Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Samsung Seemingly Unconcerned Over Apple Lawsuit, Hints Dispute Could Continue to Escalate
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Samsung is under contract with Apple. At this point there is legally no bridge that can be burned.
As long as consumers keep going crazy for Apple gear and demand is through the roof (been this way for years now), there will be no shortage of suppliers wanting in on the action.
While I'm not sure about this suit and all the particulars of the patent...... which phone and UI's looked like the iPhone before the iPhone? They definitely looked different before the iPhone and phones (smart phones) are starting to look incredibly similar after the iPhone. Whether it's flattery or theft of design....... I'm not sure; thank god it's not my job to figure it all out
If having a "grid of icons" in a phone UI is Apple's exclusive IP and is patented, then someone in the patent office needs to be taken outside and shot. Then resuscitated, healed, then shot again. Followed by a strongly worded letter.
I think Samsung's 'problem' isn't so much that they've copied any one thing that's an Apple exclusive, but they've 'copied' lots and lots of little things. The physical design of the device, the grid UI with an identical number of icons, and dock placement, the position/design of the phone icon, the speaker design, the position of the home button. None of these things are "exclusively Apple", but the combined effect of all of them is a device that's very, very similar to Apple's design.
Not really... Apple was the "first" to complain, if samsung was the "first" to complain, then the story would be different.
Apple should be looking for new vendors however and the minute the contract is up ensure everything Samsung is removed from their products.
Contracts expire, and new products may not be covered by existing contracts.
There's definitely a bridge.
Yes, I imagine all those iPhones and Pads working splendidly without their silicon chips.
THIS IS RIDICULOUS!
Apple is suing Samsung just because Samsung made a phone with a horizontally slotted earpiece, with a light sensor next to it hidden behind blackened glass surrounded by a curved bezel with a 1.9 aspect ratio, housing a capacitive, glass-encased touchscreen displaying a 4 by 5 grid of application icons organized by screens enumerated by an array of small dots in which the active screen is indicated by a brightened dot, with the bottom row constant on all screens, backdropped by a grey color, containing default icons, such as a green, rounded-square Phone icon with a profiled white handset shown at a 45 degree angle ,who's settings are controlled by an icon with a gear on it, and with a primary hardware interface button located at bottom dead center?
Frivolous, man...
edit: ..and a pink iTunes icon
Apple is suing Samsung just because Samsung made a phone with a horizontally slotted earpiece, with a light sensor next to it hidden behind blackened glass surrounded by a curved bezel with a 1.9 aspect ratio, housing a capacitive, glass-encased touchscreen displaying a 4 by 5 grid of application icons organized by screens enumerated by an array of small dots in which the active screen is indicated by a brightened dot, with the bottom row constant on all screens, backdropped by a grey color, containing default icons, such as a green, rounded-square Phone icon with a profiled white handset shown at a 45 degree angle ,who's settings are controlled by an icon with a gear on it, and with a primary hardware interface button located at bottom dead center?
Frivolous, man...
edit: ..and a pink iTunes icon
Last edited:
People need to differentiate Samsung Inc. from Samsung's Mobile Division.
The actions are between Apple and Samsung Mobile. Not a big deal. Simply more diversions to distract from what Apple is really doing.
Personally if I were Steve, I would be working behind the scenes to foster reunification between S. Korea, and N. Korea. That would take S. Korea out of the global economy for a good 10 years.
I really wish the guys who invented the alphabet and the wheel would still be around and sue the **** out of schools and the entire automobile industry. Hey, maybe we could even resurrect Johannes Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg to sue the crap out of the publishing industry for using unlicensed printing machines.
That would teach the world how ridiculously stupid the ideas of "intellectual property" and patents are.
Only huge corporations actually benefit from the patent and intellectual property system as it is (just try suing a billion dollar corporation for not respecting your patent when you are a one man shop), so all we can do is hope that they ruin themselves with it.
I said pretty much the same thing here: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12624191/ and you can see the results for yourself.
Samsung The Supplier and Samsung the Phone-Purveyor are different divisions One business is different from the other, and a dispute in one are has nothing to do with the other. Highly doubtful that Samsung would take this personally and sacrifice a parts customer. It would, in fact, be pretty ****ing stupid for them to do so. It all comes down to money.
While the Galaxy S (and a lot of other smartphones) wouldn't have been this way if it wasn't of the iPhone, I think Apple is going a bit far. Of course Samsung copied a lot of design/UI elements from Apple. But people know that. It's not like they pretended or people had the misconception that Samsung did it first.
I'm proud to be an iPhone owner because Apple did revolutionize the smartphone game. Even if Android phones were unanimously better, I'd still be proud to support the company that started it all.
The iPhone was a better phone overall than what we were used to at the time it came out. That's a fact. Credit to Apple for that. But they can't prevent people from using UI elements that are just plain effective simply because they thought it first.
