Apple vs Samsung let the fun begin.

Wangler said:
This trial result reinforces my firm commitment to never buy an Apple product.

Ever.
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Good for you - that's the power a consumer yields. Though I doubt you were ever going to rush into an Apple Store regardless of the outcome here.

Real questions: Do you buy products that copy Apple's designs? Should there be any limit at all on the freedom to copy successful designs? And if not, would that serve to stifle innovation?
 
There's another Apple vs Samsung court decision from the last day or so. This one in South Korea.

The ruling was that Apple and Samsung both infringed each other's patents on mobile devices. Apple had infringed two patents held by Samsung relating to telecom standards and making information transfer more efficient. Samsung violated one of Apple's: the bounce-back function.

The court ruled against the design similarities, arguing that there's only so much variation that's possible with touch screen devices, and previous products show the similar features, as well as the Galaxy S having three buttons on the front and other things that sufficiently differentiated it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19364875
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Though I doubt you were ever going to rush into an Apple Store regardless of the outcome here.
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Correct, which is why I said "reinforces my firm commitment".

Real questions: Do you buy products that copy Apple's designs? Should there be any limit at all on the freedom to copy successful designs? And if not, would that serve to stifle innovation?
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Answers:

I don't buy products that copy Apple designs in form: no iPad "look-alikes", etc.

However, I do own two Android based devices....I don't know if they contain features or functions that would be considered in a case such as this to be copies or not.

There should certainly be limits on the freedom to copy successful designs. I think that there is ample historical evidence that such limits would not stifle innovation.

Question:

What should be considered a design?
 
Alan said:
There's another Apple vs Samsung court decision from the last day or so. This one in South Korea. The ruling was that Apple and Samsung both infringed each other's patents on mobile devices. Apple had infringed two patents held by Samsung, and Samsung violated one of Apple's: the bounce-back function.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19364875
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The "bounce back" was one of the elements at the start of thread that I thought was a valid complaint from Apple in regards to the allegations that Samsung was copying something unique to Apple. (Granted the "prior art" that came out in the trial changed my mind about that being a valid patent.)

All I can say is thank goodness none of the earlier innovators in mobile phones took the approach today's international behemoths are taking. If they had then today we'd still be having only mobile phones produced by Motorola and the most transformational period the human race has ever known would have been stillborn.
 
Wangler said:
Correct, which is why I said "reinforces my firm commitment".



Answers:

I don't buy products that copy Apple designs in form: no iPad "look-alikes", etc.

...snip...
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Other court cases have concluded with the legal decision that the design language simply of "a large rectangular tablet with rounded corners" is not legally protected: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18773690
 
Wangler said:
However, I do own two Android based devices....I don't know if they contain features or functions that would be considered in a case such as this to be copies or not.

Question:

What should be considered a design?
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Both issues where the jury had to decide.

And did.

With a lot more evidence than we have gleaned from news reports.

It's tricky. Apple lost the case against Microsoft which held that "look and feel" was not protected. Hence, Windows did not "copy" the Macintosh GUI.

It might help frame the discussion to go back five years and remember the original iPhone introduction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPAY9JqE4

You're obviously not an Apple fanboy and might not be impressed. I watched it streaming at my girlfriend (now wife's) apartment, and I was kinda blown away. It really hard to argue that Samsung owes nothing to Apple's innovation - I guess the question is how much?
 
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Was Steve Jobs prescient or what???

7856416724_4b4a9771d9_z.jpg


His comment?

"And, boy, have we patented it!"
 
Fast Eddie B said:
It really hard to argue that Samsung owes nothing to Apple's innovation - I guess the question is how much?
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The jury says how much is about a billion dollars.

There are two ends to the spectrum, and the sensible answer is somewhere in between.

And these legal decisions are all over the map: Apple wins here, Samsung wins there, they both win in country X, etc.

Apple might get trounced the next round, say regarding the notification bar patent.

I really don't see this judgement reducing my options for non-Apple smartphones and tablets, at least in the short term.
 
Darat said:
The "bounce back" was one of the elements at the start of thread that I thought was a valid complaint from Apple in regards to the allegations that Samsung was copying something unique to Apple. (Granted the "prior art" that came out in the trial changed my mind about that being a valid patent.)
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Do the juries ever publish their reasoning on these decisions? Because it would be interesting to see why they decided to uphold that patent. As you say, the prior art we saw looked pretty devastating, but that was when it was being presented by Samsung, who are obviously motivated to try to make them look the same. I wonder if the jury noticed (or were told about) some differences that weren't reported.
 
My guess is that on appeal a lot of that will be reversed. One issue is that judge Koh denied Samsung to present vital evidence regarding prior art of some designs. Then, the jury had to decide on about 700 questions. And they want to tell us they did that in a few days?

Next, the jury foreman said that the jurors reached a decision, and they did not need the jury instructions to do so. Last but not least they made two extreme mistakes in their findings, where they contradicted themselves. First they found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not infringe, but then awarded about 200k in damages to Apple for that. That also happened for the Intercept, for which they initially awarded 2 million in damages.

