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Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

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Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#351

Post by tptacek »

guelo wrote: post #349
tptacek wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about John Gruber. I'm just talking about profit. Obviously, companies routinely defer profitability. Is that what you think Samsung, or any other Android vendor for that matter, is doing? I don't. Comparing the iPhone business with Amazon is an apples/oranges comparison. Comparing Samsung's Android business with the iPhone isn't. Like Gruber, don't like Gruber, I don't care. But let's not introduce th…

Apache and Linux and Wikipedia are completely valueless according to your only metric.

And here I thought we were talking about business.

"Revenue", less profits, is money that doesn't belong to you. Keeping score with it is pretty silly. Want a lot of revenue? Start a grocery store, but sell everything at a 10% loss.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#352

Post by ahoyhere »

mibbitier wrote: post #340
tlholaday wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be great to just copy successful devices without paying a designer?

"pinch to zoom" is obvious. It's practically the only way you could zoom things on a touch screen. It's like patenting the steering wheel. Don't pretend it's innovative or took any time whatsoever to come up with. It's blatantly obvious and should never have been granted.

If it's obvious, why didn't it exist on any of the touchscreen products which went before the iPhone?

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#353

Post by ahoyhere »

alberich wrote: post #221
jcdavis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should be allowed to mimic the features present on other competitors' devices. To play the devil's advocate (as someone who hasn't taken a position on this ruling, but hates software patents in general): Why? Apple appears to have spent a lot of time and effort on small details. Why does Samsung get to just copy that with far less time and effort invested? With design, the "how" is a crapton of iteration and ca…

I agree that Apple should be able to protect what is looks like, not what it works like. Sure this is a point of view (after all, the american patent system didn't come up out of nowhere). I believe that if you let people to patent things like 2-click buy, finger gestures, and stuff like that, you just close the door for competition. You effectively prohibit people of making things like that, because even though you…

Copying is competition in the same way that, if you want to attract your friend's girlfriend, you should buy copies of your friend's entire wardrobe and dress like your friend, talk like your friend, and walk like your friend.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#354

Post by jaekwon »

ellyagg wrote: post #237
cageface wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has done a good job of persuading people that this case was about protecting innovation and about Samsung's specific alleged infringements of their patents. But this is nothing more than a smoke screen for their ongoing proxy war on Android. They've refused to compete with Android on price, features, and form factors and the market has punished them for it. Expect more attacks on Android seeking ridiculous dama…

Apart from the specifics of this or any other court case involving Apple attacking Samsung, I find the desire to defend Samsung odd. Obviously they copied Apple as much as they felt they could get away with. They did this because it was a very conservative way to make a lot of money. This isn't an admirable strategy. It's annoying. It's precisely the strategy that major movie studios use to give us one boring, risk-f…

This case is about the right to sell what is analogous to the movie theatre, the projector, and the camera. Apple found a good way to package them together, and Samsung imitated this, but offered something nevertheless different: a more open and distributed system.

It is Apple and their App store policy that will drive the manufacture of cookie cutter Apps on their homogenous environment.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#355

Post by Apocryphon »

bluedanieru wrote: post #324
Apocryphon wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If this continues we're going to spend the next decade tiptoeing around every trivial implementation detail of mobile UI instead of boldly exploring new ideas." But wouldn't this then spark greater innovation? Innovation doesn't come from slavishly imitating what came before. Revolutionary new designs and UI will come from those bold enough to seek vision that has no chance of infringing upon previous patents.

No, it won't. It will hurt innovation because every damn thing is going to have to go through a committee of lawyers before being approved, and it will hurt innovation because the idea that innovation always involves making something brand-new and from whole cloth is fucking retarded . Also the idea of a patent for pinch-and-zoom makes about as much sense as a patent for 'a vehicle powered by steam'. Patents are abou…

But what if this spurns designers and engineers to create designs that are completely different from before, because anything too similar is out of bounds? Wouldn't that drive them to think more different and wildly and uniquely? We may get a lot of stupid failed attempts out of this, but at least it will put the kibosh on "me-too" designs.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#356

Post by josephlord »

pinaceae wrote: post #335
mchanson wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this ever effects the US or Europe to to great an effect I'm pretty sure WTO can help. China is not selling these sorts of products to the world yet so it's a pretty meaningless threat so far.

China represents on of the largest markets for potential growth right now. VW and BMW see the Chinese market as their number one. BRIC is where the future money is. (Third biggest market for SAP is Brazil already). There is no growth left in the US/EU.

Specific companies and even specific markets can still have substantial growth in US/EU. However for something saturated like the car market you are almost certainly correct.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#357

Post by davidpayne11 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #104
r00fus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think your downvotes are due to an anti-apple bias, you might want to reword your banal dismissal into meaningful critique of the situation. If HN has a bias, it's towards Apple (which is completely understandable given the state of mobile adoption by startups).

Banal dismissal? Excuse me? How else would you describe what Samsung did, if not as "imitation"? Their own product engineers recommended shamelessly copying Aplle's design to make Samsung phones look identical.

You should be happy that he actually took the time to respond to an un-intelligent troll like you instead of saying something simple like 'GFYS'. Now don't ask me what that means or it would be embarrassing for you.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#358

Post by tptacek »

zizee wrote: post #314
tptacek wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when did profit become the one and true metric? This is like wondering whether you'd be better off running a grocery store rather than a software business. Profit is the only metric. The idea that this notion started with Apple is strange.

Profit is the only metric. Profit is not the only metric. Market share is a valid metric to compare products (as long as you have a sustainable position). If android was selling five times as many units as apple, but with only 15% the margin, then apple would still be the most profitable, but would be losing the mindshare war. Eventually devs would be concentrating their efforts on android first, and perhaps only for…

This is '99-bubble "sell the eyeballs" thinking. The point of business is profit. You can defer profitability, for instance to achieve market share in a market where having the greatest share promises future profits. But for that to be meaningful, you have to have a story about how buying market share with lower profits is going to offer a return on investment in the future. What's Samsung's story?

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#359

Post by pjscott »

ahoyhere wrote: post #352
mibbitier wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pinch to zoom" is obvious. It's practically the only way you could zoom things on a touch screen. It's like patenting the steering wheel. Don't pretend it's innovative or took any time whatsoever to come up with. It's blatantly obvious and should never have been granted.

If it's obvious, why didn't it exist on any of the touchscreen products which went before the iPhone?

How many of those touchscreens could detect multiple touches at once? That's a prerequisite for doing pinch-to-zoom with a capacitive touchscreen.

Re: Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

#360

Post by forensic »

bas wrote: post #322
forensic wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

welcome to the legal system. every verdict is rife with errors, committed by judges, lawyers, juries, police, everyone

Is your code bug-free? Pot. Kettle. Black.

Of course not. I accept and expect an infallible reality, it is the commenter I responded to who is shocked.
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