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Supreme Court Reverses Apple's $399 Million Award in Samsung Phone Design Lawsuit [Updated With Apple Statement]
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Actually the way it would work is if Apple got their way the first car company to patent a rectangular car with four wheels could abuse the patent system and prevent all other manufacturer from producing a rectangular car with four wheels. Only one company would be allowed to produce a rectangular car with four wheels. That was the end goal from the beginning but luckily Apple lost, they wanted to be the only company to produce a rectangular phone.
Right? Why did Ford or Chevy patent the car, or IBM the personal computer? I mean, come on! Imagine the world we'd live in today with that logic.
Actually I think I'm correct in saying that the award was paid out but Samsung had a clause included that Apple accepted that was Samsung could appeal and if that appeal was successful then the money would be paid back
No sir. The technology wasn't the problem. It already existed. Finding a supplier was.
Others had already demonstrated multi-touch on a phone. E.g. Synaptics with their Onyx prototype, which was so sensitive, you could actually send a kiss:
Later touchscreens as used in the iPhone and everywhere else, had no such resolution at once. (Synaptics, who makes most laptop touchpads, was trying to sell a capacitive touch controller chip to phone makers at the time.)
As for Fingerworks, the tech they used had been around since at least the early 1990s on touch displays. I know, because I was developing in 1992 on a breakthrough capacitive touch casino gaming system. Older folks here from Winnipeg might remember this:
In fact, if you read Westerman's 1999 thesis that laid the groundwork for his starting Fingerworks, it contains tons of references back to such things in the 1980s. That said, I'm sure the Fingerworks guys were helpful with coming up with common gestures.
-- Finding mass production of small screens
Again, capacitive multi-touch had existed since the early 1980s. When Apple needed a multi-touch projected capacitance screen in 2006, a half dozen touchscreen manufacturers could've made them, but probably only Synaptics and a Taiwanese company called TPK had the desire and money to ramp up mass production of a small screen in time.
Note that it was not about a technology barrier. It was about finding a factory which was willing to retool for mass production of small screens in time. Most factories were tooled for larger screens and happy being so.
As it turned out, an established German company called Balda had bought half of TPK in 2006, and soon made a deal with Apple to supply the iPhone's original touchscreen. IIRC, Texas Instruments provided the controller.
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Thanks for the info Kdarling, Always respect when you deliver some knowledge
Because it's so vague as to not be legitimate, and is more an attempt to eliminate competition completely than protect Apple's IP? They can still patent specific technology like the Taptic engine, the Force Touch mechanism and TouchID, they just can't patent haptic feedback, pressure sensors embedded into screens or biometric security, sorry. If you don't understand the distinction, I'm glad you don't work for the US Patent Office.
I agree to a point with you, however Samsung may be able to make components they just can't put them together without disaster. Just look at their phones and their washing machines and even their TVs.
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I get your point but it is flawed because it won't stop the patent trolls. If they think that they even have a 1% chance of winning a case they will bring it.
Yeah, you can follow the design of every iphone and see that the following year's Galaxy S copies it. The most obvious in recently memory is the blatant copy of the iPhone 6 design in the following Galaxy S phone.
Samsung's design copies are so obvious I'm surprised anyone is dumb enough to give them any credit for designing anything.
You are exactly right. Everything was leading up to it. There was some interesting early attempts at marketing such things, for example the 2003 MyOrigio all-touch phone which had an orientation sensor to flip its display:
By 2005-6, larger touchscreens were making many devices look similar:
In fact, by mid 2006 it was so clear that a finger friendly UI on a capacitive screen was the near future, that analysts wrote about it:
They even correctly predicted that this would happen in 2007, and would likely be pushed by a device that would get a lot of publicity. (They thought this would come from it being featured in a movie, but the publicity came from the Jobs demo instead!)
It's a pity that so much interesting background history tends to get lost over time.
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Cool, You just need to get nominated for SCOTUS, confirmed, then get 4 more people that reason the same way you do to do the same, and then you will be right.
I think we've had this discussion before.
I too had a bunch of PDA's that fit the direction of tech, and they were out years ahead of the iPhone.
