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Apple to Alter VPN On Demand Behavior in iOS 6.1 and Later Due to VirnetX Lawsuit

roxxette said:
radiating said:
Holy jesus. The patent system is utterly broken. Seriously.

A company patents a simple conditional programing statement which is incredibly obvious, which is an insane patent, and wins a judgment for $368 million while showing no damages at all whatsoever, while the company using the patent gained virtually zero competetive advantage?

Beyond incredible.

I suspect removing the feature is a ploy by lawyers to show that lacking automatic VPN switching results in precisely zero reduction in sales.
Click to expand...

Indeed is broken :) Specially rectangular shapes....
Click to expand...


See I strongly disagree with that. Samsung literally copied the design of Apple products. In south korea there is a culture of making clones of products because they have no concept of intellectual property.

I thought it was ridiculous too, until I actually saw Samsung products in person and thought they were Apple products at first.


08-Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-7-7.jpg


The cloning was so extreme they even went as far as to copy the charger:

Samsung-Charger.png


I mean we're literally talking about designers buying Apple products and then carefully measuring and copying them on purpose. We're talking about willful and intentional theft of trade dress specifically so they could ride Apple's coat tails.

On the other hand in this case we have a company that patented something that is pants on head retardedly obvious, by taking a regular task and patenting the idea of doing it automatically.

The whole idea behind incredibly vague software patents is insane in the first place. Software patents are even more obsceen because they include so many qualifiers specifically to make them vague and they're akin to patenting human though processes. These patents are literally patenting elementary logic and they only thing they have to do is provide a context. Then on top of that the patent even allows them to say that they are patenting reaching the same conclusion through different methods. Now that's incredible.

I've decided using SAIC's inspiration I'm filing the following patent to patent deciding between two beverages:

Patent:

A method for determining supperior beverages in the context of neurological logic. Or any related field.

Step 1. The sensory input will observe the beverages or not observe them, or any beverage like product or no product in any context in any situation.

Step 2. A determination or no determination will be made on the supperiority or any quality lack of quality or no qualitty of the item or no item.

Now I'm going to go sue everyone.
 
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Radiating said:
See I strongly disagree with that. Samsung literally copied the design of Apple products. In south korea there is a culture of making clones of products because they have no concept of intellectual property.

I thought it was ridiculous too, until I actually saw Samsung products in person and thought they were Apple products at first.

08-Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-7-7.jpg


The cloning was so extreme they even went as far as to copy the charger:

Samsung-Charger.png


I mean we're literally talking about designers buying Apple products and then carefully measuring and copying them on purpose. We're talking about willful and intentional theft of trade dress specifically so they could ride Apple's coat tails.
Click to expand...

Shameless...
 
I hate...hate...HATE it when people show those plugs as proof of Samsung's "shameless copying". It's a standard full sized USB plug on a square AC adapter.

It's one of these...

plugs.jpg


Plus one of these...

usb.jpeg


Yeah, I guess Samsung could've gone out of their way and made it shaped like a triangle or an octogon or something, but comeon...
 
Renzatic said:
I hate...hate...HATE it when people show those plugs as proof of Samsung's "shameless copying". It's a standard full sized USB plug on a square AC adapter.

It's one of these...

Image

Plus one of these...

Image

Yeah, I guess Samsung could've gone out of their way and made it shaped like a triangle or an octogon or something, but comeon...
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No it's not. The dimensions and shape are virtually identical to the Apple charger. If you look at the dissasembly of the chargers you actually have to do some very creative engineering to fit an AC converter into a package that small and of that shape and when you start to miniaturize the shape you get naturally is a cylindrical charger or a long rectangular one not a square one. You have to awkwardly split the PCB into two halves connected by wires and suspended by the enclosure which is a very unusual construction method.

chargers.png
 
I see a nearly identical Samsung adapter in the top row of your shot. The only difference is it's slightly more adorned.

