The first round of the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit is over and Apple has emerged victorious. In case you haven't been following it, Apple sued Samsung for $2.5 billion for infringing on seven of its patents. Samsung countersued for approximately $400 million because it needed to save face. It took the jury less than three days to find in favor of Apple for just over $1 billion in damages and, just to stick it to Samsung, they threw out Samsung's countersuit.
I'm calling this the first round because Samsung will most likely file an appeal. From Samsung's point of view, this is a fight to the death, and Samsung is unlikely to give up any time soon. There are several interesting things going on here, so let's have a look at the good, the bad and the sad.
The Good
Apple's victory is a victory for every inventor and innovator. Patent protection is a very complicated blood sport and, when the system works, it promotes investment and risk taking, and it protects the associated rewards. As a patented inventor, I am thrilled that Apple went after a copycat and successfully defended its intellectual property. While it's true that most patents are only as powerful as the entity that owns them, the jury found that this patent infringement was blatant, if not obvious. If Apple didn't win, it would have been a huge blow to the notion of patent protection.
Several of my learned colleagues have admonished that Apple is a huge company and its overt use of lawsuits as a competitive tool is unwarranted, unsportsmanlike and unnecessary. I disagree. If I were Apple, I would defend my intellectual property to the full extend of the law -- it is the only path that makes sense. This is an important victory for everyone who has ever gone through the remarkably painful process of writing a patent claim. Congratulations to Apple's legal team for a big win!
The Bad
Samsung offers some extraordinary alternatives to iDevices. Most run Google's Android operating system and, at the moment, most of the products (like the Samsung Galaxy S III) are technologically superior (from a features point of view) to their Apple counterparts. There is a very good chance that the judge will rule that Samsung must stop selling some of the products that were the subject of the lawsuit. Two bad things will occur: 1) Samsung engineers will have to scramble to remove the infringing intellectual property, so they won't have time to innovate; and 2) Substandard products from other manufacturers will probably fill the gap.
Don't get me wrong. I applaud Apple's victory, but depending upon how the judge rules, this could be very messy for consumers.
The Sad (If you're not Apple)
The sad news is that every smartphone and tablet that has a full glass screen looks like an iPad or an iPhone. Apple's design patent portfolio is pretty complete and, if your smart device looks like an iDevice, you're going to be in trouble. What's worse is that Apple obviously has defensible patents around finger gestures and Apple is very unlikely to license any of its IP. Why should it?
The fact is that Apple has innovated, pioneered and succeeded where dozens of others have failed. It created the modern concepts of a smartphone and a tablet and has the law on its side. Every consumer electronics company has just been put on notice -- innovate or die! If you don't invent your own, new, unique, patentable smartphone and tablet, Apple will wait until exactly the right moment, sue you, and win.
Actually, I'm not sad about this at all, but I am wondering... did Samsung lose this case because it created products that were inspired by Apple's? Or did it lose because, during the discovery phase of the trial, Apple was able to show that Samsung executives documented their desire to copy Apple product features?
This may sound like a trivial issue, but it isn't. Steve Jobs allegedly called Android a stolen product -- but this case wasn't against Google. What was stolen? What did Apple products actually inspire? And, what was just the result of a smoking gun? Food for thought as the battle for control of our connected lives continues.
Follow Shelly Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shellypalmer
Apple needs to grow up! "Intellectual property" may sound proper and cute, but this is business and business doesn't have room for crybabies. If Apple cannot deal with the competition, it needs to pull its i-toys off the shelves and close up shop.
Samsung may have been wounded; and other smartphone makers might have to take a step back for the moment. However, they'll bounce back.
'Nuff said. Night folks!
Samsung is not to blame but the people at home who are working for free to give you the beat experience possible. I'm outraged and hope Samsung is able to appeal.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Every market leader has to deal with competing with lower cost knock-offs; this isn't a bad thing its a good thing! Its good for consumers. Giving Apple a 20 year monopoly on normal, intuitive mobile devices interfaces isn't good for anyone but Apple.
As for a patent on the rounded rectangle, remember Larry Proctor, who was issued a patent (subsequently withdrawn) for a yellow bean that has been a Latin American staple crop for centuries?
And as for innovation by amalgamation, when the Swiss Army came up with their eponymous knife, did they earn an exclusive claim on the fork, spoon, corkscrew and toothpick?
Sorry, I meant to favor you, not flag you.
Even though Apple made a deal to scan Xerox PARC, peaking up under the rug was pretty sneaky. Did Xerox ever sue them?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-r-keith-sawyer/apple-wins-patent-case_b_1834603.html
That reads good and fair. But I dare you to add a 'such as' to that statement with any specific IP being protected in this case:
"As a patented inventor, I am thrilled that Apple went after a copycat and successfully defended its intellectual property, such as designing icons in the shape of rounded rectangles"
Really??!!
