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Rolex purchased at the Cartier = Original
Rolex purchased on the street corner for $19.99 = Knockoff

Birkin Bag purchased at Hermès on Rodeo Dr. = Original
Birkin Bag purchased on Ebay for $50.00 = Knockoff

iOS = Original
Android = Knockoff
 
The only court case I know of is the one where Apple sued Microsoft for stealing their GUI and Xerox sued Apple for the same thing. Both Apple and Xerox lost.

Microsoft was paying some $$ to Apple for a number of years not sure if they still are.
Heh and apple was paying some money to apple too...
 
Just follow the career of Andy Rubin and you will see how this all started.

Mix in one part Eric Schmidt on the BOD at Apple,the Linux kernel and you get Android.

A "fractured" fairy tale.
Apple invited Eric to be on Apple BOD after Google acquired Android.

The results were Google was found to have used the java engine when they had no legal right to do so and then they changed it. Which they had no right to do.

Just look up Microsoft and you will see what Google did.
Only going case that is falling apart for oracle left and right.

Sort of. The source code may be available, but that doesn't mean that any hardware manufacturer can sell an Android product without permission from Google.

Yes they can sell Android without Google's permission just they can not put in any of the Google apps or have access to the Android market place. Neither of those are part Android and those do require license from Google. They are not open source.
 
Umm... It does.

They need a licence to use the Market Place, however that isn't the Google OS.

That is why you see a lot of tablets coming from china without the Market Place.

As someone said earlier, Companies pay google for help in implementing the source code onto their hardware, not for the OS itself.

And to use the Android trademark. They don't get to use that without approval. Google's use rules makes the open source license for Android somewhat theoretical.

FWIW, many of the handset makers are now paying license fees to Microsoft for the use of Android based on a patent lawsuit settlement.
 
As far as I can remember - Google employees openly discussed in the company email domain as how Java was essential to Android and even though they didn't license it, they would fully and wilfully exploit it. When asked in courts, they didn't really present the email.

I'm not very sure what all information Google will be letting Apple access. I highly doubt 'any'. 'Anything' that goes against them will be censored. Usual.

Excuse me, but what you are saying is not going to happen. This is a civil court case. If you hide information in a civil court case, the judge will assume that whatever you were hiding was speaking against you, and make his or her decisions accordingly. Apart from that, hiding evidence is the kind of behavior that gets lawyers disbarred and people jailed.
 
Read up on the cases. It has nothing to do with Apple winning the GUI cases (the only part they won was over a patent/trademark for the "Trash Bin").

Apple's "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft was dismissed. The reasons are complicated and probably don't need to be discussed here, but I don't believe Apple ever won any part of that challenge.

Yeah,like I said, Microsoft paid apple some money.thanks.

No, they did not.
 
What was it Steve said about copying great ideas?
We'll wait.

Great artists steal.

That is, great artists steal ideas. They don't steal designs. Maybe Samsung will hire great artists one day, so far they haven't.


In the end patent disputes only hurt consumers and that's a fact. If apple wins against android they don't have to develop ios as much because they killed of the competition and the innovation created from them in order to compete.

Interesting theory. So your boss would like it if I break into your home and steal your stuff, because that will make you work harder? If Apple wins then Android has to start competing by being innovative and not by copying.
 
Anyway, who cares anymore. Apple has always been the sue-happiest company in the industry. And now, since there haven't been any real innovations since the introduction of the first iPhone, apparently litigation is all that's left for them to do.


Uhm, iPad, Macbook Air, Apple TV...shall I continue?

Amazing, everyone made crappy netbooks and then Apple comes out with the Macbook Air, then suddenly there are "ultra-books" on the market.

Hey whatever happened to those Chromebooks? They must be selling like hotcakes by now! What? Nobody wants one other than a 10 penny geek? THAT'S what google makes when it does it's own thing.

The iPod was released and everyone said it was crap, they all tried their own take on it and they got crushed. Zune anyone? iRiver? Where are they now? Now the only way to catch up is to imitate and steal. Why not hire good people and work internally on something original. AT LEAST Microsloth did that.

Get your facts straight please!
 
For anyone to say that Google was not influenced in any way what-so-ever by the iPhone is either blind or just really stupid. Android was being demo'ed in 2006 and 2007, both of those times it was clearly an answer to the Blackberry.

