back to article 'This lawsuit is not about patents or money, it's about values'

This was the week when analysts, pundits, beancounters and opinion-holders of all stripes got to have their say on the Apple v Samsung patent verdict going the fruity firm's way. While Apple pushed hard to get Samsung mobes pulled from the shelves as soon as humanly possible, the Korean chaebol vowed to fight on and passed …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. David Webb

    Interesting article on the BBC today, an interview with the "head" jury bloke who from that article alone should get Samsung their appeal won (he's seriously stupid). One of the comments though brought something interesting that I hadn't thought of.

    The jury were railroaded, err, deliberated for 21 hours and had to answer 700 very complicated questions, if you work that out it puts it down as answering each (complicated) question every 2 minutes.

    The head jurist was also pretty stupid in how he interpreted prior art "it's not prior art, it's just an older implementation of the same stuff". Why hasn't El Reg picked up that article and got the guys from Outlaw to laugh at it?

    1. BorkedAgain
      Thumb Up

      Sounds interesting...

      Got a link?

      1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Sounds interesting...

        This is a good summary:

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19425052

        I particularly like the bit where Our Hero redefines prior art on pinch-to-zoom with a requirement that the Apple implementation should be op-code compatible with the older hardware. Utterly bizarre.

        GJC

      2. David Webb

        Re: Sounds interesting...

        Yep

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19425052

        And in example after example, when we put it to the test, the older prior art was just that. Not that there's anything [wrong] with older prior art - but the key was that the hardware was different, the software was an entirely different methodology, and the more modern software could not be loaded onto the older example and be run without error.

        Ignoring prior art because it's prior is........ answers on a postcard please.

        1. tomban
          Joke

          Re: Sounds interesting...

          http://www.hiwtc.com/photo/products/7/06/51/65149.jpg

          Comming soon, the innavative and not at all copied from anyone else, Apple Excavator!

        2. Geoff Campbell Silver badge

          Re: My postcard

          Utterly Dagenham(*), I'd say.

          GJC

          (*) for our foreign listeners, Dagenham is a town in Essex which is several stops beyond Barking on the District line of the London Underground(**)

          (**) Jokes really don't work when you explain then, do they?

          1. Peter H. Coffin

            Re: (**) Jokes really don't work when you explain then, do they?

            Even if it doesn't get the guffaw, an explained joke can still be appreciated for its artfulness. Which is better than being left to wonder if this is some Wodehousian mystery left unread...

          2. Matt 21

            Re: My postcard

            Isn't Becontree Tube Station two stop on from Barking?

            1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
              Happy

              Re: @Matt

              Quite likely, which is why I said "Several"

              GJC

              1. Matt 21

                Re: @Matt

                Sorry Geoff, what passes for my brain read your joke in the form in which I first heard it (which was two stops on from Barking).

                I also heard people being referred to as "Upminster" and I found http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=beyond%20Barking. I suppose it's what my Cornish cousins would call " a bit Bodmin".

                1. Pedigree-Pete
                  Pint

                  Re: @Matt

                  Brain: Weird, so did mine & don't recall ever hearing that joke. Great minds & all that.

            2. Pedigree-Pete
              Pint

              Re: My postcard

              @Matt 21. By jove I think you are right. Dagenham is 3 stop[s up (& has disabled facilities) Quiet Friday afternoon...so.far!

      3. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: Sounds interesting...

        I read that earlier - incredible how bullish he seems to be about laying down the law to the rest of the jury. Now I don't know how that works in a US court (oh ho ho) but it all sounds to me like a bad episode of some TV drama where some cantankerous or borderline autistic coronor / forensic advisor / janitor / juror gets to usurp the role of both judge and legal counsel and overturn the case. Not something you'd want to happen in a real courtroom.

        1. TheRealRoland

          Re: Sounds interesting...

          I read, and saw, Runaway Jury a couple of days ago. Interesting...

          1. Veldan
            FAIL

            Re: Sounds interesting...

            Anyone think his argument that the software on the old machines couldn't run on the new being grounds to dismiss prior art, yet Android and Samsungs TouchWiz on top of that quite clearly would not work on an Apple device on a software level... but that's totally different don'tchayknow?

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Sounds interesting...

          Now I don't know how [being a jury foreman] works in a US court

          I've been the jury foreman in a US district-court criminal trial; I've never served on the jury in a civil case, or in Federal court, but if it's similar, the powers granted to the foreman / forewoman are pretty vague. Mostly it comes down to rhetoric - a juror who argues well against grandstanding or procedural abuse by the fore can probably swing enough opinion in the room to shut it down.

