Supreme Court Reverses Apple's $399 Million Award in Samsung Phone Design Lawsuit [Updated With Apple Statement]

[thekeyring]

This always struck me as an absurd case.

Did Samsung take some design cues from Apple? Of course they did. They didn't blatantly copy anything, though. It's easy to tell that the two devices are not the same device. Almost nobody mistakenly bought a Samsung phone thinking it was an iPhone.

That's really the only way Apple could prove damages. If they found actual customers who went into the store with a desire to buy, not just any smartphone, but specifically an iPhone, and mistakenly bought a Samsung phone instead. Maybe somewhere under 1% of people did that - maybe Samsung should pay Apple $4M for that. It's absurd to think that all of Samsung's revenue from their phones should go to Apple, though.

If Samsung had launched an MP3 player with a click wheel, simple UI, white earbuds and 'S-tunes' etc in 2005 would you also argue that 'so they took some design cues, no big deal...'?

Look into what smartphones were pre iPhone, what iPhone introduced and what the Galaxy range was. To add insult to injury, Samsung often insult Apple *users* in their ads.

 

[organic bond]

Samsung will always be a follower.

Really? This kind of comment is just so limited. Do you know how many Samsung components are in Apple products? Talking about minor things such as SSDs or displays, for example. How about outstanding OLED screens that Samsung phones sport, and that Apple still has to deliver? How about Gear VR, where is the leading Apple? Oh, maybe it's in the pipeline. I used not to like Samsung products, but some are just excellent.

 

[thekeyring]

I'm not trolling. Let's be able to differentiate criticizing from trolling.

I'm very upset with Tim Cook for steadily damaging the company Steve Jobs built.

Apple isn't a one man show. You think the entire executive team was incompetent the moment Steve left for good? Or that Tim is damaging Apple and no one cares.

What about Scott Forstall? Fired by Cook and even he praises the company:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.th...-scott-forstall-first-interview?client=safari

 

[ericwn]

If apple doesn't want to pay tax to fund the courts, they get what they sow.

And an eye for an eye probably, if you ever come to power. What a silly comment.

 

[panjandrum]

Complex... Yes, the amount of mimicry on Samsung's part is truly absurd, but at the same time, how many different shapes can a Phone realistically take? Should they have produced a round phone? Triangular? Should the corners have had a slightly different radius?

If Apple wanted to properly "reward" Samsung for the early obvious-copy models, then Apple should have already been working to secure other sources for every single component of their products. Give Samsung no business now, and none in the future. As long as Apple continues to use components produced by Samsung the whole thing is kind of ludicrous.

 

[LordVic]

If Samsung had launched an MP3 player with a click wheel, simple UI, white earbuds and 'S-tunes' etc in 2005 would you also argue that 'so they took some design cues, no big deal...'?

Look into what smartphones were pre iPhone, what iPhone introduced and what the Galaxy range was. To add insult to injury, Samsung often insult Apple *users* in their ads.

While there's no doubt about Apple's influence in helping push larger screen touch devices in the smartphone business, this was already the direction that tech was going. Looking at phones alone only paints 1/2 the picture. During the same time that Smartphones were starting to be sold, there was also a very big push by the "Personal Digital Assistants" of the time to go to a large, display, with limited front buttons and design.

what we saw with the iPhone was the first really efficient merging of these two product categories, taking the things people wanted in a PDA and applying them to smartphones. It also helped that they had an exclusive access to Capacitive touch by purchasing the inventing company (Fingerworks) and playing gatekeeper to the technology (Refused to allow fingerworks technologies for ANY other companies products).

The iPhone did truly bring consumer attention to these markets. But they were by far not the only company who were attempting to make a device based around a screen. I had a couple PDA's over the years, and they were out years before the iPhone and featured similar large display, with limited front buttons. There was Palm, Casio and Even Dell devices trying this

 

[thekeyring]

awesome

Guys put the apple koolaid down for a minute and think this is a win for everyone.

How? If company X can invent some new tech and company Y can copy it, add a cherry on top the best result is that X earns less than it should.

The worse case result is company X goes out of business, and we never see gen 2, 3, 4 of the product. Just refined knock offs with added bells and whistles.

 

[ericwn]

The right person was elected president. Fact, end of story.

Extremely right, to be honest. Could hardly be more to the right, actually.

