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What deal? Has anyone ever heard of Apple licensing its patents to competitors? (Besides the court mandated sharing between Apple and MS.)

Microsoft offered to license its patents and provide protection for those using them. HTC and others see that as a benefit, even if not all the MS patents are applicable.

Apple does not offer licenses for its patents, preferring instead to try to stop competitors from even selling their devices. Naturally, all the companies being sued are going to fight Apple's patent claims.

It's a huge difference in approach.

Which is exactly why the FTC should be abolished, and we return to a True Capitalist Model. ;)

In the context of this thread, such details might not matter.

Apple isn't suing over only just one Android based device.

If Apple is lumping them together as competition to the iPhone, then so can others.

Actually, they are seeking an injunction against the Galaxy II s, and Tablet.:apple:
 
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Actually, they are seeking an injunction against the Galaxy II s, and Tablet.

Yes, plus some. Apple's lawsuit against Samsung objects to more than just the Galaxy models:

"Samsung has imported into or sold in the United States the following products, each of which infringes one or more of Apple’s Intellectual Property Rights: the Samsung Captivate, Continuum, Vibrant, Galaxy S 4G, Epic 4G, Indulge, Mesmerize, Showcase, Fascinate, Nexus S, Gem, Transform, Intercept, and Acclaim smart phones and the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet." - Apple

Apple later ammended their lawsuit and added even more phones: The Droid Charge, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Prevail, Galaxy S (i9000), Gravity, Infuse 4G, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, Sidekick, Galaxy Tab 10.1, and Galaxy S II.

As PC Magazine pointed out, "... Apple also cites the Samsung Epic, Transform, Intercept and Acclaim — all of which have gigantic slide-out QWERTY keyboards, which absolutely nobody would ever mistake for an iPhone. The Samsung Gem is a different shape, and has several buttons at the bottom. And the Samsung Continuum has a whole extra display along the bottom bezel."
 
I wonder if Apple would be suing people if the iphone was selling as well as Android devices.

Apple is number one in smart phone profit. Just because Android phones are Free or sold at below cost, just means they are giving away more. Most Android Phone makers are barely making a profit if at all on their Phone sales. Its not in the quantity given away but rather the quantitiy actual SOLD for profit.
 
FYI Apple didn't invent multitouch. They bought it.
Which means that everyone else...stole it.

No.

Apple did not invent multitouch, correct. Multitouch dates from at least the early 1980s.

Apple didn't buy any basic multitouch patents either. At least not any that are used in the iPhone.

Many people think there was something related about Apple buying Fingerworks, which began working on multitouch keyboards in 1998. However, their patents are all about capacitive keyboards, not touchscreens per se, and don't apply as far I can tell. (I have read them.)

Apple did, I believe, co-invent a multitouch screen driver-decoder chip that they use. AFAIK, no other company uses it, though.
 
Apple is number one in smart phone profit. Just because Android phones are Free or sold at below cost, just means they are giving away more. Most Android Phone makers are barely making a profit if at all on their Phone sales. Its not in the quantity given away but rather the quantitiy actual SOLD for profit.

What? are Android phones free? As far as I know, the only way to get a phone for "free" is to sign up for a long contract with a hefty monthly fee, and I can get a "free" iPhone 4 in a deal like that aswell
 
You're the only one who has claimed that Apple's counsel "failed" to do anything he should have done. That link and the motion simply allege that a conflict exists which should disqualify them.
Sosumi.

The key part of the article I noted was:
Samsung's allegations are very detailed and worth reporting on, and I can't rule out that someone might have made an error in judgment somewhere. Apple's lawyers will certainly respond to this, and the judge will have to decide whether there is a conflict of interest, and if so, what the consequences should be.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/samsung-wants-some-or-potentially-all.html

People make mistakes, and if this is one of them it's fully understandable under the circumstances. But an "error in judgment" on something as big as trying to gain control of the mobile market through sweeping litigation isn't the sort of thing Jobs is likely to take lightly.

There may be other issues as well. PC Magazine notes:
Apple's current chief patent lawyer is reportedly leaving the company after failing to block Android manufacturers from using iPhone-like features.
...
"It's possible that Apple's leadership wants the patent department to become more effective, especially in terms of litigation," said Florian Mueller, intellectual property analyst. "They are probably disappointed that the first ITC complaint against HTC didn't go too well," he added, referring to Apple's attempts to win an injunction over HTC devices.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388374,00.asp

It may also be worth noting that even though Lutton is expected to remain with the company for another few weeks, his position has already been filled by someone else, a new hire from HP. With departures that happen on good terms it's rare that the incumbent will be demoted during his tenure.

With the other Apple VPs who've left recently, in each case their reason for leaving was noted publicly. Not so with Lutton. Maybe this means nothing, maybe it means they're trying to find the right color of lipstick to paint this with.

Like I said, given what we know I'd wager he isn't "leaving to spend more time with his family", as BuzzMega jokingly suggested. You're welcome to wager otherwise. We'll find out soon enough.
 
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I'm pro competition as the consumer ultimately benefits, but what innovation did samsung and htc bring to the market?
let us think....iPhone 2G became 3G, what else improved? not much

iPhone 3G became iPhone 3GS - slightly faster processor, compass, copy/paste, right?

along comes HTC Desire, Sammy Galaxy, Moto Droid and tons of other 800x480 1ghz toys with 3,7+ inch screens

no more "1mpx is a revolutionary change" crap from Apple, they gotta change the display, change RAM (think of iPad 1 RAM ffs), processors, design

ok, but, year has passed....HTC, Moto, Sammy, 1,2ghz dual cores, nothing is sub 4", Samsung screen tech is glorious even if not as pixel dense

Apple can't make iPhone 5 1mpx better, cause by the time iPhone 6 is ready Sammy will have better specs in Galaxy then Apple has in Macbook Air :roll:

so there, that's the innovation Android brought. You are no longer charged for waiting and getting bits and pieces, you now get much more because Apple has to give a whole lot more just to be near the top. With 1 year release cycle, near is all they can hope for.
 
