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Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

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Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#91

Post by detst »

vibrunazo wrote: post #85
bishnu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this kind of stuff not brought up in court? How can you possibly patent something that already existed?

IANAL, but as far as I my very limited understanding goes. Prior art isn't verified when a patent application is applied. Only after that, when someone files a suit trying to invalidate the patent. Which is a separate case from the injunction. So Samsung would have to file a separate suit to invalidate the patents. If then win that, then and only then, they'll be able to stop the injunction by saying Apple patents ar…

IANAL either but I'd say you've basically got it right that the USPTO is happy to give out patents that a court will invalidate when someone with the money to shoot them down is involved. But I wouldn't go as far as to say "you can file any bogus patent, the USPTO won't verify". They're simply more forgiving with what constitutes novelty and non-obviousness.

I'd also think that the injunction could be removed if Samsung can show that they aren't causing irreparable harm, even if they are indeed infringing a legitimate patent.

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#92

Post by creamyhorror »

I am absolutely going to persuade my mother to switch to an Android in a few months' time. And then recommend it to every friend of mine who's upgrading their phone, mentioning in passing that Apple has actually gotten Galaxy Nexuses and Tabs blocked in the US. I'm glad Android is actually good enough at this stage for me to do this.

The '604 search patent is a big hot mess of ideas thrown together to cover all sorts of "maybe-this-maybe-that" use cases and potential improvements. It basically means having a unified search system that relies upon "search heuristics" for multiple domains. Like the other allegedly infringing patents in the case, it's another broken patent that IMO shouldn't have been granted. Does anyone know of prior art (prior to Dec '04) for a search mechanism that obtains search results from multiple domains using sub-plugins and combines them into a list? That seems to be the core of the idea, and further ideas are thrown on top of it in the patent application thereafter.

Read it yourself at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#93

Post by noonespecial »

redthrowaway wrote: post #28

I guess not every judge can be an Alsup.

Koh was a patent litigator before becoming a judge, Alsup is a mathematician who served as a special counsel in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Her bias is showing. How embarrassing.

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#94

Post by creamyhorror »

flatline3 wrote: post #77
jvm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd argue that there is no check large enough to restore a lost market advantage. I think you're considering the status or intangible satisfaction of being the market leader. That is not what Apple's shareholders are interested in. They are interested in money. If Apple had the choice between getting a check for all the money they would ever earn for all their products and liquidating the company, vs. remaining in…

Apple hasn't innovated into market leadership for status or intangible satisfaction. They've done it because that's what you have to do to keep those "big checks" rolling in. If Samsung gobbles up market share, a big check won't bring that back, and a check big enough to account for it would probably bankrupt Samsung (assuming you could ever calculate what that numer would be). Let's pretend that Samsung drove Apple…

Why are you bringing up such a hypothetical, when clearly Apple isn't anywhere near starvation at all from the impact of the Nexus? If they aren't near starvation, why should they recover the maximum "lost market advantage", if that would only increase the likelihood of them becoming a monopoly?

If there is real infringement, why not offer Samsung the option of licensing the patent at a court-determined price? And shouldn't economic/market-health considerations be taken into play? Current law might not allow for these two points, but maybe they should be considered.

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#95

Post by jmduke »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #87
jellicle wrote: post #2

>According to Judge Koh, “Apple has articulated a plausible theory of irreparable harm” in its argument against Samsung and the Galaxy Nexus, because of “long-term loss of market share” along with “losses of downstream sales.” This is not what "irreparable harm" used to mean. Apple's lawyers are celebrating tonight. EDIT: If I plan to kill a cat, and you file a lawsuit to stop me, the judge may issue an injunction fo…

> Apple has managed to have a bogus patent issued - the patent, as far as I can tell, covers any sort of "search-as-you-type" system Is this from reading the claims, or from reading the introduction (whatever that's called)?

The patent in question:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

I'm bad at legalese, but it seems to pertain to search-as-you-type amongst multiple libraries (songs, texts, emails, etc.)

