Jury Members Discuss Thought Process Behind Apple vs. Samsung Verdict

[TMay]

Can you name any high profile lawsuits before Apple v. Everyone Else in the cell phone and smartphone industry ? Seems to me before Apple entered with their "no licensing our IP!", everyone else was quite happy cross-licensing and forming cooperative patent licensing pools.

That cross licensing was on RF tech and little else. Apple brought it's UI and ID expertise to the table, along with a known brand and disrupted the market. That IP is Apple's to license or not, and Apple defended that and mostly won.

Obviously, you don't agree.

 

[trouble747]

It is relevent in the sheer breadth of it (the claims levied) and in the big number of jurisdiction they have been filed in, not to mention the media attention around them.

Again, answer the question. Yes I am talking about my personal knowledge, now feel free to prove me wrong with facts if you don't think my opinion is a valid representation of reality, but stop dancing around.

So you'd like for me to prove to you that there are other "high profile" patent cases, limited to cell phones and smartphones, that you've heard of. Because that's the test: You've heard of this one, but you haven't heard of others. Ergo, others do not exist in any significant numbers.

Nokia v. Apple? I'm not going to sit here and convince you that you should have heard of past litigation (because notoriety or public awareness is a silly test that proves nothing). I am a lawyer though, and I'll let you in on a little secret: Patent litigation is not a new phenomenon. I concede there wasn't a lot of smartphone litigation occurring in the 1980's, so you've got me on that point of most of it being recent.

 

[nexusrule]

You're another one who doesn't actually read the OP you're commenting on.

I suggested a panel of international judges - including American judges.

Go ahead and wave your little flag to and pontificate on national sovereignty. Bit strange as you gave up your own currency only a few years ago. I would have thought giving up your currency was more of a "surrender" of sovereignty than handing over multinational patent disputes to an international court which could include Italian patent judges.

I'm sorry but you're wrong. This is a global issue. We are talking about multinational companies selling the same products around the world. It's the same products in the US, UK or Italy.

Why have 50 courts in 50 countries review the same evidence and the same patents 50 times over by 50 different juries or judges. This is about nationalism clear and simple. It's about narrow minded nationalists not wanting to cede any part of their legal system to an international court, no matter how sensible that might sound.

Make up your mind.
You can accuse people to be patriotic, nationalistics and so on OR you can try to attack people saying the surrended their sovereignty. If you keep telling both it just looks like you don't konw what you are talking about.

Also look at some example of international triasl, you will notice that they are about matters a lot MORE important and shared than this stupid trial you keep talking about. Thing like genocides, human rights, dictators trials. People like Milosevich. The nazist generals. You want to make some space there for Tim Cook? Please

There are reasons for that obviously, this are problems so dramatic all nations has established international codes to analyzie and judge them. Because they often involve people freedom (the real one, not the custom freedom to spend 100 ****ing dollars less on a copied smartphone) lives and death of millions.

Another example of where international codes have its place would be pollutions, that affects the health of million (billion?) of people. In fact you have international treaties about pollutions.

I don't know how old are you, I hope under 20. Please realize this (trial) is a stupid 1st world problem for people that has a lot of time to spend online in forums. It doesn't deserve international NOTHING.

 

[pdjudd]

I concede there wasn't a lot of smartphone litigation occurring in the 1980's, so you've got me on that point of most of it being recent.

Which doesn't mean much anyhow, High profile doesn't play into worthiness or not. High profile just means that it gets attention - something that happens with popular companies. Apple naturally draws lots of attention for good or bad

 

[KnightWRX]

RIM vs. NTP.

How is this high profile ? Notice that in 2010, they filed against Apple too and Apple settled. "Straight copying of NTP IP!".

Quite missing the mark on breadth and jurisdictions. I'm not saying there never was any patent litigation, I'm saying Apple made a big splash of it.

You know, same as how Apple makes things "popular" in the market. While others came before, Apple does it in volume. Seems it works for both products and lawsuits.

 

[nexusrule]

Can you name any high profile lawsuits before Apple v. Everyone Else in the cell phone and smartphone industry ? Seems to me before Apple entered with their "no licensing our IP!", everyone else was quite happy cross-licensing and forming cooperative patent licensing pools.

This trial showed as Apple licensed their IP to Microsoft at conditions I think fair both for both of them. Then Microsoft has developed a touch interface that has nothing to do with iOS. How they did it? Taking a couple year more than Google and not putting out a copied and malfunctional os in few months.