I wonder how long it'll be before tech companies make more from patent lawsuits than selling products. Call me nostalgic, but I miss the good ol' days..

What good old days? Do you have any idea the sort of shenanigans Edison was up to before, for just one example, the courts stripped him and his consortia of their motion picture patents?
 
Great, someone trying to argue the wrong argument.

I worked for big telecom, producing corporate videos and I know first hand what happened around the time of the iPhone introduction. As I said:

Apple took all the things that existed and made it usable. The activation swipe, multi touch. EVERYBODY copied it, nobody had it before that in a way Apple made it. The execs made jokes about how they all, including Samsung, where ready to get the very first iPhone, take it apart and copy it. Teams where standing by, lab coats and copiers ready.

you demonstrate the fundamental lack of understanding it is the user interface that made the difference and is the reason so many people are now jumping on the smartphone bandwagon.

All the other crap phones? Had them, sold them or gave them away, from HP IPAq, Palm, nokia communicator and even had psions because of the clever OS. Apple is the one who made it usable and sexy. Did others improve on this? Sure, so what? Apple seems to be very good at taking a technical experience and turning it into a user experience. Nokia lost 75% of its value because of the revolution the iPhone started.

They started the revolution, not making smartphones.. well ok they actually did start making smartphone becase whatever was considered a smartphone before that was a useless piece of crap, but that is just my personal opinion.. and well ok the first usable iPhone is the iPhone 4 but.. bleah not the point.



You demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of smartphones. The iPhone was not the first one (arguably the first iPhone wasn't really a smartphone), and Windows Mobile was not the only predecessor. You're forgetting Symbian, PalmOS, and RIM, who had considerable market share way before Apple entered the game.

When they did, they came out with something remarkably similar to what Samsung was unveiling (and later sued Samsung for "copying" Apple when it's rather plain Apple did the same thing to Samsung)

http://i.imgur.com/ui3sk.jpg

There's a reason companies are frightened of Android-based handsets -- it's expensive to compete against a platform that is designed to be nimble to develop on.

In time I probably go back to windows but hey who cares?
 
Apple are really moving and shaking and using that cash reserve in some odd ways. Snapping up everything under the sun. This is world domination at it's finest!

They could buy Nokia right now if they wanted to, and just throw it in the trash!
 
Sosumi.

The key part of the article I noted was:

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/samsung-wants-some-or-potentially-all.html

People make mistakes, and if this is one of them it's fully understandable under the circumstances. But an "error in judgment" on something as big as trying to gain control of the mobile market through sweeping litigation isn't the sort of thing Jobs is likely to take lightly.

There may be other issues as well. PC Magazine notes:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388374,00.asp

It may also be worth noting that even though Lutton is expected to remain with the company for another few weeks, his position has already been filled by someone else, a new hire from HP. With departures that happen on good terms it's rare that the incumbent will be demoted during his tenure.

With the other Apple VPs who've left recently, in each case their reason for leaving was noted publicly. Not so with Lutton. Maybe this means nothing, maybe it means they're trying to find the right color of lipstick to paint this with.

Like I said, given what we know I'd wager he isn't "leaving to spend more time with his family", as BuzzMega jokingly suggested. You're welcome to wager otherwise. We'll find out soon enough.



There's a big difference between the language above and your original allegedly factual statement that he failed to check for conflicts:

"Failing to check out the new consulting attorneys for possible conflict of interest could cost Apple their most important case against their biggest competitor."

Not only would that failure to check conflicts not have occurred, but such decisions would have involved general counsel.
 
Apple are really moving and shaking and using that cash reserve in some odd ways. Snapping up everything under the sun. This is world domination at it's finest!

They could buy Nokia right now if they wanted to, and just throw it in the trash!

So could Google. Although I'd wager Google has already begun talks with Nokia.
 
iOS 5 has an awful lot of Android inspired ideas in it.

"Inspired ideas" = Xerox PARC basically and the original Mac GUI, not patented or at least whatever was patented was never patent protected by Xerox and given away. Don't you think Xerox would love to re-do that one?

The bigger question though is how much has Google patented Android and my suspicion is that Apple knows they have the much bigger patent portfolio and that ultimately, there will be a Google vs. Apple battle.

Steve Jobs said publicly he was going to vigorously defend Apple's patents on the iPhone and let's face it, a lot of these touchscreen smartphones are blatantly violating Apple patents.

Ironically, Microsoft is like now Apple's BFF. Go figure. :eek:
 
Guess I don't. Next time you swipe down on that notification bar remember Android users have been doing that since the beginning.

Shhhhhhh....Hush hush...

The sheep are asleep. Don't show them the brutal reality. :cool:

Oh - btw - for all the uneducated: Android doesn't use a "swipe to unlock"-gesture- Android uses a security lock that has nothing to do with a simple swipe. Draw a pattern on 9 points it is, no swipe.
 
Oh - btw - for all the uneducated: Android doesn't use a "swipe to unlock"-gesture- Android uses a security lock that has nothing to do with a simple swipe. Draw a pattern on 9 points it is, no swipe.

O'rly? My Nexus has an unlock sliding tab.
 

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