Apple's insistence on suing (and worse, refusal to license) minor UI elements that are a logical derivation of progress in hardware technology makes it one of the most anti-competitive abusers of the patent system I have ever seen.
The first television had competition eventually. The design's already been done, it's a matter of waiting x-amount of time ot be able to legitimately reproduce it. Who copied whom when flatscreen TVs came on the market? Same with the first small mobile phone.
I understand that Apple took time and put effort into a standard touchscreen (touchscreen did, after all, exist pre-iPhone), but if they honestly didn't predict that other manufacturers would start to work on phones to act as rivals or just plain alternatives, they're a bit thick. Samsung's models are far more reliable, and generally superior, to the iPhone. I was one of those who HAD TO HAVE an iPhone once, and when it successfully lost all my messages and contacts, wouldn't backup, restored what it didn't backup, and generally I know I may have had one of a bad batch, but I've had a bad batch of two different iPods too. (Not hating on all their products,my Nano actually does work the way it's supposed to.)
I haven't yet had a problem with any Samsung product I've owned, and although I'd say "national bias" as opposed to infringing on patents (I'm skeptical like that), I say that purely because I honestly thing it's Apple being jealous and vindictive over Samsung's ability to create a better product.
The jury was destined to have it out for Samsung whether it was bias or not. It boils down to lack of technical knowledge and how the evidence was presented. In Software development, the user requirements and the system requirements are two very different descriptions of the same product. Whereas the user requirements are an abstract of main points, the system requirements really go into detail and describe something unique. Since all smartphones and tablets have very similar user requirements, that documentation for Apple devices is probably very similar to many of Samsung's products. Without the technical knowledge to really understand how Samsung DID NOT infringe on Apple's intellectual property, the jury was only REALLY presented with an abstract; It became easy to deceive the jury with something every tech company has come to understand: Apple hit the market first so everything else is considered a copy.
No one should be excited about Apple's win because it does not promote innovation or economic growth, it debilitates it. Anyone supporting Apple's ridiculous claims must really want the market to suck. Anyway, I didn't much like what Mr. Palmer said but, one thing is certain: Apple did win this "round" but the consumer (not Samsung) lost.
I think a lot of the problem is that people have forgotten what innovation really means. Innovation: Origination: the act or process of inventing or introducing something new. Repackeging cost-effective, already-perfected-by-others tech into a shiney aluminum case and then selling it for beyond-top-dollar is NOT innovation, it's marketting! I'll give Apple that, they're great marketters...
In court Apple proved that they spent more than four years developing the iPhone. Along the way this massive investment yielded a ton of innovation and many patented inventions. These patents were reaffirmed by the jury. This isn't about a "Rounded Rectangular device with a touchscreen". That's one small details out of a large number of things that together were copied. Most patented inventions are exactly that. A collection of things already invented, that are brought together and configured in a way that's novel and useful (look at the Cotton Gin -- break it all down enough and there's nothing new there!). For that, we grant the inventor a limited monopoly to the invention. Apple spent the time and money to do that. They met that test. They have the right to exclude others from copying the invention.
Look at smartphones until 2007. They were crappy. No one bought them. Seeing an iPhone, Samsung copied it in just three months.
Actually what we are seeing is a fully weakened Apple, post Jobs. There has been no real innovations. Apple mainly changes screen resolution, sizes or colors. Even Microsoft is smart enough to know you have to revamp the OS to keep customers interested. Who wants to look at the same thing on their devices for four or five years? No one, and there is a reason there is 1 million activations per day of Android. Consumers like variety. In where they shop, how they shop and what they shop for.
TEAR DOWN ANDROID & COMPETITION
What Apple calls fragmentation--because they can't compete nor come up with a new, totally refreshment of iOS, is flavors for Android users. Nasa, the US Army, US Open Tennis Championship & the Conventions chose Android so Apple's claims about Android is being debunked. Not secure, riddled with malware and high fragmentation. They have tried everything to discredit android now going after hardware companies who are using it. As for Apple devices, you could set them all on a table and all you would see is that same severely dated iOS over and over again.
INTERNAL APPLE
Apple's employees are unhappy and morale is down on their sales floors, at the retail level. Foxconn is doing badly because there has been a decline in the want of Apple products. Tech sites and mags are in full hype mode, with a rumor mill, trying to keep declining Apple market share relevant. Some using ridiculous math methods to show increase in sales when basic math tells the real story. The recent trial was Apple having a global meltdown and lashing out at competitors who are competing in the marketplace one Apple once ruled. That day is gone, and they need to produce or accept it.
Those are the big ones. They've also changed the way millions of people buy music and watch TV. They created a way for hundreds of thousands of small developers to make money from their programming skills by selling their apps in the App Store.
A company like Samsung? No innovation there. They're like the old PC box assemblers. They take hardware components off the shelf and install another company's operating system, slap them together in different ways (which all essentially do the same thing but give the illusion of a lot of choice) and launch "new" products every few weeks.