This has nothing to do with compassion, this is about two corporation milking your money as much as they can.
That said, I always do think of others but as in people, not heartless corporations.
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Apple and Samsung Negotiating Agreement to Settle Patent Disputes Out of Court
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This has nothing to do with compassion, this is about two corporation milking your money as much as they can.
That said, I always do think of others but as in people, not heartless corporations.
No, I'd say my common sense about the punishment fitting the crime is still pretty basic and logical.
BUT... Congratulations, after 3 posts you have finally made an actual point. Your contention is that Samsung has only benefited (or stands to benefit in the future) around a billion dollars from their copying and therefore the fine was appropriate for the crime. That's a point; a very bad and shortsighted one in my opinion, and you failed to provide any supporting details, but a point nonetheless.
It's a bad point because we are talking about a global smartphone market worth over 200B. The current global cellphone market is even larger. The global mobile computing market of the future is estimated to be in the trillions. In a market of this size 1B is almost always going to be immaterial. Just 1% of the current 200B market is 2B in revenue.
More realistically though, if we were to really get into the future prospects of the industry as well as a more realistic percentage that the infringements helped Samsung get you could easily get into damages far exceeding anything Samsung was ever going to be charged. For example a fairly conservative estimate of just the smartphone market at 400B and a fairly conservative estimate of 10% puts the revenue damages at 40B.
Basically, by making the statement that Samsung only benefited by the amount of the damages awarded (less than 1B) you are effectively saying that Samsung only gained about .2% of the market profits from their infringements. I find that to be a very tough position to defend but I'd love to hear it.
What it is tough to defend is the silly argument that Samsung has benefited more than $20 billion because they infringed some patents in USA.
patents that in every part of the world where Apple has sued have been void.
You believe that? Perfect, it is your prerogative, it won't be it more real.
So, have a hive day and believe that rubber band patent has given billions to Samsung.
At least $40 billion in damages? And you can say with straight face that it is common sense?
If it helps any:
Award fits the patent contribution
With patents, the award is mostly supposed to fit their relative contribution to a product's success.
There are over 250,000 patents involved in a smartphone. Apple's handful ... all of which Samsung later designed around, thus proving that Apple's version was not a requirement for sales... were a tiny part.
Proof of lost sales due to the patent
More importantly, Apple could not prove that sales were lost due to their patents, and that's a major reason why multiple judges refused injunctions against Samsung.
They noted that neither company had ever included any of the supposed essential Apple features in their pre-trial buyer surveys. In other words, the features weren't even on Apple's own top list of reasons why people buy Apple devices.
Trial Location
Remember too, that the trial was in the US, and was only about US sales. Samsung never sold that much here to begin with; most of their sales were outside the US... where software patents are often not allowed, and where Apple's designs were not seen as that unique.
A patent is supposed to be an exclusive right.
What if Apple was only ever interested in enforcing it as an exclusive right?
What if for Apple it wasn't about the money, the money was only a tool to make enforcement happen?
Suppose someone sneaks into your house every night and sleeps on your couch.
Suppose you don't like that and want it to stop.
But all you can get is a what some other people think is reasonable fee for a few hours couch rental.
What if that is what it feels like to Apple?
Are they crazy?
I'm pretty sure nobody buys Samsung devices because of rounded corners, or swipe to unlock or any of the other ridiculous things Apple was suing for. At least I didn't.
How you equate $20B+ is just insane.
What it is tough to defend is the silly argument that Samsung has benefited more than $20 billion because they infringed some patents in USA.
patents that in every part of the world where Apple has sued have been void.
You believe that? Perfect, it is your prerogative, it won't be it more real.
So, have a hive day and believe that rubber band patent has given billions to Samsung.
At least $40 billion in damages? And you can say with straight face that it is common sense?
You are truly incredible at attacking the straw man and avoiding a point. Just make up you're own arguments and disagree with yourself why don't you? Nobody said a verdict of 40B was common sense. Nobody said "at least 40B in damages." What is common sense (for the 15th time) is that if a punishment is tiny when compared to what could be gained from a crime then the punishment will not deter the crime. For example, if I could cheat on my math test tomorrow and get a 100 and I knew that if I got caught I would only lose a single point then it would be idiotic for me not to try to cheat. That is common sense.
Now, I obviously believe that Samsung had much to gain from copying Apple (much more than 1B in damages). And no, the position that Samsung has benefited more than 20B from its tactics is not tough to defend. As a matter of fact I just did a fairly thorough job of defending that exact position.
Nobody here is saying that the single rubber band patent was worth 20B. It's actually amazing how many times you have responded and how little you've actually said. I understand you think my point is silly. I get it. You certainly said it enough. Now tell me why it's apparently so silly? If you can't then that's fine too, but don't come back for the 15th time with the response, "it's silly because it just is."
Then Apple does not have to license the patent. Those who infringed on it have to find another method of doing the same thing.
They must also compensate Apple for the infringement that already occurred... usually in the amount that the patent is worth, unless the infringement was deliberate.
With software patents, infringement is rarely found to be deliberate, because most of the time, the developer 1) didn't know about the patent and 2) came up with the same method on their own.
Infringement does not mean they had to come in your house.
