News - Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 US sales blocked by the Federal Court

[HEXUS]

Because of evidence Samsung changed the design to mimic the iPad.

Read more.

[aidanjt]

All I can say, really. The patent trolling has got to stop. It's a bloody disaster.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

From the article:

Colleen Chien, a law professor in Silicon Valley said “The relief being given to Apple here is extraordinary. Preliminary injunctions are rarely asked for and rarely granted.”

Its simple. Apple is a US company and Samsung is a Korean competitor.

[Hicks12]

its also apples legal dept being given billions to simply walk up and slip in a healthy bribe no doubt , the cases they put forward are just faff but people seem to be approving it.

However i do think Apple must have forgot to give most of its budget to the legal department as it seems a number of court cases have been dismissed or decided against them, seems common sense is seeping through!.

Things like this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18529756
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18370258
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18579081 (the best one imo)

Its finally happening... they shouldnt have started this silly patent trolling, it was pretty minor before but now Apple has peed off every manufacturer they are getting a kicking .

[Bunjiweb]

If anyone is able to define to me how on earth you make a tablet PC without them looking similar then I may see where Apple is coming from. As it stands thy are just massive patent trolls who are loosing customers because of their legal bullying covering a lack of innovation. It is a sad time that we live in when someone can draw a couple of rectangles with a screen in the middle and patent it as a design, it's almost like someone patenting the design of TV or Monitor.... preposterous.

A piece of evidence Samsung has drawn on a couple of times is from 2001: Space Oddesy where two people are seen to be observing video and information on what is not much more than a black rectangle with a screen in the middle, or as Apple would call it, an iPad.



This Guy, Roger Fidler has also given an expert opinion at the trials as he personally came up with a tablet prototype well before the iPad came along, which he must be kicking himself for not patenting....

The WSJ ran an interesting little piece back in March which provided some what of an insight and showed that the judges weren't overly supporting of Apple's designs being patent-able....

Several decades ago, he worked for Knight-Ridder, a national newspaper chain, in Detroit, Washington and Miami as a graphics guru and design expert. His colleagues from those days remember a big thinker, a science-fiction addict and a bit of an oddball. Fidler was constantly scribbling designs for a tablet, telling anyone in earshot that newsprint would one day vanish.

Many ignored him, apparently at their peril. Apple — a $500 billion company — has sold more than 55 million iPads since introducing them in 2010, ushering in the post-PC revolution. Apple’s third iteration of the iPad, with a screen displaying 1 million more pixels than a high-definition TV, goes on sale this Friday. Lines will be long.

“It was not quite like Roger had descended from another planet, but he was saying some things that were simply very hard to believe at the time,” said John Woolley, who worked with Fidler at Knight-Ridder. “He had conjured up this idea of a tablet at a time when laptops were revolutionary. He was clearly a futurist. And he didn’t care what anyone believed. He never backed down.”

In 1979, Fidler joined Knight-Ridder’s corporate office to work on new business models. In 1981 — more than a decade before he made his viral video — he published an essay describing the tablet future. “These units could have tactile controls,” he wrote. “When readers wanted to read the whole story, they would simply press the capsule or tease headline and the complete story would instantly appear on the screen.”

Fidler even devised a fake plastic tablet, holding it up at journalism conferences to guffaws. His mock-up was rectangular and thin. “It just seemed so obvious to me that it had to be a touch screen,” Fidler said. “And it had to be portable. It had to fit in an attache case. It had to be comfortable to hold. That was the idea.”

... So what has changed since? Despite the obvious fact that Apple is a Californian company, why are they becoming so biased towards Apple? Is Apple's money going a long way behind closed doors to influence the outcome of these legal proceedings, or is the cultish behaviour of the company sucking in people who should have been remaining impartial to either side.

A company that thinks THIS is acceptable, amongst other things, will never get money from me.

[crossy]

In the ongoing patent battle between Samsung and Apple the court ruled that there was “evidence that Samsung altered its design to make its product look more like Apple’s”. Also the court declared that Apple had a strong case for the injunction as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is “virtually indistinguishable” from the iPad.