          However, In my (admittedly limited) experience - and anecdotes I've heard from others who've served corroborate this - many jurors worry about doing something wrong, and are happy to follow the fore in procedural matters.

          it all sounds to me like a bad episode of some TV drama

          What happens in the courtroom itself, of course, is mostly dreary dull - the TV and film courtroom dramas are ridiculously implausible in that regard. But in deliberations things can get heated.

    2. Kevin 6

      "The head jurist was also pretty stupid in how he interpreted prior art "it's not prior art, it's just an older implementation of the same stuff". "

      look at the patent he owns that statement describes it in a nutshell.

      His patent was filed 3 years after TiVo came out which describes a DVR in very vague terms....

      So he basically patented a DVR after a DVR was out already, and got it granted.

      1. David Webb

        @Kevin 6

        So basically, if you boil it down to the basic essentials, he would never have awarded it to Samsung on prior art grounds as to do so would invalidate his own patent? Now I'm not a lawyer (I have a soul, which okay, maybe I considered selling for a Honda Fireblade at one time or another) but doesn't that sort of, I dunno, make him possibly the worst jurist since the Rodney King trial?

        (apologies for using Rodney King in such a flippant manner, but it's true!)

  2. cyke1
    FAIL

    about values?

    Ha anyone with a brains and can read a web page, you can see Samsung was whooping apples ass in about every market. Apple has failed to innovate their phones for years and Samsung has caught up and has a better phone. Apples only recourse is a lawsuit using their home town jury to steer the verdict in apple's favor. Sad part is they talked about how they did and now everyone see's the jury was joke by throwing out clear prior art to give apple more money. This case was never about values, it was about money and getting Samsung's phones off the market. Plane and simple.

    1. EWI

      Re: about values?

      ...with blatant knock-offs of Apple's phones, as you conspicuously failed to mention. Therefore the thrashing in court.

      1. cyke1
        FAIL

        Re: about values?

        if you want to talk about knock-off's the Iphone looked almost identical to a device Samsung announced in 2006, and rlsed in like jan 2007 like 8 months before iphone was even announced or released.

    2. Pedigree-Pete
      Pint

      Re: about values?

      "Plane and simple"...oh no! Don't tell me Boeing & Airbus are getting into it too..

  3. Peter Snow
    Pirate

    I'll never buy an Apple product again!

    I never liked Apple anyway, a company which continues to control the devices it sells after it sells them. The way they are locked down. The closedness of the software and the uncanny similarities between the ways that they do business and the way Microsoft do business. None of that appeals to me.

    This latest game of Apple has just reinforced my resolve to never buy an apple product, either personally or in my company.

    I don't think one billion dollars will come close to covering the loss of consumer love that they will experience because of their greed.

    Death to Apple!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'll never buy an apple product again!

      I like apples. This fiji I'm munching on is pretty good. I even like them more than oranges.

      1. Swarthy
        Thumb Up

        Re: I'll never buy an apple product again!

        IF you like fijis, you should try a varietal called "goldrush" Best apple, Ever. It has all of the positive aspects of fiji, pink lady, and braeburn, all in one apple.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't know who I loathe more, Apple or Obama. They both have most of the world sandbagged.

    1. Goldmember

      "They both have most of the world sandbagged"

      What you mean to say is they have most of AMERICA sandbagged.

      Once again, America is not the world.

      1. Don Jefe
        Joke

        Re: "They both have most of the world sandbagged"

        Wrong. USA is the world. USA. USA. USA. You're probably not even over six feet tall are you.

  5. mhenriday
    WTF?

    Apple-Samsung, Assange-Haig (without the latter being named), and O2

    all in the same posting, Brid-Aine ! Do you have a permit for that wide-bore shotgun you're using ?...

    Henri

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    flapple

    anyone noticed that flapple lost again today,this time in japan.

    so the only place flapple have managed a permanent win is in the usa.

    please,please write/email to your local mp and euro mp and ask for ALL flapple products to be banned in the whole of the eu.

    flapple/ms want to be big fish,let em,but only in that country of the lard arse stupid,the good old us of a.

    there they can be big fish in tiny pond,wonder when the money folk will catch on that perhaps flapple have gone too far and start flogging off flapple stock,while they still can get their money back.

    cos i reckon as soon as the stock price starts to drop more than 5-10% it will turn into avalanche,you never know even lard arse yank folk may catch on and just stop buying the flapple bullshit and just stop buying their products,their already having problems with pre-orders for jesus phone 5,fingers crossed that there is not last minute rush to buy it.

    it would be the begining of the end for flapple bubbl

    1. cyke1

      Re: flapple

      its not a permanent win, The judge can throw out the jury verdict or Samsung has the appeal route.

