As ever, only the lawyers win...
Greedy Apple told it can't triple Samsung's $1bn patent payout
Apple will not get triple damages in its epic US mobile phone patent infringement trial against Samsung, sparing the South Koreans from writing a $3bn cheque. US Judge Lucy Koh has had enough of the warring rivals, and published a raft of rulings halting the companies' attempts to alter the trial jury's findings. Samsung was …
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:02 GMT Richard 120
why the downvotes?
I was saying that the lawyers would win more in the event of a retrial, not either of the companies which have to pay the lawyers, by the hour (or minute) I expect.
It's in the lawyers interests to go for a retrial to make the job last longer, win, lose or draw they're still going to get paid, why else would Apple lawyers be arguing for a retrial?
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple
Then you woke up from your (excited) dream to the reality. Samsung are in a much more precarious position than Apple - Samsung are Google's bitch - they make no ongoing revenue and there is no loyalty.
I'm not arguing Android vs iOS but how many of you reading this who own a Samsung would *definitely* buy another one next time round if say Asus, Motorola, Sony or [insert almost anyone else] made the 'then best' Android handset.
This is a Google and Apple fight - Samsung are just making hay while the sun shines on them - but for how long?
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 17:43 GMT Avatar of They
Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple
Eh? Samsung are not in a precarious position because of this, everything Apple does is destoying their integrity. iFans on these forums are having enough, lawyers are winning but judges are having enough, everyone is tightening the patent strings to make sure it doesn't happen again but Samsung are innovating, it might not work but they are chucking money at new stuff. Apple are stagnating, living on their past and expecting the world to care about the next iphone.
I am not a massive fan of samsung but I like their stuff, but from every way you look at it, Apple have lost this petty feud across the world except their homeland of the US, and even now that is just getting tiresome.
And as for competition in the phone market, there isn't any anymore. Nokia is dead pretty much, HTC is lost in it's own world of sense and stupidity motorola has gone inside google's monolith and sony has split to go it's own way, leaving a much smaller LG and China, who so far haven't done much of worth beyond cheap and cheerful. (And they, the chinese simply won't care for Apple patents as they don't care for VW, BMW or any car manufacturer)
After this Samsung will carry on making phones, good or bad and Apple will just be remembered as a petty bunch of children, even if the iphone 6 has a new feature, people will remember bad press, and they just don't learn. Granted most moron americans watch fox news and they won't know about any of this because fox news is just ludicrous and full of lies anyway, but those educated (or those on a coast) will know what the truth is. (my sweeping generalisation is of course sweeping)
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 18:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple
> Then you woke up from your (excited) dream to the reality. Samsung are in a much more precarious position than Apple - Samsung are Google's bitch - they make no ongoing revenue and there is no loyalty.
What world did you wake up in this morning?
Samsung are starting to piss all over Apple in both the phone and tablet markets.
And don't make the mistake of confusing "rabid fanboism" with "brand loyalty'. The best any good company can reasonably expect from their customers is that they are mightily satisfied with the purchase that they made.
A lot of people buy Apple products *despite* their being shite (exhibit A: iPhone5 and the maps debacle). I would much rather someone bought my phone, because they really liked it. There is a lot more long term mileage in that.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 20:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple
"A lot of people buy Apple products *despite* their being shite (exhibit A: iPhone5 and the maps debacle). "
How many people bought an iPhone x BECAUSE it has a map application?
Precious few I suspect.
OK, so Apple Maps is "less good" than Google Maps in a defined set of cases. The reverse is also true, and in any case, Google wouldn't offer facilities what Apple wanted in a maps app., so their hand was pretty much forced. Whooped-de-doo. Bad press from the Apple hating part of the tech press. Rabid fandroids wet themselves in self congratulation.
Meanwhile, back on planet earth, Apple posts $50+ billion in yearly earnings. Obviously, lots of people do not think that a maps app is the decisive element of the package and thus don't think it is shite. An iPhone is not shite because one app is imperfect.
Anyway, why do you think a maps application is a defining and important feature of a smartphone and of decisive importance? I had an iPhone until recently, and I have never opened the maps app. even once. YMMV, but I suspect I may be in the majority.
Your ramblings about brand loyalty and company expectation demonstrate ignorance more than anything else. Fortunately you do not run a major consumer product corporation.
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Thursday 31st January 2013 11:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple
I think you'll find that sales of standalone GPS devices are plummeting and the reason for this is that most people are using their phones mapping feature. That you don't just means you're either a child and your parents take you everywhere or you're a pretty boring stay at home that never goes anywhere new ... or you already have a GPS device for cycling/running/driving.
I personally wouldn't buy a phone without a usable mapping/nav feature. It's about the only must have feature of a smartphone.
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Thursday 31st January 2013 11:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pyrrhic victory for Apple
I'll buy Samsung. I've used their monitors for years. At my price point they are the best and have been rock solid reliable. The whole family have Samsung phones ... and you're right come end of contract we will be looking at Nokia and perhaps Blackberry, but that is about as far as we'll look beyond Samsung ... why no other 'driod manufacturer ... mostly because what distinguishes 'the best' from the rest is pretty insignificant and we're more happy to trust a company that has proven reliable.
Personally I see no difference between Apple and Samsung ... they are just hardware manufacturers and it could just as easily be said that Apple are just making hay while the sun shines on them.