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#96

Post by flatline3 »

creamyhorror wrote: post #94
flatline3 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hasn't innovated into market leadership for status or intangible satisfaction. They've done it because that's what you have to do to keep those "big checks" rolling in. If Samsung gobbles up market share, a big check won't bring that back, and a check big enough to account for it would probably bankrupt Samsung (assuming you could ever calculate what that numer would be). Let's pretend that Samsung drove Apple…

Why are you bringing up such a hypothetical, when clearly Apple isn't anywhere near starvation at all from the impact of the Nexus? If they aren't near starvation, why should they recover the maximum "lost market advantage", if that would only increase the likelihood of them becoming a monopoly? If there is real infringement, why not offer Samsung the option of licensing the patent at a court-determined price? And sh…

> Why are you bringing up such a hypothetical, when clearly Apple isn't anywhere near starvation at all from the impact of the Nexus?

The analogy was intended to demonstrate that when you purloin (or commandeer) someone else's property, it's sometimes impossible to restore their previous hypothetical future, no matter how much money you throw at them.

Apple may not starve, but they may very well be irreparably harmed.

> If there is real infringement, why not offer Samsung the option of licensing the patent at a court-determined price?

See my grain commandeering analogy for why. Apple doesn't want to license these patents to Samsung, because Apple clearly thinks the temporary government-granted monopoly is worth far more than any reasonable licensing fee.

> And shouldn't economic/market-health considerations be taken into play?

The market seems quite healthy, currently.

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#97

Post by creamyhorror »

jpxxx wrote: post #44
kenster07 wrote: post #36

Apple is implicitly admitting Samsung is a huge threat to them. Apple has intelligent people making these decisions. So they know in their heart of hearts that the patents they hold are overly broad to the point of bogusness. They know that the majority of the tech market is also intelligent enough to come to this same realization. They have an awareness that lawsuits exercising these quasi-bogus patents will have a…

Nope. But it's a great deal of (nasty) fun watching a former hundred pound weakling pulverizing three gorillas at once in the ring.

When Apple was a weakling, it wasn't even in competition with Samsung, and Google didn't exist.

It's not fun, imo, watching a gorilla (one might say the biggest one) pulverizing three others.

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#98

Post by juliano_q »

rorrr wrote: post #45
ericdykstra wrote: post #40

Does this kind of thing make anyone happy? Does anyone feel better about Apple the company because of this? It would be nice if supposedly innovative companies could, you know, just keep innovating instead of worrying about copycats catching up on stale technology (in this case, I don't think it's even clear that there is any sort of copycat-like activity). Apple makes a few excellent products, but this kind of thing…

It makes Apple happy. But fuck them. I will not spend a dime on their products anymore (iPod/iPhone 3/Iphone 4 owner).

I agree with you and I am feeling a little guilty for just having received my new Macbook Pro (had an old macbook white previously). I am just not being happy buying their products anymore in consequence of their actions. I am using Android phones for a few years and it just feels right to me, I think it is because my views are much more aligned with Google.

Re: Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus

#99

Post by jpxxx »

creamyhorror wrote: post #97
jpxxx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. But it's a great deal of (nasty) fun watching a former hundred pound weakling pulverizing three gorillas at once in the ring.

When Apple was a weakling, it wasn't even in competition with Samsung, and Google didn't exist. It's not fun, imo, watching a gorilla (one might say the biggest one) pulverizing three others.

The -4 on my post argues you're right. :) But nonetheless, I'm popcorn.giffing over this whole kerfuffle.

Apple has descended into hell, rose again from the dead, ascended into marketshare heaven, and is seated at the right hand of Oracle the Litigant almighty. From there it will judge the clone and the KIRF.

I believe in the Holy Mothership, the holy Apple Store, the communion of Genii, the forgiveness of GSODs, the resurrection of the product cycle, and maddeningly ill-thought-out and sporadic iLife updates everlasting. Amen.

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