Did the guy invite media interviews, or has the media just taken it upon themselves to pick his life apart in great detail for him doing his civic duty?
That poor guy will never be able to go out for Korean food again...
Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
11–20 of 53 posts
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain how patents don't grant a type of legal monopoly? This seems non-obvious to me, and poking around on Wikipedia has only served to reinforce my suspicion that they are.
They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a…
I don't have a categorical opposition to patents, so the monopoly aspect of them does not particularly concern me.
To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#13I think this is actually bad news. Since the guy has a patent to his name, that means he understood what patents are. (EG: protection for unique inventions, not monopolies on features or ideas.) If the jury had been completely non-technical, and subjected to the nonsense propaganda you see so much these days (that patents are "trivial" and that they cover ideas) and still found in Apple's favor, then this would bolst…
Are you saying that the apple patents are unique inventions? I ask for clarity because that is not a common position on hackernews.
It is common for android fans on hacker news to assert that the patents are invalid because the same features exist in android phones, but this is not only a temporal error, but implied a lack of understanding of what patents even are.
I've not seen any arguments on hacker news that the patents are invalid. Period. Full Stop. I've seen this assertion many times and the claim that it is "obvious" but it is clear to me that the people making the assertion have never read the patent and don't know the first thing about patents.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#14I think this is actually bad news. Since the guy has a patent to his name, that means he understood what patents are. (EG: protection for unique inventions, not monopolies on features or ideas.) If the jury had been completely non-technical, and subjected to the nonsense propaganda you see so much these days (that patents are "trivial" and that they cover ideas) and still found in Apple's favor, then this would bolst…
I like Groklaw's comment ( http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390 ) " If it would take a lawyer three days to make sure he understood the terms in the form, how did the jury not need the time to do the same? There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like…
The jury had 14 days of hearing evidence. It is quite possible that the case was so compelling that it didn't take them very long to decide the points.
I've yet to see any argument that the verdict is wrong, based on an understanding of the patents in question.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain how patents don't grant a type of legal monopoly? This seems non-obvious to me, and poking around on Wikipedia has only served to reinforce my suspicion that they are.
They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a…
In all of the industries I'm familiar with, I just don't see it happening that someone says "Hey, I wonder how they did that. I'll go check out their patent filing!" Certainly not in software. And the concept of willful infringement gives even less incentive to do so.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a…
I don't have a categorical opposition to patents, so the monopoly aspect of them does not particularly concern me. To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
I'm sure they are rare among startup founders, but not rare in the wider realm. But it is not the fault of the patent system that people don't read them.
I already mentioned one benefit that doesn't require reading the patents, and that is there is less incentive to obfuscate designs or lock down products.
Secondly, for situations where there is a major break thru, patents give companies caught flat footed a chance to come up to speed by reading the details of the invention so that they can then extend it.
I don't, for a second, doubt that many engineers in Google and Samsung have read these Apple patents, for instance. Of course the official policy is that they don't, and they will never admit it in court (they'll never let the people who did read them testify) but the level of industrial espionage that these companies engage in is such that it seems exceedingly unlikely they wouldn't read freely available publications designed to reveal these inventions.
But that is also the purpose of the patent system.
Where things are broken here is that Google feels they can get away with infringing because in the past court cases have been long time coming and relatively weak in their impact. So, google made the calculated decisions to simply violate the patents.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain how patents don't grant a type of legal monopoly? This seems non-obvious to me, and poking around on Wikipedia has only served to reinforce my suspicion that they are.
They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a…
I think if we lived in a world without patents, many of the anti-IP people would be advocating for a requirement that companies like Apple publish the nature of their inventions.
It need not be one or the other. In the specific patents under discussion, I hardly think competitors could not figure out how to implement multi-finger touching, or pinch-to-zoom. An idea that is easy to re-implement (or has a means of implementation obvious to industry workers) once made public simply shouldn't be protected by patent. By and large, companies can work around patented implementations, but not when they are so broad as to essentially encompass the whole idea (e.g. unified search, or multi-touch sensing). In the first place, patents are granted for specific implementations, not ideas.
It's clear to me that the standards and enforcement of the obviousness principle need to be raised.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a…
I don't have a categorical opposition to patents, so the monopoly aspect of them does not particularly concern me. To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
> To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
I like to get paid for my technical work. Patents have some effect in that area.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#19I wonder what phone he owns. People seem to develop a strong personal attachment to their brand of smartphone.
Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have a categorical opposition to patents, so the monopoly aspect of them does not particularly concern me. To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
I'm sure they are rare among startup founders, but not rare in the wider realm. But it is not the fault of the patent system that people don't read them. I already mentioned one benefit that doesn't require reading the patents, and that is there is less incentive to obfuscate designs or lock down products. Secondly, for situations where there is a major break thru, patents give companies caught flat footed a chance t…
Would you say that you suspect Google/Samsung employees read Apple patents to figure out what Apple is planning on doing, or if they read Apple patents to figure out how Apple has done things?