Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 212 posts

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#91

Post by macintux »

frankietwenty9 wrote: post #89
scarface74 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who was going to do it? Microsoft was stuck on making Windows Mobile a small PC. RIM was poo pooing the touchscreen two years after the iPhone came out. Google was aping the Blackberry with the Android and completely started over after the iPhone came out. Nokia didn't have the OS or the platform to make a full fledge smart phone. But they were the most likely.

LG Prada? Don't get me wrong - the iPhone was ground breaking. It's the hundred little details that made it special. But would someone else have done it? Yes. Is this relevant? No

Someone else would have made a phone with the same multitouch idea eventually.

But it would have been one phone among 50 they sold, the gestures would have been clunky, it would still have had a physical keyboard lurking somewhere, their salespeople wouldn’t have known how to sell it, and everyone else would look at the market crater and decided the idea would never sell.

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#92

Post by tooltalk »

stouset wrote: post #85
tooltalk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Apple's design cases were thrown out everywhere, except Apple's hometown court. The only difference is that Apple's hometown judge Koh and magistrate judge Grewal didn't allow prior arts in the courts.

They might have lost them in the end, but they were certainly not “thrown out” as would have happened if they simply patented a grid of icons with trivially-obvious prior art. Regardless of your belief in the overall merits of their case, it’s very obviously a much more nuanced issue than people here apparently believe.

?? Apple's claims were dismissed in summary judgements -- yes, their cases were "thrown out" elsewhere. Where there were actual trials, in the UK for instance, Apple not only lost and was even sanctioned by the court for disobeying the court decision. Your "belief" that Apple won by merit really has no reality outside Apple's hometown. Yes and only in Apple's home country, as other commenters have noted, do you have the chief executive Obama coming out reversing Samsung's win at ITC that would have ended all these unnecessary lawsuits years back.

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#94

Post by tooltalk »

There is one important aspect of this re-trial many of you are missing. The case was already decided years ago against Samsung -- there is nothing more to debate on that end, however absurd the decision.

Now the new jury decided that those frivolous infringements amount to most of Samsung's entire profit. In another word, Apple's hometown jury decided that Apple's patents rounded corners drove market demand for Samsung's infringed device almost single-handedly - not their brilliants displays, battery, or even wireless radio functionality.

Needlessly to say, not only is it ridiculous to say that those frivolous few design components amounts to almost all of Samsung's profit, this also sets extremely dangerous legal precedence. I could only imagine what future patent trolls with absurd design patents are going to look like now -- and, of course, Apple won't be immune to this either. I can't imagine any sane mind wanting this outcome (and yes that includes Apple's own counsel).

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#95

Post by tooltalk »

madeofpalk wrote: post #33
stickfigure wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone ever accidentally bought a Samsung phone when they thought they were buying iPhone?

Well, the courts believed so.

and let's not forget Obama who reversed Samsung's win in ITC.

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#96

Post by tooltalk »

dep_b wrote: post #65
mncharity wrote: post #45

From OP: > Apple said in a statement that the case “has always been about more than money.” > “We believe deeply in the value of design, and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers,” the company said. > After the 2012 jury sided with Apple, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the lawsuit was about values, and that the company “chose legal action very reluctantly and only a…

That Groklaw article is quite biased. I see a lot of talk about the rounded rectangle while the case was never just about that. Many other vendors had rounded rectangles and weren’t sued because the phones were clearly different from the iPhone. It’s about a series of elements that were really close and made it confusing to distinguish them. Also it states Apple was brand new in the mobile space but that was dead wro…

What bias? That came straight out of Apple's own testimony/court doc's.

No, Apple doesn't have to go after every single mobile device makers and Apple went only after the major players. Initially it was HTC, which angered Steve Jobs so much that he declared a thermonuclear war on Android -- Samsung was an afterthought. Apple settled with HTC after HTC counter-sued with LTE wireless patents. Samsung likewise counter-sued and won, but Obama reversed the ruling to save Apple.

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#97

Post by Covzire »

tptacek wrote: post #34
stickfigure wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone ever accidentally bought a Samsung phone when they thought they were buying iPhone?

Yes. To fit the standard at issue here, that happened every time somebody bought a Samsung phone instead of an Apple phone because they thought both phones basically did the same thing. Most people who buy phones are not as engaged with the market as HN commenters are. The argument at play here seems to be: you can make something that looks like a Braun device if Braun doesn't already have a design-patented device th…

So why don't we see this kind of behavior in the Automotive industry?

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#98

Post by Covzire »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #47
asdfologist wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Textbook strawman.

In what way? Do you accept the premise that certain precise design elements, organized in a precise manner, are patentable?

Based on this precedent, we should have seen a lot of half-billion dollar lawsuits over the design of automobiles in the last 30 years.

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#99

Post by scarface74 »

frankietwenty9 wrote: post #89
scarface74 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who was going to do it? Microsoft was stuck on making Windows Mobile a small PC. RIM was poo pooing the touchscreen two years after the iPhone came out. Google was aping the Blackberry with the Android and completely started over after the iPhone came out. Nokia didn't have the OS or the platform to make a full fledge smart phone. But they were the most likely.

LG Prada? Don't get me wrong - the iPhone was ground breaking. It's the hundred little details that made it special. But would someone else have done it? Yes. Is this relevant? No

The LG Prada had a touch screen. But did it have A full HTML browser? A music/video store ecosystem? Would LG have been able to create an operating system on par with iOS? Within a year would they have had a development environment and a platform to create what became the App Store? Would they have been able to dictate to the carriers that they were going to upgrade their own OS and not be beholden to them?

Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial

#100

Post by scarface74 »

macintux wrote: post #91
frankietwenty9 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LG Prada? Don't get me wrong - the iPhone was ground breaking. It's the hundred little details that made it special. But would someone else have done it? Yes. Is this relevant? No

Someone else would have made a phone with the same multitouch idea eventually. But it would have been one phone among 50 they sold, the gestures would have been clunky, it would still have had a physical keyboard lurking somewhere, their salespeople wouldn’t have known how to sell it, and everyone else would look at the market crater and decided the idea would never sell.

You mean like the HTC Dream?
Post reply on HN