Secondly, the Samsung plug has shallower bevels than Apple's.

Thirdly, why does it matter? Design patent infringement? Like Apple invented a square plug. They're similar, sure. But who cares? It's an "I told you so look look look" talking point, and nothing more.
 
Radiating said:
No it's not. The dimensions and shape are virtually identical to the Apple charger. If you look at the dissasembly of the chargers you actually have to do some very creative engineering to fit an AC converter into a package that small and of that shape and when you start to miniaturize the shape you get naturally is a cylindrical charger or a long rectangular one not a square one. You have to awkwardly split the PCB into two halves connected by wires and suspended by the enclosure which is a very unusual construction method.

Image
Click to expand...

Agreed!

Renzatic said:
I see a nearly identical Samsung adapter in the top row of your shot. The only difference is it's slightly more adorned.

Secondly, the Samsung plug has shallower bevels than Apple's.

Thirdly, why does it matter? Design patent infringement? Like Apple invented a square plug. They're similar, sure. But who cares? It's an "I told you so look look look" talking point, and nothing more.
Click to expand...

From a designer's standpoint it is blatantly obvious that Samsung just copied Apple. There are no two ways about it.

samsungcopyapple4.jpg
 
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mandis said:
:confused: Not the same thing at all actually. Copyright laws provide little protection to software developers as software titles and/or features are almost always works in progress. It is the underlying technology of a said title/feature that you want to protect and not just the software title/feature itself.
[/URL]
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But different and continually developed versions of software can be copyrighted as they are rolled out. Furthermore, there are excellent diagnostic techniques for detecting copyright infringement of even snippets of compiled code. The thing about this patent is its sheer obviousness. Look at all the other companies that had already developed algorithms that did the same thing. That simple fact should invalidate the patent. I'm willing to bet there were versions of shareware out there that predate this patent. It's been said for a long time that software should NOT be patentable, and the example here is a beautiful illustration of exactly why.
 
jw2002 said:
But different and continually developed versions of software can be copyrighted as they are rolled out. Furthermore, there are excellent diagnostic techniques for detecting copyright infringement of even snippets of compiled code. The thing about this patent is its sheer obviousness. Look at all the other companies that had already developed algorithms that did the same thing. That simple fact should invalidate the patent. I'm willing to bet there were versions of shareware out there that predate this patent. It's been said for a long time that software should NOT be patentable, and the example here is a beautiful illustration of exactly why.
Click to expand...

I still think that holding a patent for your invention is necessary. Copyright is just not enough.
 
We use VPN on demand extensively, configured through our MDM, to allow iPhones and iPads to access internal content.

This will impact us, because in many cases, we have certain ports exposed publicly on a given server, but more content is available internally.

For example, our mail server only allows HTTPS webmail access publicly, whereas IMAPS and ActiveSync connections are limited to VPN users (for security and traceability reasons).

When Apple releases iOS 6.1, mail will break. Unless we expose more ports to the outside world (a security risk), or tell users to toggle VPN manually (no way that will work).

There are a whole lot of other use cases that may well break as well. It's going to be fun running an evaluation of all of them.
 
Dousing the Lies with Cold Water (Truth)

SPUY767 said:
Oh I get it, successful extortion is self validating.
Click to expand...

So you think that Virnetx's patents are simplistic conditional statements. Wow. Pretty darn simplistic thinking if you ask me.