It's more like you patented sleeping on a couch curled up. But others started sleeping on couches too.
Annoyed, you take them to court and prove that they're sleeping using the same way that you patented. They now owe you a reasonable fee.
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You have to be very careful what you wish for here.
Consider: Apple themselves have been found to infringe quite a few patents in the iPhone, from Visual Voice Mail, to code used by Facetime.
Is your wish that they be fined billions of dollars because that's how much they have profited from selling iPhones and iPads?
Or do you think that they should pay a reasonable fee for infringing, a fee determined by the contribution of that particular item to the whole device, and be allowed to find another method.
Which comes down to mandatory licensing.
Yes. Staying away from patents is smart. Also, many are obscure legalese, of no use to implementors.
Ooh analogies are hard!
The idea is that patents are like regular property, like a house.
A house owner does not have to tolerate someone using their house, even if they pay a reasonable price. A house owner could call the police to throw him out.
Similarly, in theory, a patent owner does not have to tolerate someone using their patent, even if they pay a reasonable price. In practice, apparently sometimes they do.
Nobody suing Apple is saying "Don't use my stuff, I want it for myself!", they are saying "Pay me!". The rest is haggling over price.
Apple is supposed to be allowed to say "Don't use my stuff, I want it for myself!".
The patent system is supposed to be able to enforce that.
Not say "What you crazy? You don't like money?? Don't be an idiot."
True, Apple is lucky that many others are okay with sharing for a price.
Fair enough. You're saying there should be a way to stop others from using your patents. There is. That's what an injunction is for, assuming the infringer doesn't voluntarily stop.
But that only takes care of the future. According to US Code 35, Section 284, the patent holder also deserves compensation for any past infringement that the court found, and that's what the awards based on patent value and lost sales do.
Ah. Perhaps you thought that the infringer could continue to infringe without permission, using the court determined damages royalty rate. No sir.
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I looked around quickly, and here's a couple of fairly short explanations that might help:
Patent Damages Primer - http://www.fr.com/primer/
Remedies for Patent Infringement - http://nationalparalegal.edu/public_documents/courseware_asp_files/patents/Patents2/Remedies.asp
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I agree with much of what you say here. Obviously Apple has infringed certain patents. Hell I've "invented" things only to search and find out that the app has already been created for my "invention." I don't believe a company should be fined billions for something like that. However, I also shouldn't be able to just continue on with my "invention" indefinitely or without paying the true inventor.
So much of morality has to do with motive/intent. For example, if I shoot someone because I want to steal their money then I should be punished. If I shoot someone because they have opened fire on an open crowd then I'm a hero. Both circumstances I shot someone but my motive makes all the difference.
My issue with Samsung is that they willfully and blatantly infringed. Not just rounded corners, or rubber banding, but everything in between to very small details. They have been found to have willfully done these things. If you haven't seen the images of the charger, the USB cable, the product boxes, etc then a quick google search of "Samsung copies" will show this blatant copying. This, to me, isn't even debatable.
My point, and what I believe is up for debate, is that I think Samsung realized how crucial the time was in the smartphone market and how big this market was going to be. I think they knew that the penalties they might have to pay were never going to amount to the potential of this market. I also think this copying won not only marketshare and dollars but also mindshare that helped them become Apples primary competitor. Basically, I think they knew they were copying and they said, "screw it" because they knew the opportunity far outweighed any penalty they were going to have to pay.
Obviously it can be argued that Samsung's success came from their own innovations, or marketing, or differentiating themselves, etc. It's hard to prove that it came from the things they copied from Apple. In all reality it was probably a mixture of all these things and copying Apple. Regardless though a fine of 1B is never going to stop a company from doing something like this when the opportunity far exceeds that cost.
Which Samsung doesn't. But injunctions cannot be had.
In practice though, an infringer can continue to infringe without permission. Samsung is doing it.
From the first trial:
The jury found Samsung infringed Apple's patents on iPhone's "Bounce-Back Effect" (US Patent No. 7,469,381), "On-screen Navigation" (US Patent No. 7,844,915), and "Tap To Zoom" (US Patent No. 7,864,163), and design patents that covers iPhone's features such as the "home button, rounded corners and tapered edges" (US D593087) and "On-Screen Icons" (US D604305)
From the second trial:
The jury found Samsung infringed Apple's patents No. "action on datatstructure" (No. 5,946,647), Slide to unlock (No. 8,046,721), and word recommendation/autocomplete (No. 8,074,172)
The Bounce-Back is (or will probably eventually be) invalidated.
Slide to unlock might be too.
Samsung has workarounds for and/or stopped using the rest?
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How do you know? Show me.
Still, even if they can be forced to stop eventually, Samsung's corporate culture is based on "Let's just do what others do for as long as we kan get away with it". They cloned the Roomba's and Dyson's stuff, (Samsung is huge, suing them is not for the faint of heart, Dyson is giving it a shot) and are about to go clone Google Glass and Oculus Rift.
With the Gear they tried to clone a rumored Apple product, and demonstrated that without an actual product to copy the can only produce duds.
I know perfectly what the case is about and when Samsung stopped using rubber band, the slide to unlock infringed or the universal search.
Just two hints, look a GS3 and a GS1 and look what the ITC said about the workarounds.