these issues should be handled with licensing agreements. it is crazy for them to fight and sue over these issues when they are so dependent on each other business-wise. they both should be totally focused on making the best products possible instead of trying to hamper each other with these lawsuits.
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Jury Finds Both Apple and Samsung Guilty of Patent Infringement, Samsung to Pay $119.6 Million, Apple to Pay $158,400
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The first touch screen smartphone was the 1994 IBM Simon. By 2003, there were more touch phone innovations. By 2004, there had been dozens if not hundreds of touch screen models.
By 2006, all touch capacitive phones were the rage with show concepts and prototypes:
All leading up towards similar designs:
Multitouch dates back decades. (Apple tried to get a trademark on the name, and failed because it was a generic industry term.)
For reasons that remain unknown so far, Steve Jobs seemed to actually believe that Apple had invented multi-touch. It was right after Google enabled it on Android phones in 2010 (following Palm doing the same on WebOS), that he put forth his infamous "thermonuclear war" comments.
Like Microsoft and many others, Apple licensed Palm patents dating from before 2005, for the old PalmOS devices.
It did not include the later WebOS patents. Perhaps Apple has licensed those from HP or LG. Dunno.
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Yeah. It's exactly what's expected of mechanical patents, and it should be what's expected of software patents as well.
It's far preferable to "well, it does this thing", then anything that does "this thing" is suddenly infringing no matter how the alleged infringer went about programming it. It allows companies ownership of a concept or end result rather than a specific implementation, which in the past, was considered far beyond the scope of a patent to grant.
:bangs head against wall:
The case in point here is more like patenting the use of salt as a seasoning for a dish.
Didn't HP release everything attached to WebOS as open source, up to and including the UI?
WebOS being released as open source doesn't mean that HP did forfeit the patents too.
No, they don't have to be broad. If they are broad is just because they can be used to litigate.
Wrong analogy. A recipe is secret, a patent must permit the duplicating of what's stated.
And exactly how it wouldn't? And yes, I'm a developer and I have been one for more than 20 years
meanwhile apple spent way over 119million in R&D costs that samsung just avoided, paying a pittance.
I truly think that jurys have no concept of money and that ripping someone off can make so much money. This is not going to put samsung off from continuing to copy apples moves or even moves they've not made yet.
Every samsung product not based on someone else's design or aesthetic is truly abysmal. I would rather have 3 expensive overpriced apple like companies than one samsung. Their smart watches go to show how dreadful their own original ideas are.
I truly think that jurys have no concept of money and that ripping someone off can make so much money. This is not going to put samsung off from continuing to copy apples moves or even moves they've not made yet.
Every samsung product not based on someone else's design or aesthetic is truly abysmal. I would rather have 3 expensive overpriced apple like companies than one samsung. Their smart watches go to show how dreadful their own original ideas are.
Really? Anything to back your claim?
I truly think that you're wrong. Look, just tow different opinions and no facts.
Really? Apple never copied others? The title clearly said Apple also found guilty for copying Samsung. Or you just missed it. Clearly, things Samsung copied from Apple are not worth 2 billions Apple asked for.
By the way, never heard Samsung Note series? Galaxy Fit is not as bad as you claimed as.
Read the claim again. Apple patented the idea of passing data to another piece of code to parse and return results. That's an API.
Thank you for acknowledging that it's an API.
The whole point of a patent is that it only covers a certain set of steps. That is why software patents on broad ideas... which many countries do not allow... are so screwed up.
I've been a developer for over 30 years, and I agree... assuming the developer knew in the first place that he was infringing! However, as you must know, developers don't have time to search for infringement every time they write something.
Indeed, once Google/Samsung knew they might be infringing, they changed their code.
This case was Apple suing over old devices that predated the workaround changes.
There is nothing in that patent claim about the implementation, regex or not.
Apple might have spent millions in R&D for the iPhone overall, but in this case Samsung was not found to be infringing the totality of Apple's iPhone intellectual property, it was found to be infringing the "slide-to-unlock" patent and the "linkify" patent. I doubt Apple spent even a fraction of 119M in R&D on these 2 patents.
On top of that R&D costs have nothing to do with the awarded damages...
I'm talking a bit out of my depth here, so I'm probably mistaken in some way or another, but WebOS is licensed under Apache, which I believe doesn't require anyone release the source code of any derivative work. In theory, Apple could cull a few good ideas from it, and use it in iOS without having to release their work based upon it to the public.