At least Samsung as a company doesn't just make 'phones and toys ... Apple on the other hand is a single trick pony.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 14:10 GMT Chris007
You'd think
that apple would get enough money from the exorbitant prices they charge for extra storage from one model to the next.
retailers
16gb sdhc card $12
128gb sdhc card $120 dollars
So you pay $10810 for another 112gb of storage
Apple reality
16gb iPad $499
128gb iPad $799 (likely price)
So you pay $300 for another 112gb of storage
FFS at least Dick Turpin had the good grace to wear a mask when he used to steal from people
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 12:36 GMT NogginTheNog
No such thing as bad publicity
Tbh I hadn't really taken much notice of Samsung until this whole thing blew up, but have now started to notice their products above all the other shiny black boxes and toys on the market. Yes it's cost them a billion, but it's also made them something of a name.
Good one Apple!
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 15:01 GMT Da Weezil
Re: No such thing as bad publicity
and yet only yesterday I took delivery of a nice shiny white S3 i9305 LTE... I had looked at an ishiney... but despite having a 27inch Imac here I decided to stick with the droid, and while i wouldn't buy another sammy TV after the last one died at 14 months old.. the phones are a different thing.
Those who say it is a significant loss for Samsung seem to forget that they make a LOT of electronics.. not just phones
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 16:53 GMT Philip Lewis
Re: No such thing as bad publicity
"Samsung seem to forget that they make a LOT of electronics.. not just phones"
Quite a bit of which is in iPhones. We are expecting, and seeing Apple move away from Samsung as supply contracts expire. AFAIK Samsung doesn't have any specific, compelling tech. that Apple absolutely requires, cannot source elsewhere.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 17:30 GMT John H Woods
Re: No such thing as bad publicity
"while i wouldn't buy another sammy TV after the last one died at 14 months old.."
Did you ask them to fix it? When my 8+ year LCD packed in before Xmas, I phoned Samsung - just for advice on how repairable it was. They asked me for the S/N and when I told them they said they had had an issue with bad caps on some PSUs on that model. Long story short, free engineer visit and, shortly afterwards it was repaired for free.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 13:23 GMT PC Paul
No, it's all about reputation and expectation.
What I think the general public have got from prress coverage of all this is that Apple are spending all their time trying to block other people by 'patenting rectangles' rather than developing new shiny stuff, and that Samsung stuff is pretty much as good as Apple but a lot cheaper.
Neither of which bodes well for Apple.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 13:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
That sort of generalisation is a bit like saying all cars are just a box with 4 wheels (and a steering wheel if you are pedantic) - it's pretty clear that Apple revolutionised the 'tablet' computer with a finger touch screen and Samsung copied it so closely people (including their own lawyers = embarrassing) could not tell them apart.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 17:03 GMT Paul Shirley
Koh avoiding pointless work
There was a 3rd party analysis (a real lawyer, not groklaw BTW) soon after the award suggesting the combination of bad verdict form wording and outright error by the jury in filling the form restricted triple damages to a few $10's of million. It's not surprising Koh took the easy way out and rounded that down to zero, rather than fall into the briar patch trying to pick a real figure.
Given her past behaviour I'm 100% convinced she would have ruled for Apple but for that verdict form cockup. There's precious little justice in this case so far.
The other aspect is: this is going to appeal, no doubt about it. Nothing Koh does now is likely to stick and I think she knows it. Time is working for Samsung, they're in no hurry because as time passes, Apple's IP shrinks.
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 19:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Samsung will appeal
and they have good chances to avoid paying the 1b$.
You can of course read the court documents but this paragraph on Groklaw website (next to all those official court documents) says it all :
[quote]The reason she (the judge) found Samsung was not willful is because of all the prior art that their experts testified showed that the Apple patents were invalid. She defends the jury's decision not to accept the prior art, but she accepts that it does prevent a finding of willfulness.[/quote] Pretty neat, eh?
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Wednesday 30th January 2013 23:39 GMT Malcolm Weir
Re: Second time
Adding a little reality into your worldview would be wonderfully beneficial. In this particular situation, law suits have a process, and we're just coming to the end of the first phase, before which no-one had to pay anything. So in legal reality Samsung has not been "ordered to pay" once, let alone twice.
Next Samsung decides whether to appeal an obviously flawed verdict (and, despite the faboi's drooling, it was obviously flawed: the jury found that a phone infringed a patent for a feature that THE PHONE DID NOT HAVE).
For parallels, consider Apple's defiance of an actual order in a European court to acknowledge that the Samsung tablets do not infringe Apple's stuff. Apple appealed, lost the appeal, failed to comply with the order, pretended that it would take a large amount of time to comply with the order, then went to great lengths to obscure their compliance with the order.
Meanwhile, I went to but a large-screen phone with a pressure sensitive stylus from Apple, and turns out they don't have one! How can that be, if Samsung is copying?
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Thursday 31st January 2013 06:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Second time
Funny Malcolm, you tell me that law suits have a process (duh!) yet then you are comparing two very different law situations i.e. the one in Europe and the one in the US which were tested against different rules. And even then not all european courts agreed but luckily for Samsung the UK one did and they filed first there (although it took us a bit longer than the more efficient German courts).
So if you want to pull someone up on what they wrote, do your own home work ;)
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