Here's the real unvarnished background of the history of these patents:

1) SAIC does a lot of gov't work, as everyone knows.
2) SAIC was tasked to develop a SECURE process for sending and receiving messages, documents, etc, so that no one could hack in and steal. Who tasked SAIC? The CIA.
3) Thus the technology CREATED (and PATENTED) by SAIC for the CIA became the secure backbone of protecting our gov'ts secrets.
4) The gentlemen who created the technology decided to buy the patents from SAIC and form Virnetx. SAIC is still in position to get a hefty percentage of all infringement damages (for past use) awarded to Virnetx. Going forward, for 4G/LTE, VHC keeps all of any infringement awards.
5) KEY POINT: Apple knew it was infringing because its own s/w engineer tried to patent the same technology. Yet Apple did nothing to reach out to pay for using it, nor did they even bother to inform VHC that "yes, we know you patented this stuff earlier, but screw you, we're going to use it anyway and NOT pay you a dime." That has been their attitude the entire time.
6) 2ND KEY POINT Virnetx has declared to ETSI and ATIS that their patents are the essential security standards (and now just starting to install) for 4G/LTE Release 10 (and higher) networks. These patents are subject to FRAND pricing. Note that more than one company tried to find a work-around for these patents .... and could not. Thus the smaller fish in the pond are ponying up their FRAND royalties to Virnetx.

It boggles the mind as to some of the uneducated comments I've seen on this thread. People who know nothing of the history of the patents or what they are intended to do....dismissing them as a simple "else-then" conditional clause.

If you REALLY care to educate yourself on this topic, read this report, which gives you all the technical detail to form an opinion of your own.
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=8852&pt=msg&mn=23655

----------
Radiating said:
On the other hand in this case we have a company that patented something that is pants on head retardedly obvious, by taking a regular task and patenting the idea of doing it automatically.

The whole idea behind incredibly vague software patents is insane in the first place. Software patents are even more obsceen because they include so many qualifiers specifically to make them vague and they're akin to patenting human though processes. These patents are literally patenting elementary logic and they only thing they have to do is provide a context. Then on top of that the patent even allows them to say that they are patenting reaching the same conclusion through different methods. Now that's incredible.

I've decided using SAIC's inspiration I'm filing the following patent to patent deciding between two beverages:

Patent:

A method for determining supperior beverages in the context of neurological logic. Or any related field.

Step 1. The sensory input will observe the beverages or not observe them, or any beverage like product or no product in any context in any situation.

Step 2. A determination or no determination will be made on the supperiority or any quality lack of quality or no qualitty of the item or no item.

Now I'm going to go sue everyone.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. If you think the patents are so obvious and simple, then read this report (which describes them in nauseating detail) and tell me if you EVEN UNDERSTAND it. I doubt that you will. Which will prove the point that your judgement in this matter is flawed.

http://www.investorvillage.com/uploads/82446/files/Enabling_Advanced_Comm_VirnetX.pdf

----------
jw2002 said:
The thing about this patent is its sheer obviousness. Look at all the other companies that had already developed algorithms that did the same thing. That simple fact should invalidate the patent. I'm willing to bet there were versions of shareware out there that predate this patent. It's been said for a long time that software should NOT be patentable, and the example here is a beautiful illustration of exactly why.
Click to expand...

Well, let's see. Apple and Cisco both challenged Virnetx's patents at the USPTO. It took more than a year for the USPTO to determine that NOTHING predated these patents. Apple and Cisco both threw every document they thought was relevant to these patents to prove that the patents were nothing new. NOTHING worked. All patents were declared valid by the USPTO. And the juries.

So, if you believe that there is something out there that predates Virnetx's patents, be sure to tell Apple's general counsel, because they would love to shoot down Virnetx. So far, they haven't been able to.

Why is that?
 
TheIguana said:
The sheer fact that Apple's own software engineers testified that they did not spend any time determining if an software patents existed for the systems they were building is pretty telling. If one of the largest software companies in the world doesn't even bother looking to see if software patents exist when developing a new technology than bluntly what is the point in their existence? Other than to feed the insatiable need patent trolls have to plunder.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but this just shows the lunacy of patents. If any number of software developers could just dream up a concept without knowing of a similar patent than that clearly isn't patentable.

Software patents need to go altogether and fast.
 
Radiating said:
See I strongly disagree with that. Samsung literally copied the design of Apple products. In south korea there is a culture of making clones of products because they have no concept of intellectual property.