 

[KnightWRX]

Nokia v. Apple?

Kinda reinforces my point. You're using an Apple case to reinforce my point that Apple stirred the legal hornet's nest in the industry by failing to pay for FRAND patents and refusing to license its IP, leveraging to litigate against partners and competitors ?

Really now ? Discussion over. If you want to claim my opinion is not representative of reality, be prepared to show us what reality really is.

 

[GadgetDon]

The quicktime lawsuit has nothing to do with OS elements.

And in the end, Apple still lost. They had to settle to avoid bankruptcy (the legal proceedings were taxing on their poor finances) and had to rely on Microsoft to prop up the Mac platform with things like Internet Explorer (a very poor, non compatible port of it) and Microsoft Office instead of being able to stand on their own (which they finally did with iWork and Safari).

Apple's finances weren't in that bad of shape. The direction was very bad, and if there hadn't been a turn-around that was the inevitable result, but the bills were being paid, money was coming in.

The biggest threat was to cancel Microsoft Office. In those days, almost every Mac sale also resulted in an MS Office sale (meaning Microsoft made more profit per Mac sold than Apple did). The various free office suites weren't there and there was a "It's MS Office or we don't buy it" mentality that has loosened since then. I'm not completely sure that Gates would have gone through with that, Microsoft was still dealing with the legal challenges as a monopoly so it served MS's purpose to have Apple out there as a competitor (and killing MS Office for Mac would have been seen as a naked attempt to kill a competitor that would have caused more problems), but you really don't want to bet the company on that.

So, Apple made the deal with Microsoft, drop the lawsuit, MS commits to future Office versions and the rest. The only really important part of the deal was the commitment to continue making Office for Mac. The investment, the development tools (I didn't know anyone who used Microsoft's development tools for Mac), those were just sending a message of "Microsoft believes there is a future in Apple.

 

[trouble747]

How is this high profile ? Notice that in 2010, they filed against Apple too and Apple settled. "Straight copying of NTP IP!".

Quite missing the mark on breadth and jurisdictions. I'm not saying there never was any patent litigation, I'm saying Apple made a big splash of it.

You know, same as how Apple makes things "popular" in the market. While others came before, Apple does it in volume. Seems it works for both products and lawsuits.

Hmm, yes. And I wonder if globalization plays a role here? Nah, probably not...

 

[KnightWRX]

This trial showed as Apple licensed their IP to Microsoft at conditions I think fair both for both of them. Then Microsoft has developed a touch interface that has nothing to do with iOS. How they did it? Taking a couple year more than Google and not putting out a copied and malfunctional os in few months.

The Microsoft licensing agreement was from quite before Apple's entry to the smartphone industry. It just happened to carry over and Apple made it back when it was in a dire situation in the late 90s.

 

[G51989]

This trial showed as Apple licensed their IP to Microsoft at conditions I think fair both for both of them. Then Microsoft has developed a touch interface that has nothing to do with iOS. How they did it? Taking a couple year more than Google and not putting out a copied and malfunctional os in few months.

The Cross licensing originally stemmed back in the 90s, at that point. Apple couldn't survive without a big fat check from Microsoft and a cross licensing agreement.

It just so happened that its good for Microsoft and Apple, so they keep doing it and adding onto it.

 

[TMay]

This trial showed as Apple licensed their IP to Microsoft at conditions I think fair both for both of them. Then Microsoft has developed a touch interface that has nothing to do with iOS. How they did it? Taking a couple year more than Google and not putting out a copied and malfunctional os in few months.

MS's cost structure includes IP so It is a level playing field for Apple and MS, albeit a different business model. MS has licenses with approximately 70% of Android OEM's, and I'm guessing that this win for Apple will drive the balance to license MS IP.

Whether Apple licenses it's IP to Android OEM's is up in the air.

 

[trouble747]

Kinda reinforces my point. You're using an Apple case to reinforce my point that Apple stirred the legal hornet's nest in the industry by failing to pay for FRAND patents and refusing to license its IP, leveraging to litigate against partners and competitors ?

Really now ? Discussion over. If you want to claim my opinion is not representative of reality, be prepared to show us what reality really is.

