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Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

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Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#51

Post by nirvana »

netcan wrote: post #45
simonh wrote: post #29

I think we all agree the actual counterfeiting is wrong, no? You can't produce a fake of someone's product. How about if you create as close to a duplicate as possible, but don't actually pretend it's the original? Is that OK? Samsung haven't done that either, but they've created (some) products that look extremely similar to Apple products, in similar packaging, even going so far as to putApple icons and the icons o…

I don't know much about this, but the line you seem to be describing is trademark violation. Things that distinguish iphones. That's a whole different set of laws where the line is much closer to counterfeiting. You can't sell fake Gucci products but you can sell things that are very similar to Gucci. In fact, innovative high street fashion permeates all the way down within a couple of years. If the designs aren't in…

Trademark is one set of laws, but you can only trademark names and images. You can't trademark designs.

For that there are Design Patents. Design Patents are very different from Utility Patents.

Design Patents are effectively a trademark on the design-- the look, the shape, the key design choices of an item.

In that regard Samsung clearly copied Apple's designs, and the documents that came out in the trial show that they did this intentionally-- by examining Apple products and talking about how they need to make specific changes in their products to look the same way.

Design Patents are the issue at trial here (or well, at leat half of the issue at trial here.)

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#52

Post by [deleted] »

its_so_on wrote: post #7
mrharrison wrote: post #3

Well the consumer most benefits, if companies are continuously innovative, not copying each other and selling for cheaper. This article missed the point. Why doesn't Samsung actually make something better than the iPhone. Not some cheap ripoff.

you are as confused as Apple legal. Apple's true problem when Samsung "crossed a line" isn't copying: it's brand confusion. The moment Samsung decided that they would sell units by being literally confused for an Apple device that one already knows closely is when they started accruing damages they should now pay Apple in order to make the situation equitable. This is like Wendy's deciding: "Fuck being third. From no…

[deleted]

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#53

Post by nirvana »

arihant wrote: post #39

If a company is making a product which people switch every two years, and if a competitor is shamelessly ripping off features, it is extremely insulting and awfully naive for them not to seek legal measures. Imagine if people switched social networks every two years, and Twitter copied everything Facebook comes up with. What in the OP's mind should Facebook do? Ignore and compete? Probably not. Protect and compete? M…

You make good points, and it is worth noting that, unlike Samsung, microsoft has a license from Apple to use Apple's technology. (they have a cross licensing agreement) That agreement prohibits copying.

As a result, Microsoft made a touch screen based UI, but made an innovative one.

Whether Microsofts work is good or not, it is clear that they tried something very new (unlike Android which is a replication of the iPhone UI to a large extent) and only by doing something new can we move the ball forward.

I am sometimes surprised to see, on a site ostensibly for people who want to found startups, and thus do new things, that people are so defensive of products that are simple copies of others when Google does it, but pretty hostile when someone copies another startups HTML code or when the Samwer borthers clones YC companies.

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#54

Post by nirvana »

kkowalczyk wrote: post #41
fierarul wrote: post #35

>Less competition is bad for consumers Competition is only valid if some fair play is involved. If my team "competes" with your team and faults half your players it doesn't make a very good sport. >Apple v. Samsung is not the problem in itself, but it’s a symptom of a broken system. Agree, but while the system still is as it is, asking for companies to just avoid this aspect of it is naive.

EFF doesn't ask companies to ignore patents but for the people to voice the opposition to patents so that the government has some incentive to reform the patent system. And in your "fair play" analogy you should be explicit about which party do you think doesn't play fair. There seems to be a misconception that it's about Apple accusing Samsung of patent infringement but if you pay attention it's also about Samsung a…

> reform the patent system.

It is very curious that the cries to reform the patent system have risen simultaneous with Google's need to copy Apple in android, and was started by Google's lawyer.

>There seems to be a misconception that it's about Apple accusing Samsung of patent infringement

Apple is accusing Samsung of patent infringement, and has provided evidence proving that Samsung deliberately set out to copy Apple's products trade dress. Samsung only counter sued to try and save face.

>Samsung accusing Apple of patent infringement, so at best it's a pot-kettle kind of situation.

No, there's a huge difference. Samsung is attacking Apple for patents that Samsung agreed to license on FRAND terms in order to get them made part of standards. Apple never made such an agreement to license its designs-- but when it discovered Samsung was copying it, it offered Samsung a license, which Samsung refused.

> Apple fired the first shot.

No they didn't. They were sued first, by Nokia and first by Motorola.

They only sued Samsung after offering a license and having it turned down.

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#55

Post by nirvana »

sjwright wrote: post #38
radley wrote: post #26

Anyone else tired of this? I've used Apple products for 20 years. There's nothing that new in iDevices except the rubber-band thing. Who here thinks the the guy who came up with that really wants to stick it to Samsung? Android maybe, but c'mon. What a waste.

I agree. When the iPhone was released, my immediate reaction was yawn, nothing new here. If anything it was a blatant copy of contemporary smartphones like the BlackBerry Pearl Flip, or the Palm Treo with Windows Mobile 5.

Yep, I have a samsung flip phone from 1996 that makes calls just like the iPhone!

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#56

Post by nirvana »

enraged_camel wrote: post #31
enraged_camel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone completely changed - revolutionized - the cellphone industry, and the iPad single-handedly revived an industry long thought dead. Do you deny it? Please give a serious answer.

Why the downvote with no explanation? I thought HN would be better than this.

You cannot speak positively (or even neutrally) about Apple on Hacker News, without being downvoted.

On this subject, it is simply not possible to have discussion. Hacker News has is overrun with android fans who will tell you that 2001: A Space Odessy is "prior art" for the iPhone and iPad... and mean it.

