271–280 of 374 posts
I'm wondering what kind of institutional respect for IP and spirit of innovation would lead Samsung to whip up this UI? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxYZXjXozc Sure, one can argue that Samsung and Apple both look to a common ancestor for their ideas, but I think Samsung is more insidious than people are willing to admit here.
The South Korean government (owned by Samsung) has been blocking and putting up barriers to foreign phones for years, including delaying the introduction of the iPhone to South Korea, to give Samsung and co. a chance to develop competitors. I'm glad to see the US government blocking a South Korean product for once, if that is indeed what is happening.
Where is the evidence that South Korea has blocked foreign phones? I can do the work for you, South Korea for instance banned the sale of games inside the app store for a long time. I have a hard time finding examples where South Korea outright banned phones however. Even if they did, why would you want the US to follow such bad examples. These policies are not healthy in the long term for a variety of reasons. South…
I'm not American, but still I wouldn't mind seeing these South Korean chaebols get a taste of their own medicine.
Protectionism may reduce the overall efficiency of a system, but can be good for the individual actors within that system who implement it. I think Americans are more interested in their livelihoods than in the efficiency of world production. In fact total efficiency should never be our goal; that would make slaves of us all.
The original iPhone was blocked from South Korea for quite a while.
Here's more info on South Korean protectionism in relation to phones: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125367616595333125.html?mod=...
- 50% Star Wars imagery (iPhone as stormtrooper once, but usually that ugly green Android guy using a lightsaber on something representing Apple)
- 10% Lord of the Rings imagery
- Many posts that “support the cause” without delineating any sort of argument
- No one disputing that Samsung ripped off Apple’s designs or patents
Interesting.
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"...instead of being nice..." There is the problem. Apple is a business, it doesn't exist for altruistic reasons. Neither does Google, no matter how vehemently they say that they do. As others have pointed out, there doesn't seem to be a boycott on Google for their part in the attempt to gain an import ban of the XBox or their support of the alleged abuse of FRAND patents, both by their newly acquired subsidiary. App…
> there doesn't seem to be a boycott on Google for their part in the attempt to gain an import ban of the XBox or their support of the alleged abuse of FRAND patents, both by their newly acquired subsidiary. That is because the perception is that they're using it to countersue Microsoft and Apple who filed the first volleys. >Apple are playing the same legal game as Google are. No, Apple was the initial aggressor aga…
Samsung own the South Korean government, and they've been putting up obstacles to foreign phones in South Korea for years, even before the iPhone.
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Didn't Apple start suing Android OEMs first? If I remember correctly, there was a mutual destruction pact before then.
No, check the timeline history. Apple did not start this. The smartphone incumbents did, after Apple started eating all the profits.
http://betanews.com/2012/06/29/apples-injunction-stopping-ga...
http://betanews.com/2012/06/29/preliminary-injunction-bars-g...
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Let's talk about that in context. Motorola contributed some patents to a mobile telecom standard; they made a commitment to license these standard essential patents in Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms to everyone who wants to build a "portable hand-held telephone device". Motorola wants 2.25% of the sale price of each Apple device in which the standard is used. Now, if each patent contributor to the stan…
Let's see here... Motorola together with telecom companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens etc worked for decades in establishing standards and infrastructure for digital mobile phones. In this they were truly succesful, and this would not have been possible unless they had shared patents with each other that were involved in common standards. Then, much later, enters Apple and brings nothing to the table with regar…
How generous of them to establish open standards like that eyeroll.
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If consumers want the device they can simply purchase an Apple device. If Google did indeed violate the patents in question the features the user want are available in Apple's products. You mention first-mover advantage ... that is exactly what patents are supposed to grant, you invent something cool, you get a patent on it, and then YOU get exclusivity on that invention for X years so you can recoup your costs of R&…
Nope. It works slightly different, first companies like Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and others invested billions of dollars in creating telecommunication standards. Next those companies are forced to license patents for those technologies to Apple. Apple creates phone which base in 95% on technology created by those companies, they are adding several features like "slide to unlock" or "pinch to zoom" and patent it. Sams…
The patents Motorola is using are called standards-essential, because many companies got together to create a standard, for example, 3G telephony, they pool their patents together and promise to license them to any manufacturer who wants to create a device that uses that standard, in this example, any cell phone that uses 3G, be that Apple, LG, HTC, RIM, anyone.
Since they have now created what is essentially a monopoly on that technology, they could force any or all of these companies to pay them exorbitant license fees because anyone who makes a 3G phone must use these technologies, and therefore these patents. That does not mean the patents are themselves valuable.
For instance, Motorola may contribute an encryption patent. There are many hundreds of other methods of encryption, so that patent is worth very little by itself, once it is selected for the standard, it is the only method that can be used to interoperate. If an manufacturer wants to use an encryption method they invented, they cannot, because their phones won't work with the cell towers.
Here is where we find the current litigation, Motorola says their patents are worth 2.25% of the entire value of an iPhone. There may be hundreds of patents in the 3G standard, if they are all worth 2.25% and there are 300, then the 3G patents alone represent 300*2.25% of the value of an iPhone, or 675%. So everything else, all the other ideas, innovations, etc are worth nothing.
This makes no sense, and the courts have said that these patents must be licensed on a Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory basis (FRAND). That means they must license the patents for what they were worth the moment BEFORE they were added to the standard. in the Motorola-Apple case that might be .05% of the value of the iPhone. Motorola and Google are using standards-essential patents as a weapon against Apple to force Apple to either pay exorbitant rates for the patent, or, more likely, force Apple to allow android to violate apple's non-standards-essential patents.
Thus Motorola is using a restricted, standards-essential patent in a manner which is explicitly forbidden by law. Judge Posner is extremely unhappy with Motorola and Google about this behavior. See the FOSS Patents Blog for more detail.
It is entirely unlike apple's use of patents, it has never used a FRAND encumbered patent to sue a competitor.
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AFAIK Apple is the only mobile phone corporation who refuses to pay Motorola a royalty for the fundamental patent of a "portable hand-held telephone device".
Reason: Motorola refused to offer them Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms; unlike the terms given to the rest of the licensees.
Can a corporation pick and choose what patents/royalties or whatever they are to pay for if you use them just because the corporation deems it to be unfair?