You're right; it is pretty much impossible for me to demonstrate that you should possess knowledge of a subject that you actually don't possess. I could perform a lexis search and offer you a laundry list of every case ever mentioning phone technology, and you'd shriek "Those don't count, I've never heard of them!"

I'm a lawyer, attended law school, and learned about the history of patent litigation (though it is not my area of practice).

Feel free to believe that Big Bad Apple is to blame for daring to procure patent protection and then sue to enforce it. You're not going to be dissuaded from your rejection of the fact that litigation over smartphones is occurring now, in greater volume, for a number of varying reasons having pretty much nothing to do with the morals or ethical behavior of any one actor.

 

[TMay]

Kinda reinforces my point. You're using an Apple case to reinforce my point that Apple stirred the legal hornet's nest in the industry by failing to pay for FRAND patents and refusing to license its IP, leveraging to litigate against partners and competitors ?

Really now ? Discussion over. If you want to claim my opinion is not representative of reality, be prepared to show us what reality really is.

Yeah, Apple was bargaining for a realistic cost structure for a smartphone, not the licensing for a dumb phone, and they wanted a rate on the basis of the RF tech rather than on the basis of device sales price. Apple didn't want to have to cross license any of its tech.

Of course, the contracts are sealed, so we know very little about what the fees ended up being, but large money changed hands, Nokia scored a bit of Apple's IP, both parties appeared satisfied, and not a word heard since on the licensing.

I'm guessing that consumers suffered from Apple having to fold those fees into its licensing structure, eh?

 

[trouble747]

Also: OJ Simpsons really got the ball rolling on that whole 'unlawful killing of estranged spouse" litigation. It like, practically never happened before that high profile case!

 

[GadgetDon]

You're right; it is pretty much impossible for me to demonstrate that you should possess knowledge of a subject that you actually don't possess. I could perform a lexis search and offer you a laundry list of every case ever mentioning phone technology, and you'd shriek "Those don't count, I've never heard of them!"

I'm a lawyer, attended law school, and learned about the history of patent litigation (though it is not my area of practice).

Feel free to believe that Big Bad Apple is to blame for daring to procure patent protection and then sue to enforce it. You're not going to be dissuaded from your rejection of the fact that litigation over smartphones is occurring now, in greater volume, for a number of varying reasons having pretty much nothing to do with the morals or ethical behavior of any one actor.

As someone who has been studying patent litigation, would you be able to comment on whether Apple's offer to settle was reasonable? From here in the cheap seats, yeah, it was a settlement offer but so high it wasn't serious.

(As much as I've been supporting Apple's patents here, I'm still hoping that the result is a fair agreement to both sides - the most general gesture patents licensed at a nominal fee, some specific elements like bounceback reserved for Apple, and a general "let's not try to make our phones look like each other" agreement.)

 

[nexusrule]

The Microsoft licensing agreement was from quite before Apple's entry to the smartphone industry. It just happened to carry over and Apple made it back when it was in a dire situation in the late 90s.

Apple has proposed licensing to Samsung more than one time, it also proposed cheaper licensing if samsung cross licensed. They refused, because I think they deemed to high Apple's proposal, they've gone to trial, they lost. I think this is all that matters, being this a so stupid problem. I really don't understand how people can get so interested in ********s like these, whith all the interesting thing and real problems there are in the world.

Nothing will change in the world neither in the tech world. Google has already started differentiating its os long before this trial (because at first, it was a copy. They rushed it. Look at Metro, it's not only that MS has cross licensing, it has none of the elements/behavior that Apple sued Samsung on. It just took a couple more years than android to develop) Samsung has already started using different designs. There will be no competition problems. This is all in the head of gadget fanatics.

 

[trunten]

Actually, Coca Cola's recipe is a trade secret, so if it gets stolen, Coca cola can't really sue the "copier", only the people responsible for the information leak if those people were under contract not to disclose it (usually known as NDAs, Non Disclosure Agreements).

I was unaware that the recipe for Sprite was also a trade secret. I've always thought it was just Coca-Cola itself that was trade secret, not their other beverages too. My mistake.

 

[69650]

Make up your mind.
You can accuse people to be patriotic, nationalistics and so on OR you can try to attack people saying the surrended their sovereignty. If you keep telling both it just looks like you don't konw what you are talking about.