I thought it was ridiculous too, until I actually saw Samsung products in person and thought they were Apple products at first.
Click to expand...

You know that all the courts where Apple has sued for the tablet design have stated that there is no copying, don't you?
 
mandis said:
:confused: Not the same thing at all actually. Copyright laws provide little protection to software developers as software titles and/or features are almost always works in progress. It is the underlying technology of a said title/feature that you want to protect and not just the software title/feature itself.

More info here: Copyrighting Software vs. Patenting Software
Click to expand...

I stand with my opinion, software patents are bad
 
wizard001 said:
So you think that Virnetx's patents are simplistic conditional statements. Wow. Pretty darn simplistic thinking if you ask me.
Click to expand...

I always intended my comment to be simple. I was not referring to an individual case, but the system as a whole.

And on a side note, I must have really rustled your jimmies for you to create an account to respond to me.
 
wizard001 said:
So you think that Virnetx's patents are simplistic conditional statements. Wow. Pretty darn simplistic thinking if you ask me.

Here's the real unvarnished background of the history of these patents:

1) SAIC does a lot of gov't work, as everyone knows.
2) SAIC was tasked to develop a SECURE process for sending and receiving messages, documents, etc, so that no one could hack in and steal. Who tasked SAIC? The CIA.
3) Thus the technology CREATED (and PATENTED) by SAIC for the CIA became the secure backbone of protecting our gov'ts secrets.
4) The gentlemen who created the technology decided to buy the patents from SAIC and form Virnetx. SAIC is still in position to get a hefty percentage of all infringement damages (for past use) awarded to Virnetx. Going forward, for 4G/LTE, VHC keeps all of any infringement awards.
5) KEY POINT: Apple knew it was infringing because its own s/w engineer tried to patent the same technology. Yet Apple did nothing to reach out to pay for using it, nor did they even bother to inform VHC that "yes, we know you patented this stuff earlier, but screw you, we're going to use it anyway and NOT pay you a dime." That has been their attitude the entire time.
6) 2ND KEY POINT Virnetx has declared to ETSI and ATIS that their patents are the essential security standards (and now just starting to install) for 4G/LTE Release 10 (and higher) networks. These patents are subject to FRAND pricing. Note that more than one company tried to find a work-around for these patents .... and could not. Thus the smaller fish in the pond are ponying up their FRAND royalties to Virnetx.

It boggles the mind as to some of the uneducated comments I've seen on this thread. People who know nothing of the history of the patents or what they are intended to do....dismissing them as a simple "else-then" conditional clause.

If you REALLY care to educate yourself on this topic, read this report, which gives you all the technical detail to form an opinion of your own.
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=8852&pt=msg&mn=23655

----------



Nonsense. If you think the patents are so obvious and simple, then read this report (which describes them in nauseating detail) and tell me if you EVEN UNDERSTAND it. I doubt that you will. Which will prove the point that your judgement in this matter is flawed.

http://www.investorvillage.com/uploads/82446/files/Enabling_Advanced_Comm_VirnetX.pdf

----------



Well, let's see. Apple and Cisco both challenged Virnetx's patents at the USPTO. It took more than a year for the USPTO to determine that NOTHING predated these patents. Apple and Cisco both threw every document they thought was relevant to these patents to prove that the patents were nothing new. NOTHING worked. All patents were declared valid by the USPTO. And the juries.

So, if you believe that there is something out there that predates Virnetx's patents, be sure to tell Apple's general counsel, because they would love to shoot down Virnetx. So far, they haven't been able to.

Why is that?
Click to expand...