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Samsung will almost certainly win the appeal

        They only meed use the lead jurors interview comments they can get the verdict overturned. "Run without error", seriously?

        That's either a complete and utter misunderstanding of the law, or a statement of fact that it is fundamentally impossible for Samsung (or indeed anybody else) to infringe on Apple's patents without using exactly the same iPhone/iPad hardware.

        Samsung's S2 spin of Android won't run on an iPhone without error, and vice-versa.

        TBH, I half wonder if that juror is now at risk of a contempt charge.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: flapple

        "Samsung still has the appeal route" I wonder if Apple are thinking of patenting "A process for appealing against judgments delivered by courts." Okay, prior art exists but so did implementations of WIMP's before the Mac was ever thought of, and we never heard Xerox moaning.

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: flapple

      Please, enough already. "Flapple" was amusing the first time. Now it's just bloody annoying.

  7. Peter Johnston 1
    Thumb Down

    News

    Mind-numbingly inept behaviour by O2 is not news - its normal!

  8. cyke1
    FAIL

    to quote an article from groklaw, After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art, that there wasn't something out there before Apple. "In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down. ... "Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents," Ilagan said, "it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products because it was all the same." Pretty much was death of that verdict in my mind, cause that quote made it look like they completely dumped prior art as even possible to kill the patent as even being valid.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      >> that there wasn't something out there before Apple

      He's a fanboi, no doubt about it, and should not have been on the jury, let alone head of it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Fanboi or not, he's a patent holder

        Which means he's got a vested interest in finding for the patent holder so should probably have been recused in the first place.

        To top it off, at least one of his patents looks pretty dodgy from over here. (PVR functionality after TiVo was shipping?)

  9. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Rafeal Correra

    "The crimes that Assange is accused of, they would not be crimes in 90 to 95 per cent of the planet."

    This from someone who runs a country where if you're caught with a bit of weed you're looking at up to 16 years in the clink. Also if you happen to be driving and involved in an accident in which any party is injured or killed, you will be arrested and jailed pending enquiries regardless of circumstances or fault.

    Likewise if you happen to be a woman and have an abortion, or a doctor and perform one, there's that Ecuadorian jail cell again.

    So there are three things (a bit of grass, being in the wrong place at the wrong time and a common medical procedure) that are not illegal on most of the planet and yet he thinks are worth banging people up for. I'll bet if I could be arsed to spend more than a couple of minutes I could find a shitload more.

    People who live in glass houses.......

  10. Mark .

    About values and spin

    I remember when Jobs died, there was some quote going around Twitter/Facebook/etc, something along the lines of "Steve cared about other products, other companies care about making money".

    At the time, I saw it as nonsense. To start with, it misleadingly conflated a person with companies. Is it really fair to say that other CEOs don't care about their products? But the idea that Apple - or its CEOs - don't care about making money, is laughable, when you see that everything they do is about making as much money as possible, including through the courts to take it off other companies. They even get praised for it - they're not the largest in their markets, rather, it's let's praise Apple for being the most "valuable", or having the most cash, or having the largest profit margins. The media is rammed full of articles publicising this about Apple, and everytime they are mentioned, they have to remind us - even the Register is at it, as the quote from the Iain Thompson article shows.

    I love that Apple are simultaneously praised for making lots of money, and for not caring about money because obviously caring about money is a bad thing, unless you're Apple, then it's a good thing.

    Sad that a man's death was used by people to evangelise about a company, and criticise other companies - there are people behind those companies too, but I bet most the Apple fans telling us we should care about Jobs don't even know the name of Samsung's CEO, let alone if he died.

  11. Armando 123

    What?

    "Silicon Valley went decades without the aggressive litigiousness crippling it the way patent suits are now hobbling the mobile industry. "

    Bit of revisionist history there, surely. Granted, things may well be worse today, but that's only because the lawyers have flocked to Silicon Valley after ruining all other American industries.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Condom

    From what I read, he did use a condom but it split and they didn't realise. Must be the first person in the world for that to happen to eh!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Condom

      He realised, and kept on humping away despite knowing that she didn't want that. That's what all the fuss is about.

