that in no way can be mistaken with the Apple logo). The industry is going to patent everything that is patentable. Lawyers are almost as important as engineers. Innovation requires deep pockets.
4. No.
5. Yes, in the first series of Galaxy devices. b.t.w. on Groklaw is a very interesting blog about this case and the numerous mistakes of both the jury and the judge. They think this lawsuit is far from over...it just started. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390
1. Less as their patents are very questionable as I have seen most before. Damages claim far too high.
2. Less. The S3 outstrips the 4S and based on what I've seen in leaks still will. Android doesnt offer the ease of use Eco system.
3. Stifle
4. No. In the uk courts these patents have all been thrown out.
5. Not all of them as prior art existed before. Apple merely copied and improved. The Galaxy S did have Samsung across front and apart from the shape which was similar, was different otherwise. However, Samsung did panic and get very inspired. But they could have made it different, and they didn't so do deserve some fine.
1. Negative. I don't believe that Apple created all the items they have been granted a patent for.
2. Not an existing Apple buyer. As yet, Apple's UI is too primitive to even consider.
3. Stifle. Recently on LIM, it was mentioned that they should win market share through innovation. This business of trying to financially ruin or distract the competition leaves me feeling cold.
4. No. I don't feel that any software should have a patent, copyright maybe.
5. I would say not. Obviously there are elements that are similar; rectangular shape, glass screen on one side, and icons on the screen. Just the sort of thing seen on many smart-phones and PDAs before. Apple made it look pretty, sold lots of them, and that's their win. Do they need to sue everyone else who also did something similar? That just makes them a Loser.
Just to add my own tuppenceworth:
1. I feel less positive towards Apple. They have prosecuted frivolous patents. If they feared getting sued back on techniques like Slide to Unlock, then they should have patented them and left those patents on the shelf to protect themselves.
2. I will, however, keep buying the products! Why? Because they are mostly excellent, and Apple is still no more EVIL than Samsung, Google, Microsoft, RIM et al. Really - they are all greedy amoral corporations.
3. Innovation will be stifled is every designer is looking over their backs.
4. The real culprit, here, is the US patent system. Overdue for reform, I would say. Many of those software patents simply should not be issued. New or not, they are too minor to constitute inventions in their own right.
5. But, yes, Samsung did copy Apple. For those that say "but Apple copied stuff too...". Sure, but they copied function, not form - at least not that closely. And they innovated around the implementation, look and feel of previous inventions. Some of the Samsung design are uncannily similar. Just like previous Samsung designs were sneakily close to Blackberry or the HP iPaq. It's a deliberate, painstaking copy of form and function.
Peter. Point 5. I see your point and agree. But that's what companies from that part of the world did. Samsung IMO has moved into the top league with the Note, S3 but apart from the amazing hardware, make good software on top of android too. But why then did the UK and rest of Europe basically kick out the lawsuits as utter nonsense, and in Apples homeland decide it was a $1bn fine.
Apple has reached a point where it's size creates its own problems. Litigation from Apple and to Apple is common practise.
The US patent system ultimately is crap. I got caught up in it when I sold a Speck iPhone case I owned on eBay. eBay withdraw my listing after I had sold it, on request from Speck legal team saying they owned the right to use Speck. Hang on, it was second hand, and I was selling it.
But why then did the UK and rest of Europe basically kick out the lawsuits as utter nonsense, and in Apples homeland decide it was a $1bn fine.
Completely different patent regimes in terms of the patentability of software "as such."
Different laws can bring different conclusions :)
1. No more no less. Apple did what they were entitled to by current law and standards. They are also being sued in the same type of case. Until the system is fixed, this will continue.
2. I am an existing Apple buyer and this decision will make no different in my future plans. It will depend on the products. If this decision makes Apple less innovative, then they will lose over the long run.
3. I don't know that it will make that much difference in the long term. What it does do is highlight how broken the patent system is. Patents are fine for new ideas or major improvements, but some derived ideas are too obvious to be granted patents. And I have been involved in a few cases.
4. Tricky question. What constitutes a totally new innovative idea? I don't know enough about the history to say whether there was prior art that was close enough.
5. Based on what I've read and seen, yes. Maybe not to the extent Apple would have us believe, but I do think they intentionally made devices similar to the iPhone because that was obviously what the public wanted. But so what. That happens all the time. As has been said many times, how many shapes can a smartphone be? If someone "patents" the rectangular shape with rounded corners, does that mean that the next guy has to make an elliptical phone? Besides, the basic rectangular shape for a mobile product was established well before the first PDAs and phones.
Gavin, I think you make a good point about the Galaxy Note. That's form-factor innovation, I think, proving that Samsung can do it. I think they simply had a policy, for some years, to copy the market leaders slavishly and make sales off the back. They did it to HP and they did it to RIM.
Peter. The S3 is clever too, and the Note 2 and rumoured S3 Camera Phone sound cool.
Now here's a thought.
Which 2 companies have received global press, free TV and print placement and are about to release new devices. Apple and Samsung. Reckon the trial was a fix!
1. Indifferent.
2. Sure, I will buy Apple in the future. Why should I punish myself with other hardware/software, that in most cases does not work how I want it to? Step down on the best support I have received from Apple so far? Change the computing platform, which would cost me a lot of money, time and effort?
