Apple Wins Preliminary Injunction Against Samsung Galaxy Tab Sales in U.S.

[allmIne]

Glad to see progress being made. Good work, Apple.

Yeah! Right on, brother!

I, like you, can't wait until there's only one iPad, and it's a bit ****. Oh, and $1500.

That'll be a good day.

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A tablet could be shaped like two ovals welded together at the center. Not all tablets have to be squares.

Well they can't, now. Or, by your own argument, the new tablet would be infringing on the 'two ovals welded together at the center' tablet, wouldn't it?

 

[Renzatic]

Well they can't, now. Or, by your own argument, the new tablet would be infringing on the 'two ovals welded together at the center' tablet, wouldn't it?

I'm trying to figure out if this is some kind of patent oriented zen koan or something. Gimme a sec to think about it, and I'll give you an answer.

edit: mu.

 

[Winni]

This pounding of Samsung is becoming comical.

Apple simply isn't going to tolerate thieving of their
ideas.

It's funny how different your American legal system works -- European courts did NOT rule in Apple's favor lately and they did NOT ban Galaxy Tab sales.

Personally, Apple's design claims are ridiculous ("rounded corners" - every traffic sign has them, as Jobs himself pointed out in the 1980s, enough said) and most of the patents that they use in their court cases are so trivial that they should not have received patents for those "inventions" in the first place. (A patent for locating a phone number in a text and hyperlinking it to the phone function of the device - now what's worthy of a patent here?)

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Says the guy who has never created, invented or made anything of value.

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Are the trolls here really holding out hope for the surface?

Seeing that the Surface tablet is a) a "real" tablet and b) also a "real" computer with c) a "real" operating system on it - and some castrated mobile OS with very restricted functionality like iOS and d) some actually innovative design ideas like keyboard integration in the cover and e) backed by the largest software company on the planet with the richest software ecosystem on the globe - then f) yes, Apple should be worried.

 

[yusukeaoki]

Apple comes up with originality.
Samsung doesn't.

 

[dbyway]

I can see how it would be stressful designing these things, because there are only so many ways you can make a tablet look, but Samsung seems to be really pushing the limit as-of-late.

 

[menithings]

Samsung needs to be vigorously and relentlessly sued until they stop their habitual copying. Competition is good, but trade dress and IP theft undermines innovation because it devalues a company's hard earned product identity, which for Apple is extremely valuable.

I find Samsung's copying so abundant and comical that I've devoted a Pinterest page to it. Check it out at:

http://pinterest.com/menithings/same-sung/

 

[Oletros]

You are right man. They are hindering Samsung's innovation!

Still using this debunked picture?

 

[Ori]

I too can see this happening if Microsoft does it right. Google may well be the odd man out. A lot of people use Windows and I can see them flocking to these new products if they are done properly. Google is still trying to create brand recognition in the software field. Microsoft and Apple did it decades ago.

This doesn't fill me with hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSj8GUZDuac&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[nick_elt]

Microsoft seemed to be able to do it and not have even the packaging INSIDE THE BOX look EXACTLY like Apple's

As much as I dont like microsoft windows from past experiences. You have to give them credit that everything that they are doing is somewhat original which u cant say about samsung at all or most other manufacturers

 

[thundersteele]

Judge: Samsung, you have to stop shipping the Galaxy 10.1
Samsung: We stopped shipping those 6 months ago.

Just what I was thinking.

Copyright protection is important... but when it gets to a point that the progress of technology is stopped, maybe one should rethink the whole business.

Also some of the patents that these companies apply for are ridiculous. Slide to unlock? Mouse click? Right mouse click? And of course the tablet. It's flat and has a screen... what can you do. I've seen that design many times before the iPad arrived. Of course you can make a green bezel and the back out of wood to differentiate from Apple, but honestly, that's ridiculous.

 

[Piggie]

Samsung needs to be vigorously and relentlessly sued until they stop their habitual copying. Competition is good, but trade dress and IP theft undermines innovation because it devalues a company's hard earned product identity, which for Apple is extremely valuable.

I find Samsung's copying so abundant and comical that I've devoted a Pinterest page to it. Check it out at:

http://pinterest.com/menithings/same-sung/

Pray tell me, why only Samsung?

Should it not be made illegal in the courts to continually single out just one company to attempt sue again and again and again, whilst ignoring all other companies with similar/virtually identical products?