Yup. Some people are under the mistaken impression that patent lawsuits are somewhat similar to suing over plagiarism. As in group B liberally copied group A's hard work, and NOW THEY MUST SUFFER!
That isn't the case. Patent lawsuits are (or used to be) more like overly complicated licensing issues. It's like Group B did this thing that's like group A's. Group A owns that particular implementation, and group B has to provide backpay based on the jury-determined cost of the patent, and/or what they would've paid if they licensed it to begin with.
There are 2 separate issues: the copyright of the source code and the patentability of the solution. Having the source code of a particular solution "freely available" doesn't mean that it's not patentable: that's why the Apache license 2.0 was updated to include a paragraph granting automatically a patent license from the contributors.
In the case of WebOS I think they use Apache 2.0, so a patent license is indeed automatically granted but would be automatically revoked in case of litigation. Still your mileage may vary and the license being "open source" doesn't automatically grant any patent license, you have to read the fine print of the specific license version to be sure.
Some useful infos here.
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Webkit may be an Apple thing but iOS didn't have any card system like WebOS until iOS7.
And it was new at the time, because the screens and apps you scrolled through were not presented in that way on any other platform of the time.
Non obvious according to whom? A friend of mine is working on a medical instrument for his Ph.D. thesis which is going to be used to cut and glue tissues. It's using a laser (obvious) and a thermometer to measure the skin temperature so it doesn't hurt the skin too much (again, obvious). And he says that this'll be patentable. So basically put together a laser and an infrared thermometer which measures a very small area very quickly and with very low error rate, and bam you patented a gadget. I have looked at his drawings and listened to him several times, everything about the gadget is obvious. The big issue is finding the right parts for the right price and putting it together.
And certainly for a physicist in 1860's, the lightbulb would have been pretty obvious because people knew a setup like that would generate light.
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So you are supporting my claim that Samsung should make a smaller phone. If Apple sold a slightly larger phone, some of the users would choose that option for sure, but not all. And the remaining people, who'd stick with the smaller one are still quite a lot, so Samsung should have that option if they want a bigger marketshare.
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People patent farming methods that has been used for centuries and then come and ask for licence if you are using that method for your produce.
They patent GMO's, then they plant GMO's near your farm, and most certainly some of the pollens end up in your farm and you suddenly get patented produce mixed in with your own, and then they sue you.
Compared to this nonsense, software patents and how stupid they can be is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
They didn't steal the code. They just developed the things similar/same way. As a programmer I find these software patents ridiculous.
I don't understand how could be something like slide-to-unlock patented. 'Murica...
Yeah, but explain to me how Apple's autocorrection is patentable according to the patent itself. How is it a marked improvement upon previous autocorrect methods, and how is the improvement not an obvious incremental change?
See, I'm not saying all patents are terrible. Software patents though, tend to be. If you read through what I linked to above, you'll see that they're explaining the process, not the methods. And the process is so broad, it practically has the entire concept of autocorrect patented itself.
Non-obvious is to be evaluated from the point of view of someone having ordinary skill in the art. In your example a person with ordinary skill in the art without knowledge of your friend's solution at the time of the claim would have been able to develop it with the prior art available at that time?
That's not an easy question especially in a field with a very large variance between the skill of the "artists" like software.
Funnily enough Edison's patents for the light bulb were later revoked due to prior art...
They never said NO to Apple, because Apple never bothered to ask them before they totally and blatantly STOLE the SBB's globally recognised and copyrighted design and idea! And then gave it away to millions on it's products.
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/2...s-says-apple-copied-its-iconic-railway-clock/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/swiss-rail-claims-apple-copied-iconic-clocks-093453251--finance.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ses-iPhone-5-copying-iconic-clock-design.html
http://www.theweek.co.uk/technology/iphone-5/49153/apple-accused-ripping-swiss-clock-new-ios6-app
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Oh I'm with you on that one. I think most of Apple's patents on this case are rubbish. But I don't think this is specific to software industry. I think most patents are rubbish, period.
But there shouldn't be a world without IP protection, imho, and if this is the only way we can have some protection, then this'll have to do.
you gonna have a baaaaad time opening your iphone, ipad, imac or macbook. and probably all other apple products.
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My quote is the worker saying his work should not be patented because it is basic programming anyone skilled in the art can do easily.
Edit: Patents have to be non obvious to someone skilled in the art of what ever the patent is about, in this case, software.