Four years ago, this site would have some good discussion on it, but at this point, most of the people who hang out here can barely remember a time before the iPhone. For them, there has always been google android and that its "silly" for Apple to be suing over this, since this is "how all phones work."

If you talk favorably about Apple you are accused of being "Biased", while the most nonsensical, irrational rant against Apple is upvoted.

I do not participate on this site much at all anymore simply because of this. You can't have good discussions here, unless you happen to hit a topic for which the reddit ideology has no opinion. (I call it the reddit ideology because that's where it seems to originate- it shares the characteristics I see on reddit all the time.)

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#57

Post by nirvana »

neya wrote: post #34
enraged_camel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the downvote with no explanation? I thought HN would be better than this.

I didn't downvote you, but I suspect its because of too much bias from you in favor of Apple. Patent wars aren't good for anyone regardless of who started it and like sbuk says this has to stop.

Your comment is hilarious, so please don't take this personally. It is hilarious that you would say his comment has "too much bias in favor of Apple" and then follow it with a claim of an ideological position as fact.

Your actual statement -- that you "suspect it is because of.." is probably completely correct.

The very idea that you should downvote someone because of "bias" is such a Generation-Y concept. Obviously everyone's biased. I've yet to see an anti-Apple post from anyone (including this EFF post, or any comments anywhere on HN) that wasn't full of bias.

In fact the bias is so blatent it is to the point of simply lying to try and rationalized it-- for example, claiming that Apple did nothing new, or innovative in the iPhone is absurd, since no phone worked like the iPhone at the time it was announced and the iPhone clearly had a massive impact because it was so innovative. Or another example- claiming that the Mac was a ripoff of Xerox.

So, when someone says "you're biased" it simply means "you don't agree with me, and I can't argue against your points, so I'll engage in ad hominem and call you a name"....

But the profoundly sad thing about it is that I really think they think that they are being "objective" when they believe this anti-Apple ideology.

I haven't seen any evidence of actual damage from the "patent wars", and if Apple is triumphant here, it will be good for the industry and good for consumers.

Innovation is Good.

The idea that it "has to stop" or that it is "bad" has only come up at the same time that android has come into existence, and so the motivation for claiming that patents are somehow problematic seems... excuse the use of the word-- biased!

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#58

Post by dagw »

nirvana wrote: post #47
dagw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone was revolutionary in execution, not concept. Every individual component (touchscreen, installable apps, browser etc etc.) of the iPhone was already on the market when the iPhone launched, just not gathered together in the same device and executed anywhere near as well as what Apple did.

This is simply not true. This is a post hoc ergo proctor hoc rationalization that works with people who see that almost all the smartphones out there have copied the iphone and so they believe that they must have existed contempraneously with the iphone. Or put another way, you might as well have said "There was nothing new about the iPhone, everything important about it existed in the Motorola Razr-- it made calls,…

You do realize that there where a number of touchscreen phones before the iPhone showed up right? Non of them (obviously) using a camera. A company I used to work for was developing software targeting phones driven entirely by touch back in 2000-2001 (the phones never caught on however and the project was never completed)

But back to the point. Yes the iPhone as a package was unique at the time. Certainly the touchscreen was much better than anything I'd seen up that point, and all the apps kicked the respective asses of what had come before. They where also the first company that managed to make a smartphone that was good enough that people actually wanted to own one. That I suppose could be considered revolutionary.

What specific innovations are you thinking about when you're talking about 'unique' innovations?

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#59

Post by nirvana »

jaekwon wrote: post #33
enraged_camel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot find any word other than "bullocks" to describe your argument. If you spent billions of dollars in R&D to come up with an innovative and revolutionary product and sold millions of it, and six months later someone produced imitations of it and sold millions as well, you would be pissed regardless of how many steps ahead you were. Reason is simple: they would be free-riding on your hard work.

If apple had spent 60 billions of dollars in R&D to come up with the exact same iPhone, and everything else were the same, do they still deserve a monopoly on iPhone-like devices to recoup their losses? How about 2 trillion? You can always try to spend more money to get a product created sooner, marketed better... but that doesn't imply that the innovator deserves a sanctioned monopoly, even if temporary. Ladies and…

You're presuming your conclusion and you've provided no evidence of it.

The calls for patent "reform" came at the same time google decided they wanted to get away with violating apple's patents (and now google has sued Apple to try and do so).

Near as I can tell, and from what I've seen in history, patents have worked out pretty well.

They protect the small guy more than they do the big guy, for instance, though this is often ignored or the opposite is claimed.

Why do you want to throw out a system that protects small innovators in favor of allowing a major company-- google-- to get away with stealing innovations?

Apple was ripped off when they invented the GUI, so they knew they would need to protect themselves and they patented their inventions in the iPhone.

This is exactly what the patent system was designed for.

If Samsung wins, then we need reforms to strengthen the system. But if Samsung loses then justice will have prevailed.

Re: Apple and Samsung Should Fight in the Marketplace, not the Courtroom

#60

Post by nirvana »

neya wrote: post #18
mrharrison wrote: post #3

Well the consumer most benefits, if companies are continuously innovative, not copying each other and selling for cheaper. This article missed the point. Why doesn't Samsung actually make something better than the iPhone. Not some cheap ripoff.

Bias like this only helps fuel a flame war. Enjoying the pull down notification menu on your iPhone? You should be. That's a cheap 'rip off' by Apple, as per your definition. >and selling for cheaper. There are many people who want to pay only for what a product is worth and not twice the price of what its worth. >Why doesn't Samsung actually make something better than the iPhone. They did, check out the Galaxy S3, s…

>Bias like this only helps fuel a flame war.

Then

>They did, check out the Galaxy S3, still a better gadget than your iPhone. Any day.

Hilarious!

But of course, you're perfectly objective, so there's nothing funny here.

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