      And don't suggest he didn't know, you'd have to be seriously insenstive (in physical terms, that is) not to notice, believe me. Assange's insenstivity seems to be more a mental problem.

      1. magrathea

        Re: Condom

        You seem pretty determined to carry on regardless yourself. Of course it's entirely possible not to know. Nothing quite like an urgent politically inspired bias to numb the sensitivity needed to make simple, everyday observations, or apply common sense.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Condom

        >He realised, and kept on humping away despite knowing that she didn't want that. That's what

        >all the fuss is about.

        Nope. He shagged one of them the night before, conditional on using a condom. The next morning he didn't bother with a condom. According to the charges he forced himself on another one, pinning her down. Sounds a bit rapey to me. Perhaps in Ecuador this is lurve. YMMV.

      3. Local Group
        WTF?

        Re: Condom

        "He realised, and kept on humping away"

        Even though the icon of a spurting penis started flashing on his dashboard.

        Scoundrel!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BBC

    Prior art isn't prior art because it can't run the new software! So which Samsung phone can run IOS or vice versa?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19425051

  14. John A Blackley

    Everybody's an idiot.............

    .....if an El Reg commenter disagrees with them.

    Do those who deride the interviewed juror know much about the jury selection process in the US?

    1. David Webb

      Re: Everybody's an idiot.............

      You get a letter saying "you're on the jury" you show up, have tea and biscuits, sit through the court case trying not to constantly update twitter, get instructions from the judge on how to proceed and then.... totally ignore the judges instructions and then get your name in as many press publications as possible to try and flog your gear, or did I miss something?

      The guys an idiot because he's shown himself to be an idiot by his comments to the press, he had no idea what he was doing yet railroaded the other jurists to his POV which was an incorrect POV, the size of his stupidity will be on how Samsung will get the case over-turned on appeal because the head jurist was a bit of a plank.

      1. John A Blackley

        Re: Everybody's an idiot.............

        Thank you for demonstrating that you know pathetically little about the jury selection process in the United States.

        Please close the door on your way out.

        (p.s. Here's a hint, it has to do with summary and discretionary challenges.)

        1. TheRealRoland

          Re: Everybody's an idiot.............

          Cause for a double-post ;-)

          I read and saw Runaway Jury a couple of days ago. So much you can learn from books ;-)

        2. David Webb

          @John A Blackley

          Actually I was pretty spot on, jury selection is random selection of people who receive a letter saying "you're up for jury duty, report to the court or WE WILL KILL YOU!", once in the courts the lawyers can object and have a jury member removed but, and here is the important bit.... that is de-selection, not selection (see, it has a de- in front of it because they are not being selected, they are being de-selected).

          Thank you for demonstrating that you know pathetically little about the English language.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re:@David Webb @John A Blackley

            "they are being de-selected"

            Sounds a little too Darwinian for me.

  15. heyrick Silver badge
    Stop

    Hang on a mo...

    From BBC article: "And in example after example, when we put it to the test, the older prior art was just that. Not that there's anything [wrong] with older prior art - but the key was that the hardware was different, the software was an entirely different methodology, and the more modern software could not be loaded onto the older example and be run without error."

    Surely this means somebody could design a phone with a non-ARM processor, write their own independent operating system that has a lot of look and feel of iOS and then claim it is something different because the hardware is different, that iOS won't run on it therefore...

    ...in fact, is it possible to get iOS running on Samsung kit, or is that hardware sufficiently different?...

    ...this is a highly myopic view of what "prior art" means (if fact, I'd say it was a loose justification for completely ignoring priors)...

    ...I suspect the Judge's question about smoking crack was ultimately directed at the wrong person.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Hang on a mo...

      With or without ARM doesn't matter, simply assigning different GPIO pin functions would have the same effect!

  16. Alan Denman

    IOS compatibilty

    I agree.

    we have Windows compatibility with Wine.

    And we had IBM DOS compatibility with DRDOS and a few others.

    We also have Android compatibility with Blackberry.

  17. Mitoo Bobsworth
    Meh

    Sour Apples?

    ""For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values."

    Considering the rarified atmosphere these guys now occupy in the global market, I have to say that's the biggest load of corporate bollocks I've read for a while - good morale booster for the troops perhaps but still comes across as insincere for me.

  18. Magani
    Megaphone

    'This lawsuit is not about patents or money, it's about values'

    I call bovine excrement on this.

    Basically, it's all about the MONEY!

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like