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CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

reuters.com

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Re: CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

#131

Post by sangnoir »

nodamage wrote: post #100
bmdavi3 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. You're correct, I've wondered why this isn't mentioned more often, and maybe that's why. However even after realizing that, I personally still consider a design patent about rounded corners to be on the same level of B.S. as a software patent, and still stand by my conclusions. But I'd be interested to know why I shouldn't do that, and if you have more information I'm honestly all ears

You make it sound like Samsung was quietly doing their own thing and then were blindsided by a lawsuit from Apple. But actually after the iPhone was released Samsung deliberately went through it screen by screen and produced a 132-page report on what features and interface elements they should steal from the iPhone. https://archive.org/details/436142-samsung-relative-evaluati... I don't have a great opinion of the pa…

> But actually after the iPhone was released Samsung deliberately went through it screen by screen and produced a 132-page report on what features and interface elements they should steal from the iPhone.

Did you know competitive analysis is something that is frequently done across many industries? GM/Mercedes/Toyota are among the first customers to buy[1] their competitors latest models and they disassemble them to the last bolt to figure out/estimate materials, methods and costs per component, sub-assembly and unit level. I see nothing unethical or nefarious about that.

1. Often they pay companies like Munro & Associates (https://leandesign.com/) do the analysis on their behalf

Re: CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

#132

Post by lilyball »

sangnoir wrote: post #131
nodamage wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like Samsung was quietly doing their own thing and then were blindsided by a lawsuit from Apple. But actually after the iPhone was released Samsung deliberately went through it screen by screen and produced a 132-page report on what features and interface elements they should steal from the iPhone. https://archive.org/details/436142-samsung-relative-evaluati... I don't have a great opinion of the pa…

> But actually after the iPhone was released Samsung deliberately went through it screen by screen and produced a 132-page report on what features and interface elements they should steal from the iPhone. Did you know competitive analysis is something that is frequently done across many industries? GM/Mercedes/Toyota are among the first customers to buy[1] their competitors latest models and they disassemble them to…

Competitive analysis is different than cloning the look & feel of something. "They have a unified design style with very nice rounded corners throughout the OS, we should have our own unified design style with our own nice touches" is not the same thing as "we should copy their style wholesale". GM isn't making cars that look like Toyota's.

Re: CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

#133

Post by nodamage »

sangnoir wrote: post #131
nodamage wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like Samsung was quietly doing their own thing and then were blindsided by a lawsuit from Apple. But actually after the iPhone was released Samsung deliberately went through it screen by screen and produced a 132-page report on what features and interface elements they should steal from the iPhone. https://archive.org/details/436142-samsung-relative-evaluati... I don't have a great opinion of the pa…

> But actually after the iPhone was released Samsung deliberately went through it screen by screen and produced a 132-page report on what features and interface elements they should steal from the iPhone. Did you know competitive analysis is something that is frequently done across many industries? GM/Mercedes/Toyota are among the first customers to buy[1] their competitors latest models and they disassemble them to…

Competitive analysis is one thing, point for point copying of another company's user interface is unethical. Apple put in the R&D to make the iPhone interface more intuitive and easy to use compared to other phones at the time. Samsung copied Apple's homework.

Re: CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

#134

Post by nodamage »

throwaway_tech wrote: post #128
nodamage wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No but Apple's patent for rounded corners didn't help Samsung engineers from creating their devices...and yet Apple filed the patent and sued Samsung for patent infringement. It's unfortunate that this story has now been twisted into "Apple suing Samsung over rounded corners", when in actuality Samsung deliberately produced a 132-page report comparing the iPhone to their current phones at the time and pointed out h…

>Samsung deliberately produced a 132-page report comparing the iPhone to their current phones at the time and pointed out hundreds of features and design elements they should steal from the iPhone user interface But that doesn't really matter, you can adopt concepts and designs from 3rd parties (including competitors) so long as the same is not protected. The "rounded corners" was patented and infringement of the pat…

> But that doesn't really matter, you can adopt concepts and designs from 3rd parties (including competitors) so long as the same is not protected.

Maybe it's legal but I don't think it's ethical. And while implementing someone else's concept in your own way is one thing, point for point copying of a user interface that someone else designed is entirely another.

> What is unfortunate and "twisted" is claiming a research university is a patent troll.

I never claimed this.

Re: CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

#135

Post by silexia »

bhl wrote: post #116
strbean wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly believe that the pursuing of patents gets in the way of the collaboration that helps science progress. It creates evidence of innovation (ie patents), but slows actual innovation. See the mess around CRISPR patents for an excellent example of this.

The CRISPR debacle is a funny story because on one side you have a public institution and on the other side you have a private institution. However, both in reality are publicly funded whether that be through government grants or tax breaks on endowments. I think we should do a trade: an institution that in someway benefits from the public should get credit for the discovery but patent goes back to the public. Edit:…

Patents are a gigantic scam and the entire system should be scrapped. True free market would allow competition. This is just an artificial monopoly and it's needless and does not help competition.

Re: CalTech wins $1.1B jury verdict in patent case against Apple, Broadcom

#137

Post by selimthegrim »

dv_dt wrote: post #36
randyrand wrote: post #6

If the patents were owned by a single individual instead of caltech, would the verdict be as large? They’d instantly be in the top 3000 richest people in the world.

The Caltech endowment fund seems to be $3.2B. It seems like they're already pretty rich... and I suspect that lets them actually pursue these cases successfully.

They’ve managed to be broke twice in the last 20 years despite receiving three of the four largest donations in higher education history. I wouldn’t put it past them.
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