Minor quibble:

Android was clearly competing with the Windows Mobile touch and non-touch based versions... not the Blackberry, which had a lock on the enterprise and was of little or no interest to Google's business model.

The original Android non-touch version dev phone even looked like a version of the Motorola Q. I think there's no doubt they were working on a touch version as well, just as their developers have said. Probably a bit WinMo-like, though.

Other than that, carry on :)

Sorry, but Apple changed the mobile UI paradigm. True Android doesn't look exactly like iOS, or Windows Phone Metro isn't even close, but the fact is, Apple came in and changed how people thought about user interfaces on mobile devices.

They certainly changed how mass consumers thought. (Of course, touch friendly UIs had existed on mobile vertical apps long before Apple came along, and there was much to learn from those, such as button size and placement.)

Apple popularized touch elements that others invented, such as pinch zoom and flick scrolling. They also incorporated elements (bounce back, scroll direction lock) that had been used elsewhere, and got patents on them for their implementation. And they patented a few new things like their particular method for rejecting false touches and determining a touch point.

Most importantly, Apple was the first to develop _and_ sell a very touch friendly UI. They deserve all the credit in the world for that. It certainly validated all the work that developers in my field (desktop and mobile touch UIs) had done for decades before Apple came along.

The movement towards such a UI was obvious to us at the time. I've written many times previously about the multi-touch and capacitive prototype phones that were being shown all throughout 2006. The iPhone team no doubt got some ideas of what to do (or not to do) from those, and so would've the Android team.

However, outside of Apple, the movement towards a product was very slow. Apple, on the other hand, clearly felt the need to move quickly and demo one before anyone else.

That's why Jobs rushed to publicly display the iPhone one week before the 2007 Mobile World Congress. He didn't want it to be second place. As it turned out, Apple was ahead of everyone else by far, and could've waited the few extra months it took to finish their design for sale, before revealing it.

The upshot is, I agree that Apple had a huge influence, because they popularized certain elements over others. Now, years later, they themselves are being influenced by others. So it goes always with products.
 
Cheers Apple!

In law if you do not protect your assets, someone can take them as in the case of the land grab of some neighbors to a friend of mine.

They asked if they could put a trampoline on his property, they did, eventually a year goes by, they build a shed on his property, a year goes by, they began digging a pool, and a tree is growing thru the old trampoline. His wife said you need to put a stop to this.

Long story short the neighbor owns that property now. If you do not protect your assets, people will steal them.
 
Excuse me, but what you are saying is not going to happen. This is a civil court case. If you hide information in a civil court case, the judge will assume that whatever you were hiding was speaking against you, and make his or her decisions accordingly. Apart from that, hiding evidence is the kind of behavior that gets lawyers disbarred and people jailed.

And so Google did. I'm not making this up btw.

----------

Minor quibble:

Android was clearly competing with the Windows Mobile touch and non-touch based versions... not the Blackberry, which had a lock on the enterprise and was of little or no interest to Google's business model.

The original Android non-touch version dev phone even looked like a version of the Motorola Q. I think there's no doubt they were working on a touch version as well, just as their developers have said. Probably a bit WinMo-like, though.

Other than that, carry on :)



They certainly changed how mass consumers thought. (Of course, touch friendly UIs had existed on mobile vertical apps long before Apple came along, and there was much to learn from those, such as button size and placement.)

Apple popularized touch elements that others invented, such as pinch zoom and flick scrolling. They also incorporated elements (bounce back, scroll direction lock) that had been used elsewhere, and got patents on them for their implementation. And they patented a few new things like their particular method for rejecting false touches and determining a touch point.

Most importantly, Apple was the first to develop _and_ sell a very touch friendly UI. They deserve all the credit in the world for that. It certainly validated all the work that developers in my field (desktop and mobile touch UIs) had done for decades before Apple came along.

The movement towards such a UI was obvious to us at the time. I've written many times previously about the multi-touch and capacitive prototype phones that were being shown all throughout 2006. The iPhone team no doubt got some ideas of what to do (or not to do) from those, and so would've the Android team.

However, outside of Apple, the movement towards a product was very slow. Apple, on the other hand, clearly felt the need to move quickly and demo one before anyone else.

That's why Jobs rushed to publicly display the iPhone one week before the 2007 Mobile World Congress. He didn't want it to be second place. As it turned out, Apple was ahead of everyone else by far, and could've waited the few extra months it took to finish their design for sale, before revealing it.