3. Force innovation! The search for loopholes always makes humans more creative than just copying...
4. Yes. I imagine a considerable degree of hard work goes into finding the best programming/coding for the outcome we can all touch/experience, so why not?
5. Tough. I think so, maybe they tried it hoping they will not be "caught"...
1. Overall, do you feel more or less positive towards Apple, following their patent win against Samsung?
Less positive but Samsung didn't do themselves any favours either.
2. If you are an existing Apple buyer, are you more or less likely to purchase their product in the future?
Not an Apple buyer
3. Will the judgement that Samsung infringed Apple patents stifle innovation or force innovation?
With luck, it will force innovation
4. Should software processes such as Slide to Unlock or bounceback be patentable?
No, not unless the "non-obvious" criteria is significantly strengthened
5. Finally, in your view, did Samsung wilfully mimic iPhone look, feel and functionality?
Yes
1. Much less positive about Apple
2. I feel that I am unlikely to buy any Apple products going forward. My MBA will be the last part of an Apple relationship that goes back to 1993. In the last month or so I have not bought an Apple TV, two iPod Touches and an iPad 3G... Which were planned purchases (for myself, my kids and my mother respectively)
3. It will cause a separation in the market as each side patents more and more interface elements. Eventually we will all end up with smartphones that are brilliant in some areas and mediocre in others just to avoid patent infringement. Anyone who thinks this is a good thing is seriously cracked!
4. No. Specific implementations should be, but its ridiculous that Apple should claim ownership of the whole slide to unlock concept.
5. Yes with some versions of the original Galaxy S. Otherwise I think the intent was to present an Apple-like experience to tempt users in. I'm also 100% sure that no customer bought a Samsung phone thinking that they'd picked up an iPhone.
1. Overall, do you feel more or less positive towards Apple, following their patent win against Samsung?
If I'm on the business and stocks then very positive, if on the consumer side, not that positive. This can lead Apple to hold too much on their hands and consumer will suffer obviously.
2. If you are an existing Apple buyer, are you more or less likely to purchase their product in the future?
I would buy as they are top quality and good value for money. But I'm a "geek" and as so, don't confine with mere icon tapping thing. I need to go further than a close OS like the iOS5/6 delivers.
3. Will the judgement that Samsung infringed Apple patents stifle innovation or force innovation?
It will spice the others up to go around and come up with better ideas. It will bring innovation to the market I'm sure... although I can't recall how can one innovate the sliding finger to the right :-) I just bought a Nokia X3 for a friend and it needs to swipe a finger to the right to unlock. Should Apple sue it too?
4. Should software processes such as Slide to Unlock or bounceback be patentable?
No. Never. That's an universal human gesture. Is the gesture of performing the kick off in a football match patented? It's like the App term about Apple. It's not a registered mark, it's an universal term. I think they honestly abuse on this side.
5. Finally, in your view, did Samsung wilfully mimic iPhone look, feel and functionality?
Yes to a certain degree. The iPhone format was attractive and so they went for it, but no one on this world owns the round corners, I guess. I can go to a phone store and see dozens of devices with round corners. Are they all copying? Saying that the feel and functionality is the same?.... no. Samsung uses Android and we all read a lot saying Android is so much different than iOS... some things I guess are the same like detecting texts, etc, but I think it's about the way the systems operates. If to analyse text and detect that Samsung devices use the exact same process and coding, then OK it's a copy, if not, can't be called a copy.
Samsung will take the note and move on. Apple will get what they want for now, but there will come the day they will pay somehow for all this rivalry and opposition... mark my words :-)
1. Hard to fell much worse about Apple, lol, but I do feel worse about the US court system and those jurors, especially after reading on groklaw all that went on..
2. N/A
3. Stifle innovation, that's what broad software patents do..
4. No, and triple no when there is clearly prior art.. but in general no..
5. Feel and functionality not really, they did copy the look a bit too much with touchwiz especially with the colour/look of the icons along the bottom. The thing is they made Android worse with touchwiz just to make it look a bit more like an iphone, so I think it was counterproductive...
1. Overall, do you feel more or less positive towards Apple, following their patent win against Samsung?
Less - I feel that a lot of their cases are rubbish as borne out by the legal systems through most of the world. The US patent and legal system really needs a serious kick up their a$$.
2. If you are an existing Apple buyer, are you more or less likely to purchase their product in the future?
Not an existing buyer, but don't suspect it would sway me either way yet.
3. Will the judgement that Samsung infringed Apple patents stifle innovation or force innovation?
Yes as instead of spending the money on innovation, they and other companies are wasting it on legal fees and on trying to get around items that are basic common sense that shouldn't be patented and definitely shouldn't be paid out for by a US legal system.
4. Should software processes such as Slide to Unlock or bounceback be patentable?
No especially as some of these were in prior existence and apple have just innovated on top of them.
5. Finally, in your view, did Samsung wilfully mimic iPhone look, feel and functionality?
For most of the phones no they haven't - while they can be set up to look similar to the iPhone, they could also be set up to look very different. However there is one of the phones where it did look very similar. I also reckon that there are the one or two odd "valid" patents where they might have infringed, but the value of the award was also seriously out of place too. I think that a lot of the documentation was misleading with the jury taking the incorrect readings from it, and I think that a lot of the prior art that was disallowed could have prevented that misunderstanding.