Started with the Palm IIIe. (1999)
then my Casio Cassiopeia (est 2000?)
and then before my first smartphone the Dell Axim x3 (2003)
The whole tech world was already moving to create these types of devices. Apple had the benefit of 1: Not having huge momentum of smartphones behind them to support. They were able to jump into a whole new tech with a fresh start. They were also really good at design, which made it less "geeky" for a change. And most importantly, Apple's Media marketing machine.
But for many of us, even before the iPhone came out, we knew it was only a matter of time before something like the iPhone would be released, if not by Apple, Someone else.
It might be flawed if I claimed it would stop patent trolls. Since I didn't, I don't really see a flaw. The calculus for a lawsuit will take a little more thought regarding the cost of litigation vs potential financial reward. Component awards could potentially be less than the cost of the suit.
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No, copying is still not allowed. The ruling is about using common sense and fairness when coming up with DESIGN patent infringement awards.
Here's what the ruling is about, and why it was an outcome that even Apple no doubt secretly wanted:
The way the previous court had read the law (which had originated in 1887 as a Congressional favor to a carpet maker), every design patent was worth the ENTIRE profits of the infringing product. Even if it contributed very little.
What this meant was that even someone who only had a design patent on say, a cupholder, could sue both Ford and Ferrari for ALL THEIR PROFITS from the car that held the cupholder. Do you think that is fair and right? No, of course not. In fact, the only ones who do think that are, of course, designers. D'oh! Big surprise there.
-- The overturned interpretation was extremely dangerous to every product maker, big or small:
But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Interpreting the law that way had far worse implications. You see, it meant that EACH DESIGN PATENT holder could try to claim ALL THE PROFITS. Wait, what? Yep.
Let's say Apple used five infringing design pieces. Each of the design patent holders could in theory ask for all of Apple's profits. So if Apple made $10 billion from its sales, it could have to pay out $50 billion, or far more than it made. And that's just five design patents.
Now just imagine the patent trolls that would've sprung up suing Apple, each one claiming that they were owed ALL of Apple's profits for infringing. Each designer could ask for billions. Such an interpretation could lead to the quick and utter demise of Apple.
-- The ruling simply says, the award does not automatically encompass the entire product. But it still can!
The ruling does not say that a court cannot decide that each infringing sale was totally due to a certain design patent. That is still possible.
All it says is that it should not be automatically assumed to.
Calculating an award based on a smaller contribution is now also allowed, just as is done already for utility patents.
E.g. Apple has argued in court many times that patents it has infringed, such as a video compression or WiFi patent, should only be worth their percentage of contribution to the overall iPhone. Now Samsung can argue that should also apply to a design patent about colorful icons.
Modern devices use tens of thousands of designs. The Supreme Court simply ruled that it was not okay for the lower court to tell the jury that all of them are always worth up to all the profits.
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They happen quite frequently, it just almost never happens in the controversial cases that the media reports on. There are usually only one or two cases per term that actually get much media attention.
Because
1. A "car" is too generic
2. Cars were invented in Germany, not by Ford or Chevrolet.
3. There were personal computers before IBM made theirs.
DUh!
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You are exactly right. Everything was leading up to it. There was some interesting early attempts at marketing such things, for example the 2003 MyOrigio all-touch phone which had an orientation sensor to flip its display:
By 2005-6, larger touchscreens were making many devices look similar:
In fact, by mid 2006 it was so clear that a finger friendly UI on a capacitive screen was the near future, that analysts wrote about it:
This is all fake, you forgot to include the pens, or the non-existing multi-touch and reliable touchscreen technology.
I'd make the case that it is Apple's money, and not a loan to them, even though it becomes a de facto loan. I can see the case where it is considered a loan, since it got returned.
A company is protected from someone else copying something they've patented. The question in this case revolves around what was specifically patented.
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I can store chilled and frozen food in my Samsung refrigerator. Can't do that with my iPhone.
that's what Obama is for.. Remember when Obama reversed an ITC ruling that would have banned the iPhones sales?
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That's called natural progression. LG Prada had done it, and Samsung also had many prototypes. It's not uncommon to see minimalistic design convergence in electronic designs -- just look at the TV designs these days.
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