The upshot is, I agree that Apple had a huge influence, because they popularized certain elements over others. Now, years later, they themselves are being influenced by others. So it goes always with products.

You'll never give credit to Apple. We get it.
 
Read up on the cases. It has nothing to do with Apple winning the GUI cases (the only part they won was over a patent/trademark for the "Trash Bin").

READ!? Why? I can just make things up and believe what I want regardless of the facts!

Read! . . . . PFFF!

Great artists steal.

That is, great artists steal ideas. They don't steal designs. Maybe Samsung will hire great artists one day, so far they haven't.

Good thing HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony, and Acer all do.

Samsung does have a nice looking Galaxy Nexus with a curved body. That is somewhat innovative.

You'll never give credit to Apple. We get it.

We will give Apple credit where credit is due. It's not like we are saying Apple hasn't done anything whatsoever but they didn't invent the smartphone, or a phone with a touch screen, or a smartphone with a touchscreen that backed-up wirelessly, etc. etc.
 
Time to boycot. Tired of this crap. iPhone hasnt changed in 5 years besides minor things. Look at pictures from the first iPhone OS, until now.. It has a different dock and wallpaper.

Android is taking them to the cleaners at this point.

Apple is doomed! :rolleyes: Personally, I am voting with my dollars for Apple.
 
That would be referred to as obstruction of justice, a felony.

Only if it actually happened. I have a vague recollection of the email he is referring to and iirc they were released as part of the court case. If they weren't how do we know about them?
 
Sort of. The source code may be available, but that doesn't mean that any hardware manufacturer can sell an Android product without permission from Google.

Be somewhat more specific in your claims. Google couldn't stop Amazon making the Kindle Fire or stop random Chinese companies making incredibly cheap and presumably crap Android tablets. What makes you think random hardware manufactures can not make Android products? Preferably post a link to something that backs you up.
 
In the end patent disputes only hurt consumers and that's a fact. If apple wins against android they don't have to develop ios as much because they killed of the competition and the innovation created from them in order to compete. Do you think we would have had that notification system taken from Google if Google didn't make it? No Apple saw the competition and had to keep up. I can only imagine how little change would be in ios if they didn't have to compete with Android. I am glad their are competitors out there as it spurs on competition which we need as consumers. I hope Apple gets a smack down from the government soon for their bullying. I love my apple products but I want them to get better, therefor I want competition.

If there weren't any patents (copyrights,trademarks) then companies (like Apple) wouldn't be able to stay in business and that would hurt consumers! Can't make any money to stay in business if the next person just rips off your ideas. Then there would be no motivation to innovate and no competition!

Sure we all benefit from real competition but ideas stolen from apple and then incorporated into a competitors product is theft.

Exactly!
 
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Oracle's case is going down in flames.
4 of the 6 patents they are asserting have just been rejected by the USPTO upon reexamination on March 2.

They have another hearing on March 7. This will be Oracle's third attempt at coming up with a value for the patents in dispute.
The person writing the report is not exactly on Judge Alsup's good side right now as he has now failed to follow his instructions twice already.
Third times a charm I guess.

Hit up Groklaw for the details.
 
You're right of course. Nothing new in five years. Nothing at all. I mean, other than the App Store, multitasking, iCloud, Copy and Paste, Siri, Gamecentre, iTunes in the Cloud, Safari Reader, folders, notification centre, iMessages, Newstand, Facetime, Airplay, Airplay Mirroring and a ****-ton of other features relating to everything from the camera to how you manage the OS.

Apple has innovated in a lot of areas since the original iOS conceptual work, but the UI is not one of them. The biggest change has been notifications, and that was more or less a feature steal from Android (hell, they hired the guy who designed Android notifications). And a half-baked one at that. Their implementation of multitasking, while a great engineering feature behind-the-scenes, is not very efficient for users. Apple seems to be quite hesitant to use gestures to control system-level aspects like app switching. The notification pull-down gesture is about the only one they've added for the iPhone, and honestly I never use it. (Maybe if they made Notification Center more like Dashboard) I'd personally love an Exposé-like gesture on the iPhone -- the double-tap on Home button, then swipe swipe swipe to find the app I want is annoying and inefficient.

Perhaps Apple thinks their UI is already perfect. It's certainly usable. But there's a lot of room left to innovate.
 
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