If Apple wishes to show it is honestly fighting the points it's bringing up and not unfairly targeting one simple company, then they should be forced to either drop their complains again Samsung or bring all makes/brands into the court and sue them all collectively

I cannot see how it is legal in the US to single out just a single company again and again whilst ignoring others who break the same points you are complaining about.

 

[Renzatic]

If Apple wishes to show it is honestly fighting the points it's bringing up and not unfairly targeting one simple company, then they should be forced to either drop their complains again Samsung or bring all makes/brands into the court and sue them all collectively

We did have the Apple vs. Motorola thing going on, but it ended up getting thrown out after the judge suffered a mental breakdown over the inane stupidity of it all.

Apparently both Apple's and Motorola's lawyers somehow neglected to provide proof of any damages. Yup.

...which makes me think. The whole tech industry has been kinda litigious over the last couple or three years. Dozens upon dozens upon dozens of Lawsuits. Apple suing Motorola, Samsung. MS extorting Android handset manufacturers. This guy suing that guy. It goes on and on and on. Question is...

...have any of them actually won any of their cases? Apple comes in suing everyone for violating 50,000 patents. Oracle sues Google over their use of Java. A lot of hooplah is made, the crowd comes out and posts stupid pictures of the Samsung kiosk, fingers are pointed, accusations are thrown about. But in the end, all Apple and the rest have ever managed to win out of these multimillion dollar lawsuits are consolation prizes. At best. There hasn't been a single stunning victory for any suing party since the smart phone law wars began.

It makes you think. Maybe there's some underlying strategy to all of this. Some angle these companies are playing that general public isn't seeing.

Or maybe they are just this dumb.

 

[robeddie]

This pounding of Samsung is becoming comical.

Apple simply isn't going to tolerate thieving of their
ideas.

The 'idea' of a rectangle screen with a black border around it. WOW, that's innovation. With all due respect, the reason apple's iPad is great is not the way it looks, but the way it works. I just don't get how the exterior design of the iPad is so 'amazing'. It's a rectangle. The screen is in front, and there's a black border around it. Am I missing something?

 

[TMay]

They're putting the entire strength of the company behind it. The tablet space is a burgeoning market they need to be a part of if they want to still be in the consumer tech game 10 years from now.




Your argument only makes sense if the Galaxy Tab was so similar to the iPad that it's nigh indistinguishable at first glance. To use your story against you, it's like Wilson suing Winston not because it made an inferior product that aped off their name, but because they're both selling a round basketball. Round being the key word here.

The iPad and Galaxy Tab are very similar in style, I'll give you that. But no one will confuse one for the other.

In U.S. District Court, an unfortunate Samsung Lawyer couldn't tell the difference between the iPad and the Samsung tablet held by the judge at 10 feet.

 

[Bezetos]

So Apple has finally proved it invented the rectangle?

Bring on the downvotes

 

[TMay]

The 'idea' of a rectangle screen with a black border around it. WOW, that's innovation. With all due respect, the reason apple's iPad is great is not the way it looks, but the way it works. I just don't get how the exterior design of the iPad is so 'amazing'. It's a rectangle. The screen is in front, and there's a black border around it. Am I missing something?

It is a minimalist design, by any definition prototypical on its entry into the market, and redefined what a tablet is, just as the iPhone redefined what a smartphone was with multitouch.

Samsung copied many elements of the iPad design, too many according to Apple. Hence, the preliminary injunction.

 

[Oletros]

Samsung copied many elements of the iPad design, too many according to Apple. Hence, the preliminary injunction.

No, the design patent is not about the iPad.

The funny thing is that the iPad is more different from the design patent than the Galaxy Tab

 

[Lennholm]

In U.S. District Court, an unfortunate Samsung Lawyer couldn't tell the difference between the iPad and the Samsung tablet held by the judge at 10 feet.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an iPad and that 2006 Samsung digital photo frame at that distance either.

 

[Bezetos]

You are right man. They are hindering Samsung's innovation!

Image

Sorry sir but most of these arguments are bull-ish.

1. One unfortunate store (is this really a store or just a stall at a conference?) showed some Apple icons. I've never seen that in any Samsung store.
2. The USB adapter is not of Apple's design, it has been used before.
3. It's a white box with a picture of the device on it... How original... (e.g. Nokia did that waaaay earlier than Apple)
4. The 30-pin connector is not of Apple's original design! It's a proprietary connector based on a standard 30-pin design. And I think I don't have to tell you that Apple has not invented the USB...
5. The audio recording app also has a picture of a microphone. Blasphemy! That was such an original idea that has never been used before!*
*it has been used before

If I genuinely had too much time on my hands I could compile an even longer list like this of "things that Apple stole from Android, Google or other companies", but who cares! Just stop this nonsense already.