Oh, and not to mention that the jury foreman is a patent holder himself.

This does not look like a fair case at all, and definitely not like a fair jury. 700 questions to be decided on. In 3 days? Claiming not to need jury instructions? And what a coincidence, just managed to get it out right before the weekend. With two big contradictions.

That just stinks.

Greetings,

Chris
 
The jury's decision cannot be questioned. As I understand it, only matters of law or matters of redress may be.

And I can't see any reason they should be questioned. Apple had valid patents, enforced them, and won.
 
BenBurch said:
The jury's decision cannot be questioned. As I understand it, only matters of law or matters of redress may be.

And I can't see any reason they should be questioned. Apple had valid patents, enforced them, and won.
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I can. Because to me it's fairly obvious that they didn't really spent much thought on it. How else could they manage to get these huge mistakes into it where they contradict themselves? Again, deciding on over 700 question in such a very short time, then have it done right before the weekend, looks more like "duh, let's roll some dice and get it over with, weekend is coming!" to me.

To quote something from here:

UPDATE (7:04 PM): Here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen of the Apple v. Samsung jury: It would take me more than three days to understand all the terms in the verdict! Much less come to a legally binding decision on all of these separate issues. Did you guys just flip a coin?
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And when an actual lawyer says that, it should give you something to think about.

Oh, and also as said: The judge denied Samsung to present important evidence to the jury. And not only once, but several times. The jury simply didn't know the whole story.

Greetings,

Chris

ETA: Check out the two updates to this recent article on Groklaw:

Apple said they owned patents, but we were debating about the prior art [about the same technology that Samsung said existed before the iPhone debuted]. [Velvin Hogan] was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents himself. In the beginning the debate was heated, but it was still civil. Hogan holds patents, so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier. After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art, that there wasn't something out there before Apple.

"In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down." ...
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The appeal will be very interesting.
 
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Uh, ohh... This gets funnier by the minute. Just read on Groklaw the following gem from the jury foreman:

"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."
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They really should have read the jury instructions. Because there it says:

The amount of those damages must be adequate to compensate the patent holder for the infringement. A damages award should put the patent holder in approximately the financial position it would have been in had the infringement not occurred, but in no event may the damages award be less than a reasonable royalty. You should keep in mind that the damages you award are meant to compensate the patent holder and not to punish an infringer.
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So, we have a jury foreman that explains stuff to the jury that is not in evidence, but his own experiences instead. We have a jury that completely skipped the question of prior art, as one juror admitted. We have a jury that contradicted itself in their first version of the verdict. We have jurors who claim to have legal experience, etc., and from what we can read it seems like they had this knowledge influence them, which it shouldn't. We have the jury foreman who just admitted that they wanted to come up with something that amounts to a punishment ("...not just a slap on the wrist", "...wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful..."), going clearly against the jury instructions. Oh, yes, those instructions that they couldn't be bothered to read in the first place, as they have admitted.

Seriously, i can't see how that jury's ruling can hold up. This thing has "mistrial" written all over it.

Greetings,

Chris
 
BenBurch said:
What a jury SAYS is never considered.
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I'm sorry, but i don't get what you try to say here. If what a jury says is never considered, then why have a jury at all?

And then, if from what they say after the trial it becomes clear that they not only ignored the instructions, but violated them, their findings are still supposed to be OK? I can't believe that this is what you want to say. Because that would lead to the situation that a jury could rule in some way, and later say "well, we simply didn't like party X, so we piled upon them" and it would be fine.

Really, here the jury allowed themselves to be influenced by the experiences of the foreman. Instead of reading the instructions, they didnt refer to them. They never asked the judge for clarification on something. Instead they let the foreman, who is a patent owner, explain to them how it should be.

They _completely_ ignored the question of prior art, because "it bogged them down". Instead they followed whatever the foreman told them about that topic. They simply ignored the instructions.

Even worse, that foreman admitted that they wanted to punish Samsung, which is in gross violation of the instructions.

And all that should not be considered?

Greetings,

Chris
 
Christian Klippel said:
I'm sorry, but i don't get what you try to say here. If what a jury says is never considered, then why have a jury at all?
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I think he means apart from the verdict(s).

Then again, if a juror said, "I voted for Apple because I was promised money to do so", I think the verdict might well be thrown out and a mistrial declared.

So, what a juror says may matter, depending on its import.
 
Christian Klippel said:
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Seriously, i can't see how that jury's ruling can hold up. This thing has "mistrial" written all over it.
Greetings,

Chris
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In regards to juries the USA is quite different to the UK, in the UK talking about how they reached their decision is a big no-no. Can a trial be appealed based on what the jurists say afterwards (not meaning if something illegal came to light - that's a different kettle of fish)? Strictly speaking in the UK a jury could just toss a coin to make their decision and that would still be binding.
 
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