Americans fog things up. This is especially true in the Samsung v. Apple case, I quote[1]:
“The jury in San Jose, California ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05bn (£665m) in damages. […]
In recent weeks, a court in South Korea ruled that both technology firms had copied each other, while a British court threw out claims by the US company that Samsung had infringed its copyright.
But the year-long US case has involved some of the biggest damages claims. […]
It deliberated for less than three days before coming to a unanimous decision, rejecting all of Samsung's claims and upholding five of Apple's allegations, including:
Some of Samsung's handsets, including its Galaxy S 4G model, infringed Apple's design patents for the look of its iPhone including the system it uses to display text and icons
All the disputed Samsung devices had copied Apple's "bounce-back response", which makes lists jump back as if yanked by a rubber band
Several Samsung devices incorporated Apple's facility allowing users to zoom into text with a tap of a fingerApple had wanted $2.5bn in damages. Samsung had sought $519m.”
Note that the phones on the left are using Windows, the phones on the right are running Android.
In short, Apple is sued Samsung because of Android (because the interface is as annoying as an iPhone’s), large screen and rounded corners. There were minor squabbles about the hardware as well, which were exactly that – minor squabbles. South Korean court said Apple and Samsung copied each other and ordered them to pay each other (Samsung had to pay about 12,000$ less) and banned the sale of the new Samsung Android devices and Apple’s iPhones and iPads in the country, British court dismissed the whole case and American court ignored Samsung and gave Apple victory – Samsung has to pay over a billion dollars to Apple, no bans on sale. In fact, Samsung had a reasonable defence – Apple was not the first on scene with the design and hence does not have the patent rights, iPhone’s design was inspired by SONY’s designs.
“However, Samsung was not permitted to present evidence of this - including a filing showing Apple designs incorporating Sony's logo - because it had presented the documents at a late stage in the legal process.
The South Korean firm did take evidence from the creator of a mock-up tablet computer featured in a concept video produced by a newspaper company in 1994. The designer said he had subsequently talked to Apple about the idea.”
To explain this even simpler:
Except that instead of Microsoft it is Samsung and both parties resort to court.
What baffles me about this whole ordeal is the results of the three courts. One punishes both, one goes Swiss, and it happens to be the American one that gives an overwhelming punishment to Samsung. The laws are pretty much the same, the cases were extremely similar, the evidence brought out must’ve been pretty much the same as well. And yet, three very different decisions. I, personally, like the South Korean court’s decision to ban the sale of the devices that infringe patents as it was the sensible thing to do. The products will continue to infringe the patents even after the trials, Samsung probably won in that respect – buying the rights for Apple’s patents on a typical smartphone design would probably have cost a lot more. Banning the products, on the other hands, is much more than a mere billion dollar slap on the wrist for both companies for such tomfoolery. It would prevent further bickering court cases, punish the guilty severely, force innovation and clean the market of generic products. As for Android, that thing really needs some working over. For something based on Linux, it is an amazingly sloppy piece of work.
I'll only argue with the title. The bigger the lie the better. People reefuse to believe that someone went through so much work, just to make up a lie. Lies that contain truth may be in some cases more believable, but they are also less profitable for the liar. That is IMO, of course.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic, then I couldn't care less what big companies do with their money as long as they produce devices that are worth buying.
"Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." vs. "The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe.". Big lies are not profitable if nobody believes them. It usually depends on the person (or people) being lied to, their gullibility in particular.
DeleteI was trying to stress what the courts were doing (3 courts, 3 different results), but the actions of the companies cannot go ignored, either. That is why I like the South Korean court's decision to ban the 'bad' products, hence forcing the companies to create innovative products with a new design or extra options that could become the standard (as HTC did with the first Windows Phone phones or Sony Ericsson with the XPERIA series). Sure, the options are very limited (it is a small box with a screen, microphone, camera, antenna, speaker...) but small changes tend to become the cherries on top of the cake.
Small changes that become standard are easier to find in the laptop market - touchpads with integrated keys have popped up pretty much everywhere in the last year, a whole new class of laptops has been created that have either integrated or bundled subwoofers and speaker setups by known speaker manufacturers ('multimedia computers'), the annoying chiclet keyboards, etc. The first products with these additions or changes fare a lot better than those that merely update the inner hardware compared to the previous model. I can only hope that the great ppi ratio will become standard as well (Apple's new Retina displays and ASUS' 13" laptops with fullHD screens show the way), because seeing all those 15" 720p screens just boggles my mind. New designs are often more worth buying.
Update: Japanese court decided that Samsung has indeed not infringed Apple patents.
ReplyDeleteAnd German court agreed that Samsung has not infringed Apple patents in the dispute over touchscreen technology.
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