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The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

groklaw.net

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Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#41

Post by myko »

Steko wrote: post #24
nitrogen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring royalties for open source, independently developed software is Wrong. An attack on Android is an affront to all independent software developers. Also, Apple has said they are not interested in licensing.

"independently developed" This is a new claim and not one that will find many takers imho. "Apple has said they are not interested in licensing" This is far from the truth. They certainly offered licensing to Samsung. $30/device might sound like a lot but that was a starting point in a negotiation.

Where did you hear $30/device? The number I've seen quoted was $50. Both seem outrageous to me at first glance.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#42

Post by vacri »

othermaciej wrote: post #38
vibrunazo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it ranting? They still post insights of how the law and the whole process works which is very useful for us lay people. Her arguments are still well formed and she makes good points, regardless if you agree with her bias. A biased post can still be insightful and useful. If what you're really bothered with is the bias. Then I suggest listening to TWIL. They're almost as through, and they at least try to stay n…

Let me give you some examples from the current post that strike me as BS: "But, in contrast, here's the Apple design patent, D504889, about those rounded corners -- how do you code around it? A tablet in the shape of a parallelogram?" But the jury found Samsung's actual tablets, which are rectangles with rounded corners, do not infringe this patent. So her analysis that it's impossible to design around this is false.…

Her point was that the patent shouldn't have been granted in the first place. It shouldn't take the expense of big enterprise teams of corporate lawyers taking it to a jury trial to say that the patent wasn't infringed (I take it that's all it was, and that the patent hasn't actually been invalidated, either).

Copy-and-pasting from a comment I just made in another thread about how merely having an obvious patent does cause problems: You don't have to contest the patent for it to be suppressing others' design. I once worked for a company that made a humidifying air pump. We had to have the water tank held in with a removable flap rather than a door because our main competitor had patented 'holding the tank in with a hinged flap/door'. Sure, you could fight it in court, down the track, after hardware design (which is much more expensive than people realise). Or you could move onto the next problem and have a slightly inferior product.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#43

Post by veidr »

othermaciej wrote: post #18
veidr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found their coverage (of Apple v Samsung) useful. The only other outlet that covered some of the more unusual aspects of the verdict and the post-trial jury interviews (that I saw) was BBC.

I saw the same factual coverage of post-trial jury interviews on, e.g., The Verge, without GrokLaw's implausible legal analysis that this would cause the verdict to be thrown out.

Hmm, The Verge does indeed seem to have pretty good and detailed coverage:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/31/3207848/apple-vs-samsung-c...

Like Groklaw, they seem to have their own opinions and eschew the bullshit-objective style of modern mainstream news, whereby all claims and opinions are treated as if equally valid.

"Maybe it's time to pay the money and let everyone go back to making cool shit," is how The Verge ends one piece.

It's true that Groklaw's stance has been opinionated, but I don't think that has gotten in the way of reporting this story.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#44

Post by fpgeek »

adsr wrote: post #16

Why would you need bounce back at all? It's one of those things that gives iOS it's personallity, you could definately make a touch based user interface without bounce back.

I wouldn't bee so confident about that.

The jury also found that the Nexus S 4G infringed the scrolling patent even though it doesn't include "bounce back" and, instead, using stock Android's "overscroll glow" (which, in theory, was supposed to work around the Apple patent). I'd say the breadth of this particular patent is an unsettled question, at the very least.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#45

Post by othermaciej »

vacri wrote: post #42
othermaciej wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give you some examples from the current post that strike me as BS: "But, in contrast, here's the Apple design patent, D504889, about those rounded corners -- how do you code around it? A tablet in the shape of a parallelogram?" But the jury found Samsung's actual tablets, which are rectangles with rounded corners, do not infringe this patent. So her analysis that it's impossible to design around this is false.…

Her point was that the patent shouldn't have been granted in the first place. It shouldn't take the expense of big enterprise teams of corporate lawyers taking it to a jury trial to say that the patent wasn't infringed (I take it that's all it was, and that the patent hasn't actually been invalidated, either). Copy-and-pasting from a comment I just made in another thread about how merely having an obvious patent does…