I've read VirtnetX's lawsuits. The company is a patent troll that utilizes a plethora of shady techniques to troll legitimate companies into paying them money for their useless obvious ideas. The entire reason the company exists is because they are doing things so underhanded that the patent holders are afraid of retaliation so the company exists to prevent countersuits. This company's job is literally to sit around all day and figure out who to sue and which loopholes to exploit to maximize profit. They are a lawsuit and bullying company. Their primary IP is the most pants on head retarded thing you could patent. And reading their publications is like reading a 6 year old's manifesto about exploiting a technicality in kindergarden rules. These guys gloat at the idea that they are milking a broken system and getting these huge settlements and VirtnetX need to be spanked and lose ten times what they're worth.

Their primary intellectual property is a disgrace to the patent system. You can't even quote the wording of the actual patent without sounding insane, literally this is what they patented:

"A secure communication link is established between a first computer and a second computer over a computer network based on the enabled secure communication mode of communication."

That's literally it. They establish secure communication on the enabled mode of secure communication.

Here let me make a pants on head retarded patent worth 11 billion dollars:

Method for driving safely.

Drive based on the available safe paths for driving.

Amazing.

In case you were wondering companies like this are a relatively new trend because the legal system kept the broken US patent system in check due to the existence of countersuits. Most companies hold large patent portfolios with several specifically vague patents which enable them to counter sue in the event they are sued by a vague patent. In other words the system worked because all sides were armed to the teeth with these broken intellectual properties. Then someone ruined it for everyone by giving the nukes to a third party which insulated them from retaliation and now it's a free for all with everyone launching these patent nukes left and right to make a quick buck.

Sooner or later though patent law will have to change. I would like to see patents largely kept they way they are but limit total lifetime royalties and damages to 10 times the cost of the research, including the cost of failed research in the same sector. That way patents will actually be doing what they're supposed to... rewarding inventors for doing the hard work of inventing. If there is no work there should be no reward. It's very simple.
 
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Renzatic said:
Apple is found guilty of infringing on 1 patent: $368 million fine.

Samsung is found guilty of infringing on 2 patents: $1 billion fine

Looks like Apple got paid pretty damn well.
Click to expand...

Because you can't sue Samsung for their abusive position as a hardware provider for Apple which allowed them to move faster than the competition when Apple released their phone.

Just like Eric Schmidt used his position at the Apple board to spy at them and make Google react faster. That's interesting to see them team up together. As we say: people that behave the same are always teaming together.

Two cowards that abused their preferred position with Apple.

Anyway, could also be a kick in the ass for all the offshoring **** that US pushed everywhere. Dell was kicked by Asus, Apple by Samsung, only a few of a long list.

In few years, Asia will kick Western asses and don't make the same mistake as we did...
 
Mr.damien said:
Because you can't sue Samsung for their abusive position as a hardware provider for Apple which allowed them to move faster than the competition when Apple released their phone.

Just like Eric Schmidt used his position at the Apple board to spy at them and make Google react faster. That's interesting to see them team up together. As we say: people that behave the same are always teaming together.

Two cowards that abused their preferred position with Apple.

Anyway, could also be a kick in the ass for all the offshoring **** that US pushed everywhere. Dell was kicked by Asus, Apple by Samsung, only a few of a long list.

In few years, Asia will kick Western asses and don't make the same mistake as we did...
Click to expand...

The force is strong with you ! :eek:
 
Mr.damien said:
Because you can't sue Samsung for their abusive position as a hardware provider for Apple which allowed them to move faster than the competition when Apple released their phone.
Click to expand...

No, they didn't. The basic hardware Apple uses for the iPhone isn't so far ahead of the competition that it can't be predicted, or require an inside look to replicate. Samsung's phones aren't even much better than the competition on the spec front.

Like I said in the other thread, the only insider information Samsung would get from producing the iPhone hardware would be the specs. And even the hardware being produced were special design that required someone to go over it with a fine toothed comb before they could replicate it, it'd only give them a couple months head start over the competition.

Just like Eric Schmidt used his position at the Apple board to spy at them and make Google react faster.
Click to expand...

This is a fantasy dreamed up by people completely ignorant of the facts posting on Apple specific messageboards for brownie points. It never happened.
 
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