Appeals Court Rules Judge Must Reconsider Banning Samsung Devices for Apple Patent Violations

[9000]

Do you realize how junk Apple products would be now if Apple did not feel an pressure to compete to keep ahead of others?

You owe every other company for Apple making the items they do now.

Don't care. Compete without stealing.

 

[typeadam]

...Apple would suffer irreparable harm...

And then we all laughed as we stood in a mile-long line waiting for our new iPads and iPhones.

irreparable -- that's what gets me the most.

Was Apple harmed? Yes, no doubt about it. But irreparable just sounds like someone cut off one of your arms that's why you're suing.
As per the ruling, while true that Apple will not see X amount of money due to Samsung's infringement, let's not make it sound like Apple is now being forced to live under a bridge and sell itself in back alleys to make a buck...

 

[josh.b]

And then we all laughed as we stood in a mile-long line waiting for our new iPads and iPhones.

irreparable -- that's what gets me the most.

Was Apple harmed? Yes, no doubt about it. But irreparable just sounds like someone cut off one of your arms that's why you're suing.
As per the ruling, while true that Apple will not see X amount of money due to Samsung's infringement, let's not make it sound like Apple is now being forced to live under a bridge and sell itself in back alleys to make a buck...

Irreparable. Look how many people hate on Apple for suing Samsung over something so obvious. That is pretty intense negative marketing.

 

[Technarchy]

gah get used to modern capitalist corporate living, suing is the way they do business, oh and ensuring they can patent an 'idea' they have only drawn in pretty colours on an A5 sheet of paper

If it's that simple why aren't you the head of a billion dollar company?

 

[aperry]

I'm always amazed at how defensive some people get when it comes to Apple. You defend this company like it's a family member.

Apple has made enough money to pay for the iPhone/iPad R&D costs 100x over. They haven't and won't stop innovating just because other companies copy their designs. In this case it's actually a very positive thing for the rest of us when Samsung keeps the pressure on.

And let's not forget the iO7 features that were borrowed from Android. Not to mention all of the features over the years that were ripped straight from Cydia.

 

[kdarling]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today ruled that Judge Lucy Koh, who presides over the Apple v. Samsung case, must reconsider her 2011 decision not to ban Samsung devices that infringed on Apple products, ...

It was her December 2012 decision not to issue an injunction, not 2011.

Koh did issue preliminary injunctions against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Tab, but the appeals court later reversed the ban on the Galaxy Nexus.

In some ways, it's been a comedy of justice so far. Koh keeps getting second guessed by the Appeals Court.

• Koh doesn't issue preiminary injunction against Tab.
• Appeals court remands decision, claiming harm to Apple while the trial is going on. So Koh issues injunction.
• Ooops. Jury says Tab doesn't infringe. Injunction repealed after trial ends.

Turns out that Koh was right the first time.

---

• Koh issues preliminary injunction against Nexus.
• Appeals court reverses injunction because it didn't meet a "causal nexus" requirement.

Okay, so there must be a causal nexus. That is, a patent must directly cause lost sales. Koh listens.

---

• Koh doesn't issue permanent injunction against Samsung phones because it doesn't meet the previous "causal nexus" requirement.
• Appeals court remands decision, now saying that a causal nexus could exist from an aggregate of patents.

Poor Koh. She did what they directed above, and now they modify their position slightly. Can't win for losing.

While today's appeals court ruling upholds Koh's original decision disallowing Apple from requesting an injunction based on design patents,

The decision that there can be no injunction based on infringement of Apple's design or trade dress, is a major development, and worthy of headlines on its own.

... it does allow for a possible injunction on Samsung products based on Apple's utility patents,

Possible injunction. Or Koh could do as the appeals court asked and issue the same denial, but backed up by the two things they now want:

1. Looking for a causal nexus from a group of patents, not just each on its own.
2. Pay more attention to Apple's expert witness on perceived value.

(2) is rather interesting, since that expert claimed that people would pay $40 to $100 more for a phone just because it has UI features like bounce back. Really? I wouldn't.

 

[Renzatic]

...is rather interesting, since that expert claimed that people would pay $40 to $100 more for a phone just because it has UI features like bounce back. Really? I wouldn't.

Neither would I. It's a nice ergonomic feature to be sure, but it's also rather fluff in the grand scheme of things. If I had two phones in front of me that were equal in all measures, save one had bounce where the other didn't, it wouldn't even factor into my final decision.