Also look at some example of international triasl, you will notice that they are about matters a lot MORE important and shared than this stupid trial you keep talking about. Thing like genocides, human rights, dictators trials. People like Milosevich. The nazist generals. You want to make some space there for Tim Cook? Please

There are reasons for that obviously, this are problems so dramatic all nations has established international codes to analyzie and judge them. Because they often involve people freedom (the real one, not the custom freedom to spend 100 ****ing dollars less on a copied smartphone) lives and death of millions.

Another example of where international codes have its place would be pollutions, that affects the health of million (billion?) of people. In fact you have international treaties about pollutions.

I don't know how old are you, I hope under 20. Please realize this (trial) is a stupid 1st world problem for people that has a lot of time to spend online in forums. It doesn't deserve international NOTHING.

What an incoherent rant that was. Where shall I start. You are referring the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. If you knew what you were talking about you would know that the US is not a member of the ICC. In fact the US voted against the treaty that formed the ICC along with Iraq, Israel, Libya, People's Republic of China, Qatar and Yemen. Every one a beacon of human rights. No doubt all those countries including the US were not too keen on giving up their widespread use of torture and abuses of international human rights treaties.

I don't see what this has to do with an international patent court. Most of the world are able to agree on matters pertaining to climate change so why can't they agree on an international patent system. I've still not read a single post which explains why this is a bad idea other than narrow minded nationalism.

 

[nexusrule]

I was talking about the poster's ignorance of anything outside his beloved U.S.A. and even his sheer ignorance of U.S. politics, laws, and how they relate to other countries he's saying have "less rights" than he does when its quite the opposite.

I wasn't discussing the general state of IP law and how it relates to this case.

Quoted the wrong post/poster I was talking with another user, the one who wants international trials,

 

[twosee]

As someone who has been studying patent litigation, would you be able to comment on whether Apple's offer to settle was reasonable? From here in the cheap seats, yeah, it was a settlement offer but so high it wasn't serious.

(As much as I've been supporting Apple's patents here, I'm still hoping that the result is a fair agreement to both sides - the most general gesture patents licensed at a nominal fee, some specific elements like bounceback reserved for Apple, and a general "let's not try to make our phones look like each other" agreement.)

I haven't been following the case as closely as you guys here, but was Samsung ever interested in negotiating the use of the patented items? Apples offer may have been high, but did Samsung counter offer? Did they even attempt to negotiate or did hey have no interest at all in paying to use apples patents?

 

[trouble747]

I really don't understand how people can get so interested in ********s like these, whith all the interesting thing and real problems there are in the world.

I understand why they might find it interesting, I just don't really get why they take it so personally. This is a dispute between two huge, wealthy corporations. It's impersonal, and it's business.

 

[GadgetDon]

What an incoherent rant that was. Where shall I start. You are referring the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. If you knew what you were talking about you would know that the US is not a member of the ICC. In fact the US voted against the treaty that formed the ICC along with Iraq, Israel, Libya, People's Republic of China, Qatar and Yemen. Every one a beacon of human rights. No doubt all those countries including the US were not too keen on giving up their widespread use of torture and abuses of international human rights treaties.

I don't see what this has to do with an international patent court. Most of the world are able to agree on matters pertaining to climate change so why can't they agree on an international patent system. I've still not read a single post which explains why this is a bad idea other than narrow minded nationalism.

Some countries allow software patents, some don't. I have heard it said that Japan only allows patents on whole devices, not the elements that go into it, so if that's true, the intermittent windshield wiper I mentioned earlier wouldn't be patentable (and I don't know for sure that is an accurate statement of Japan's law, just going by what I have heard). So let's have a international patent court, enforcing the patents of whatever is patentable in any country. Congratulations, software patents are imposed on the world.

Happy now?

 

[trouble747]

As someone who has been studying patent litigation, would you be able to comment on whether Apple's offer to settle was reasonable? From here in the cheap seats, yeah, it was a settlement offer but so high it wasn't serious.

No, no idea. But settlement is often preferred to litigation. Trials are extremely uncertain things. At the end of the day, though, Apple (or any plaintiff) is under no obligation to offer a "reasonable" settlement. If you can't come to an agreement, you 'agree' to allow the court to decide.

 

[G51989]

I understand why they might find it interesting, I just don't really get why they take it so personally. This is a dispute between two huge, wealthy corporations. It's impersonal, and it's business.

They take it so personally, because of the massive amount of Steve Jobs marketing.