Her apparent point was that there is no way to design around it, which is false. The claim was not about obviousness or validity of the design patent, but rather that it's really dangerous because there is no way to design around it. Which is clearly false. You may well have a valid point, but it's not what the Groklaw post said.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#46

Post by Gigablah »

othermaciej wrote: post #38
vibrunazo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it ranting? They still post insights of how the law and the whole process works which is very useful for us lay people. Her arguments are still well formed and she makes good points, regardless if you agree with her bias. A biased post can still be insightful and useful. If what you're really bothered with is the bias. Then I suggest listening to TWIL. They're almost as through, and they at least try to stay n…

Let me give you some examples from the current post that strike me as BS: "But, in contrast, here's the Apple design patent, D504889, about those rounded corners -- how do you code around it? A tablet in the shape of a parallelogram?" But the jury found Samsung's actual tablets, which are rectangles with rounded corners, do not infringe this patent. So her analysis that it's impossible to design around this is false.…

Apple's own expert witness suggested a "shape that isn't rectangular, or doesn't have rounded corners":

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/apple-and-oranges-appl...

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#47

Post by fpgeek »

Steko wrote: post #24
nitrogen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring royalties for open source, independently developed software is Wrong. An attack on Android is an affront to all independent software developers. Also, Apple has said they are not interested in licensing.

"independently developed" This is a new claim and not one that will find many takers imho. "Apple has said they are not interested in licensing" This is far from the truth. They certainly offered licensing to Samsung. $30/device might sound like a lot but that was a starting point in a negotiation.

> "independently developed"

> This is a new claim and not one that will find many takers imho.

So Netscape Navigator 2.0b1 was cribbing off the the iPhone when it designed "Live URLs" detecting URLs and email addresses in mail and newsgroup messages? And Borland had a particularly good time machine to add detecting phone numbers to dial in your notes to the Sidekick TSR in the 80s?

Oh, I forgot, Google clearly copied Siri when it released "universal search" for the G1 (in Cupcake, IIRC). I mean they should have known that porting Google Desktop Search to Android would obviously infringe on Apple's patents. I've sure Eric Schmidt got the idea for Desktop Search in an Apple board meeting. I just wonder how he got his notes back to Googlers in 2004.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#48

Post by spaghetti »

I'd love to see control of the "mobile space" be in the hands of individuals instead of large, for-profit and often evil companies. Clearly mobile computing is here to stay. If it wasn't then companies like apple and google wouldn't be fighting so hard for control.

Imagine a decentralized app store where people can make a living without having to deal with apple's ridiculous review process or ideas of what's appropriate. I suppose the major challenge is getting all the non-geeks into this ecosystem and away from iTunes and other privately owned app stores.

This is obviously wishful thinking. However given the importance of mobile computing going forward I think it's worth imagining the best mobile ecosystem possible.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#49

Post by patmcguire »

philwelch wrote: post #34
huxley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can happen, it's called jury nullification. There's some interesting reading in the background section of the wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#Background

It's a bit controversial whether jury nullification is an actual right or whether it's just a side-effect of the fact that juries can't be punished or held accountable for their verdicts. What's the difference? Well, for instance, judges tend to instruct juries only to consider the facts and not the law, and attorneys aren't generally allowed to discuss jury nullification in their closing arguments. On the other hand…

It's occasionally upheld by the supreme court, occasionally overturned. It's defacto legal because it's unprovable. Also, it's worth noting that it's not exactly a panacea - the two big (in terms of scale) uses of it in the USA were northern jurors refusing to convict those who sheltered runaway slaves under the fugitive slave act (good) and the southern jurors who acquitted lynchers (bad). US link is more helpful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_Unite...

Judges and lawyers hate it, but at worst it's grounds for dismissal from a jury, not a crime.

Re: The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android

#50

Post by campnic »

Steko wrote: post #6

Some companies will have to pay a slightly higher per device royalty than they had wanted to and/or remove/modify some functionality. It's the Apocalypse! It's Thermonuclear War!

Its funny that you say 'slightly'. The demands from apple are 4-5 orders of magnitude what they paid samsung for royalty fees on samsung's patents.
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