It's a good idea, but not one worth patenting, and most definitely not something worth hundreds of millions of dollars in infringement damages.

edit: to expand upon this idea, compare this...

...which is, of course, iOS7. Now that's a pretty blatant bit of similarity, and considerably more useful than bouncy screens. Yet I don't consider even it worthy of a patent, and I could care less that Apple all but ripped it off directly because I find it far, far better than the old setup.

Software patents are stupid, and ultimately do nothing but keep us from being able to enjoy our devices as well as we could.

 

[Piggie]

Don't care. Compete without stealing.

Are you pleased you car has 4 wheels, one in each corner.
A steering wheel which turns the front wheels
Foot pedals to control the engine, and brakes.

Good job Apple never made it 1st then.

Humans have been seeing someone else do something and making something similar since the 1st monkeys saw another monkey with a stick.

That's how we are where we are today and how Apple even came into existence.
It's stupid to try and stop this in the courts

I know you will never understand this, but everything you own will be in some way of come about by someone copying many aspects of what something else did beforehand.

 

[Renzatic]

That's how we are where we are today and how Apple even came into existence.

Or to put it more directly, everyone builds off the achievements of others, and usually achieves something new themselves in the process.

While I do agree that cloning something without thought is a complete waste of time, everything we see today is the extension of someone else's original idea, which was in turn the extension of yet another person's original idea, and so on and so on.

Now I know the usual argument is "how is Apple supposed to protect their hard earned ideas? Don't they deserve to profit from their hard work"? Well, yeah. They do. And guess what? They have.

Listening to the people around here, you'd think there's literally an entire industry built around ripping off every single thing Apple does without putting forth any thought or effort themselves. Yet despite the fact that all these supposed copycats have picked them dry, and are now selling iDevice clones out the wazoo, they've got 150 billion dollars plus in the bank, more mindshare than any other company currently in operation, and still continue to produce the single best selling phones and tablets on the market. I'd say they've been well rewarded, and continue to be well rewarded despite all the alleged stealing and backstabbing and blah blah blah.

Apple didn't fail in the past because everyone else stole their good ideas. It's because they ended up failing to compete in the market they helped create. If they're not careful, the exact same thing could happen to them again. Suing everyone else for every little thing you do will only help for so long if they don't continually capitalize upon their previous successes.

 

[EJWeibel]

Apple vs Samsung III US Appeals Court Oral Arguments Written Transcript

We've posted the only written transcripts of the oral arguments on the web. The arguments ran extremely long - over an hour. Ms. Sullivan argued for Samsung. Mr. Lee for Apple. And the judges on the CAFC panel were Bryson, Prost, and O'Malley.

http://www.altageneral.com/apple-vs-samsung-iii-us-appeals-court-oral-arguments-transcript.php

 

[kdarling]

We've posted the only written transcripts of the oral arguments on the web. The arguments ran extremely long - over an hour.

Thank you for that. Interesting about the time. Aren't patent appeal arguments supposed to be limited to 15 minutes each?

Some of the oral arguments ended up in the appeals decision, but there are a few pieces I want to comment on:

-- Apple's idea

First, I kind of like Apple's idea of a phased in injunction period. I know that's their way of putting a foot in the door, but it seems based on common sense.

The idea is that the infringing party is given X months or years to come up with an alternative for a feature. If the feature cannot be replaced by then, it must be a required feature and thus subject to injunction.

-- Design evidence

Second, I did not realize that the appeals court got to see some/all of the Samsung development evidence that Koh had prevented the jury from seeing because of an evidence technicality exploited by Apple. E.g. if they saw:



It might help to explain why the appeals court did not overturn Koh's reasoning about jury design infringement decisions not being enough for an injunction.



As Samsung's law firm had put it in a previous PR statement:

"The Judge's exclusion of evidence on independent creation meant that even though Apple was allowed to inaccurately argue to the jury that the F700 was an iPhone copy, Samsung was not allowed to tell the jury the full story and show the pre-iPhone design for that and other phones that were in development at Samsung in 2006, before the iPhone.

The excluded evidence would have established beyond doubt that Samsung did not copy the iPhone design. Fundamental fairness requires that the jury decide the case based on all the evidence."

Not allowing such evidence no doubt heavily slanted some of the jury's decisions. In trials in other countries, where prior art evidence was allowed, Apple has lost design infringement claims. The trial's outcome would have a lot more weight behind it if the jury had been able to see all the evidence.

--

Third, well, this one is long, so I'll use a different post.