 

[enoxon]

Good, now the court should also rule that Apple must design proper Macs again or face a fine of $399M for every Mac product they abandon.

Yes, please! Where do I sign to get this done?!

 

[ike1707]

Good artists copy, great artists steal...

Where have I heard that before...

(The irony is too much)

Pablo Picasso. Not joking.

 

[mackinmike]

Seriously a square screen and round corners has a patent? did someone patent round tires?

 

[T5BRICK]

You just can't see they haven't released anything good in the last 3 years, can you. The watch is a joke. The iPhone uses 2012 technology.

While I do agree with you(except for your 2012 technology on the iPhone comment), this is an opinion and subjective.

Just looking at Apples stock price suggests that it doesn't matter.

The new MacBook Pros are a 'a bit thinner' version of the last ones, full of glitches. And now the 6 and 6S have a lot of issues.

I don't know enough about the new MBPs to really get into this, but what I've heard so far sounds very similar to other new product launches. Same for the iPhone 6(although many claim the 6s is the best iPhone ever).

I know there were problems when Jobs was around, but Cook has a wrong vision for the company.

Again, that's your opinion.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

They copyrighted a touch screen rectangle though, I mean come on.

No. Not hardly.

They copied the ENTIRE "look and feel" of the original iPhone (and continue to do so for each and every subsequent iPhone), nearly down to the individual pixels.

You can't tell the original iPhone and the original Samsung copy apart from 4 ft. away. That's how close the copy is.

 

[kdarling]

... It also helped that they had an exclusive access to Capacitive touch by purchasing the inventing company (Fingerworks) and playing gatekeeper to the technology (Refused to allow fingerworks technologies for ANY other companies products).

Just a note: Fingerworks did not invent capacitive touch, nor did they have any gating technology in the iPhone. (Their work was in the field of gestures on opaque surfaces like physical keyboards.)

 

[LordVic]

Fingerworks did not invent capacitive touch, nor did they have any gating technology in the iPhone. (Their work was in the field of gestures on opaque surfaces like physical keyboards.)

IIRC, it was that technology, that Apple modified to use with screen behind it. Thats why they were able to get Capacitive multi-touch gesture based on a phone display before others got there. (Other's were absolutely working on it at the time, just Fingerworks technology gave them a head start).

 

[2457282]

It's a fair bet that the $399M was never paid out. Usually damages are not paid out until appeals have been exhausted. There is interest paid out on that amount from the time of the verdict until the appeals are exhausted, but that interest is essentially zero right now in federal court.

Samsung already paid out and wrote off the $399 from their books. Look it up. That is not in question. The question is whether the Apple will get to keep any interest or if it will have to pay interest on anything that it ultimately must return.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Per curium does not mean that a decision unanimous. Bush v. Gore was per curium for instance (5-4).

But you're correct that unanimous decisions are common. In recent years, they've been about half of all decisions.

per Curiam means (not literally) "less than the whole Court". IOW, only some of the Judges participated.

 

[JadawinUK]

They copyrighted a touch screen rectangle though, I mean come on.

Yes, Apple did the stealing anyway. 2001, Star Trek: TNG... rounded rectangles.

 

[sulpfiction]

Is there a statute of limitations on "played out" lawsuits?...Enough already!

 

[coolfactor]

Damaging? Have you seen Apples stock prices? They seem to be doing just fine.

Damaging in the sense that they have failed to deliver updates to their Mac product line adequately in a timely fashion, bugs have existed in OS X / macOS for too long, and they have a policy of dumbing down software from previous versions, and then ignoring user feedback to restore the much-needed features.

 

[69Mustang]

Extremely right, to be honest. Could hardly be more to the right, actually.

Tee hee. What you did there. I see it.

 

[skinned66]

It's the case that never ends.

 

[Plutonius]

Typical Samsung policy. Litigate and delay till the problem goes away.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

The right person was elected president. Fact, end of story.

Understood, my point was that with an 8-0 decision, there wasn't much point for those that want to grumble about SCOTUS and Mr., errrrrr President-Elect Trump's list was a positive for me. I would only add two Senators, one from Utah and the other from Texas to the top of that list.

That's more of an argument for the 5-4 decisions, which I hope soon become 6-3, then 7-2, 8-1, and hoping beyond hope, 9-0.

 

[sportsfan]

And an eye for an eye probably, if you ever come to power. What a silly comment.

pay your fair share for services rendered