It's like if Ford patented 4-wheeled motorized cars just because they did it first. They deserve the credit, but other brands coming after weren't going to start making 3-wheeled and 6-wheeled cars if they were not as effective just so they can differentiate themselves. 4-wheeled motorized cars worked well for the past century and will continue to be the most effective way of making a car for a while no matter how much companies will try to bring new ideas to the industry. Sometimes you can't go faster than science and technological progress.
By being strongly inspired by Apple with their Galaxy line, Samsung admitted they weren't able to bring something new to the table that was better than the iPhone's UI. So what? The only other thing they could have done was to make a phone with a UI that's admittedly worse than the iPhone's while being original. They made the choice to have more effective phones despite looking like copycats, lowering the brand's prestige/status. That's fine for me. In the end all consumers end up having better phones, and Samsung has a lower brand status than Apple, like it deserves to. That seems totally fair to me.
I'm proud to be an iPhone owner because Apple did revolutionize the smartphone game. Even if Android phones were unanimously better, I'd still be proud to support the company that started it all.
The iPhone was a better phone overall than what we were used to at the time it came out. That's a fact. Credit to Apple for that. But they can't prevent people from using UI elements that are just plain effective simply because they thought it first.
It's like if Ford patented 4-wheeled motorized cars just because they did it first. They deserve the credit, but other brands coming after weren't going to start making 3-wheeled and 6-wheeled cars if they were not as effective just so they can differentiate themselves. 4-wheeled motorized cars worked well for the past century and will continue to be the most effective way of making a car for a while no matter how much companies will try to bring new ideas to the industry. Sometimes you can't go faster than science and technological progress.
By being strongly inspired by Apple with their Galaxy line, Samsung admitted they weren't able to bring something new to the table that was better than the iPhone's UI. So what? The only other thing they could have done was to make a phone with a UI that's admittedly worse than the iPhone's while being original. They made the choice to have more effective phones despite looking like copycats, lowering the brand's prestige/status. That's fine for me. In the end all consumers end up having better phones, and Samsung has a lower brand status than Apple, like it deserves to. That seems totally fair to me.
Last edited:
Such blatant copying of a product as samsung has done cannot be allowed.
Shrugging it off is just politics. But I can't imagine Samsung getting away with this.
Remember when Apple copied the competition during the net-book craze? That happened in bizarro world.
Shrugging it off is just politics. But I can't imagine Samsung getting away with this.
Remember when Apple copied the competition during the net-book craze? That happened in bizarro world.
I bet they are, thats probably why they're attacking Samsung.
Exactly! But Apple is doing this for a reason, their not dumb.
Wake up man, Apple is really trying hard to protect something that isn't really being violated...Apple, needs to just make more great products and innovate to a degree, where if samsung even thought about copying apple, they knew no court in this world would favor their side.
Im sorry but last time i checked you couldn't patent an advert. You can copyright it, but simply replacing the phone and the title is change enough to eliminate any problem.
Yes, samsung is trying to market their phones like apple, why should this be illegal. Car companies do this all the time; and most other companies as well.
Why isn't Blackberry suing Nokia over this design? http://www.cameraphonesplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/cell-phones-nokia-2.jpg
Of course. It makes no difference. The goal in any case is to lock down your successful design as much as you can to prevent others from even getting close to it. The goal is to corner the market so YOU become the sole supplier of a product in high demand. The goal is to (ideally) not have anyone competing against you at all.
Apple is simply trying to corner the market here and become the sole source for the particular designs that characterize the iphone. It's an *attempt* that is made available to them by law. It comes down to what the courts will decide. So far, they have case.
Samsung will have copied several more versions of the ipad by then (or should I say they will have "rethought" their design several times).
@the "Clearly totally different" comment, there a a slew of similarities. Samsung first marketed the "Instinct" (which was the biggest piece of crap I ever owned) fully pitching its similiraties and how it was better than iPhone (it wasn't.) THeir own advertising could bite them. Also, if anyone could just slightly change an angle or an edge on something and call it their own, there would be no design innovation. (Hello Windows PC's!) It's not about cloning. You don't seem to understand what a knock off is. I'm not stating this is a knock off, let the courts do that, but I can see the argument.
What's funny though is you don't see Payless shoes being sued for all it's designer knock offs (that's their business). It's hard to claim ownership of a grid view, but to the average joe that walked into a wirless store that played with someone's iphone once, it would seem almost like a newer version. Moto and HTC both have grids, but their design shouts who made the phone. Samsung's design doesn't shout "Samsung." Touch Wiz is very IOS. Not just in look, but how it's used. These suits aren't about "exact" copies but "likeness" and CLEARLY there is a likeness. The question is how much does Apple own in legal rights to that look, or is Samsung free to use that "likeness" in additional to under the hood technologies. Samsung even has a "doc like" bottom row.
HTC
MotoBlur Interface
Palm Web OS
Well anyone could argue similarities in all of these, none of them SCREAM iPhone like the Samsung interface does. Compare all 4 and now tell me Samsung is "Clearly Totally Different". And yes, the hardware is similar in ways too. So are 100's of other handsets Apple isn't suing over to be fair.