 

[Lennholm]

You are right man. They are hindering Samsung's innovation!

Image

The first image is just stupid, it's not a Samsung store, it's a generic electronics store (that sells products from several different companies, including Apple) with a Samsung booth. The icons are on the back wall which is not part of the booth but the store itself which is, I say it again, not a Samsung store.
Since Apple and their evangelics always bitch about miniscule and irrelevant details I will too:
The charger has a completely different color, the corners of the Samsung charger are less rounded and it appears to have a small ridge on the top that the Apple charger lacks.
The box; there's clearly much more white space between the product image and the edge of the box on the Samsung box, that's such an important difference. When you open the box, the only way to make that different is to add padding which would increase the size of the box, and you can't demand that they do that when they don't need to.
The cable is the same as with the charger; different color it even has a ridge that works as a handle, which the Apple connector lacks. Most importantly, it's not even a Samsung design, it's a standardized connector.
The recording app is just a weak example, the only similarity they share are that they have an image of mic as background, which is kind of standard, and it's not even the same type of mic.

 

[iBug2]

The whole "there's only one way to design a tablet" is a straw man's argument. It's irrelevant.

For most patents out there, they are mostly about the best or the fastest way to do things. Yes you can still do those things without doing the same thing as in the patent but it'll mostly be the "worse" way.

So when people say "they couldn't have painted the bezel a different color because it'd distract the user", they are right. But it's irrelevant. If the color is patentable, then even if it's trivially obvious why the color has to be the way it is, it's still copyrighted.

I think it's ridiculous as well, but then again, where do we draw the line? If we don't allow things that are obviously the best choice for something to be patentable, then probably a lot of the previously granted patents in many areas will no longer be valid. I know so many patents that whenever you look at the question, the first answer that comes to mind is the one in the patent. It was patented because someone patented it, not because it was a really complicated thing to solve and only one person solved it. Patents aren't there to protect the ideas of geniuses only. If you have the financial means to actually patent something, then you can patent even the most trivial idea you can think of, unless it's already patented. Big agriculture has been patenting agriculture methods which have been in use for centuries by the town folk and then asking for money from them. University of California owns patents to many human genes and nobody invented genes yet if you somehow want to do research on that gene, you pay them a fee. That's how weird the patent system has become.

 

[Puevlo]

Goodbye innovation.

 

[Rafterman]

"...we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Good one, Apple. I'll keep quiet about valid arguments of cases where YOU guys have stolen ideas from other companies.
(Which, everyone steals from everyone so I guess it doesn't matter anyway)

Yeah, as if the glass rectangle is Apple's idea.

Look, I'm a satisfied iPad and iPhone user, but this IP stuff is getting out of control. It seems that if a product contains even the same color as a competing product, companies start running to the courts. The patent system is in serious need of rehab.

 

[Northgrove]

I agree with Apple here. It's not because I like Apple, but especially Samsung has some sort of really annoying habit of copying Apple designs lately. I wouldn't expect or want Apple to go after the new Microsoft Surface, but FFS Samsung.

It's not about a rectangle using glass, it's about the curved edges, the metallic bezel, the similar width around the display, etc. And most importantly, it's about Samsung suddenly doing this right after the success of the iPad. How this behavior can be defended is beyond me.

Try something different, like Microsoft recently.

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Goodbye innovation.

For innovation, take a look at different small footprint designs where companies are actually innovating and how Apple aren't going after them.

 

[Bezetos]

Let's look at something that was released by HP.

OMG it looks soooo much like the iPad. A rectangular shape, rounded corners, enough metallic bezel to provide a comfortable grip, similar width around the display - everything that Apple has invented. And that HP logo where the home button normally sits? Blasphemy. Volume buttons on the side? iPad did that! Conveniently placed headphone socket? A Silver back? Thank god they didn't steal iPad's USB adapter. I feel you Northgrove:

I agree with Apple here. (...)

It's not about a rectangle using glass, it's about the curved edges, the metallic bezel, the similar width around the display, etc. (...)

Try something different, like Microsoft recently.

The only problem is, the device above, the TC1100, was released 7 years before the iPad.

Please, explain to me why Apple think they've invented a rectangle and rounded corners.

While you're at it, please explain to me why Apple fans genuinely think Apple is fighting to "protect innovation" instead of actually realising that Apple is simply a patent troll.