So (that first bit) do they (the court) have initial designs and then the final ones? If not, then I fail to see how there can be evidence that copying has gone on, short of a memo/email saying that. And anyone who can't tell Galaxy Tab from iPad is either blind or a complete idiot - and I would suggest that even a blind person could tell one from the other if given them to hold.

In her summing up the judge said “Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products.” ... Currently Apple dominates the tablet market with 63 per cent of global sales compared to Samsung’s 7.5 per cent share according to DisplaySearch market research statistics.

In which case if Samsung are attempting to "compete unfairly" then I'd suggest that they're making a piss-poor job of doing so.

Samsung representatives said they were disappointed in the decision and that this preliminary injunction was “…based on a single design patent that addressed just one aspect of the product's overall design.” A design feature that Samsung said is “generic” and enforcement of the patent would stifle innovation and progress.

Anyone know what this single feature is? Hopefully not that moronic (as in "never should have been granted") copyright for a tablet design with a large screen and a bezel around it. And where was Google meanwhile - surely time for them to do a "friend of court" involvement, otherwise the Nexus tablet will be next?

Anyone who thinks this is anything to do with "protecting Apple's IP" is either naive or biased, and it's obvious that Apple is using this solely to enforce their huge market dominance (I'd call 9:1 market share "huge"). Shame they couldn't spend as much time generating devices that would hold this dominance based on technical merit - rather than underhanded legal manoeuvres (and there's also a slight suspicion - in my mind at least - of playing of the "home company advantage" which if true is even more reason to dislike them)

Such a shame...

[Platinum]

Another case of the US looking after there own.

[miniyazz]

A company that thinks THIS is acceptable, amongst other things, will never get money from me.

They spell her surname differently three times in that article

[Ross1]

Y'all just jelly apple came up with the idea of the rectangle. Such an innovative shape, you cant just have other people copying your invention.

[Ross1]

I noticed in this document, which is from this case:
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/80...eclaration.pdf

firstly i started searching for the word rectangle. It appears a lot. It seemed to focus on three things, it being flat, being a rectangle and having rounded corners.

Perhaps the funniest line (or, not that funny given the judge has actually listened to this bollocks): But Mr. Sherman does not explain why other shapes could not be used to surround a rectangular screen.

That is apple requesting that samsung should be using a non-rectangular shape to surround the rectangular screen. You know, like all those non-rectangular tv's and monitors we have.

[crossy]

firstly i started searching for the word rectangle. It appears a lot. It seemed to focus on three things, it being flat, being a rectangle and having rounded corners.

Perhaps the funniest line (or, not that funny given the judge has actually listened to this bollocks): But Mr. Sherman does not explain why other shapes could not be used to surround a rectangular screen.

That is apple requesting that samsung should be using a non-rectangular shape to surround the rectangular screen. You know, like all those non-rectangular tv's and monitors we have.

If that IS the "unique design feature" that's Samsung is being accused of copying then my reaction is: Oh ... my ... god!

That said, it'd make a kind of sense - remember that there's the story going around that the Galaxy SIII was (subtly?) redesigned with non-symmetrical corners (top and bottom radii are different) at the request of Samsung's legal department. Presumably to prevent another legal "dumb bomb" from Apple on behalf of this nebulous "rectangular device with rounded corners" patent (if that actually exists).

I bet Ford etc are very glad that Apple doesn't make motor cars...

[semo]

If that IS the "unique design feature" that's Samsung is being accused of copying then my reaction is: Oh ... my ... god!

That said, it'd make a kind of sense - remember that there's the story going around that the Galaxy SIII was (subtly?) redesigned with non-symmetrical corners (top and bottom radii are different) at the request of Samsung's legal department. Presumably to prevent another legal "dumb bomb" from Apple on behalf of this nebulous "rectangular device with rounded corners" patent (if that actually exists).

I bet Ford etc are very glad that Apple doesn't make motor cars...

I'm glad Apple didn't invent the seatbelt or disc brakes!

[Ross1]

I think this is the specific 'rectangle with rounded corners' patent:

http://esearch.oami.europa.eu/copla/...000181607-0001

and yes, that IS the patent that is being 'infringed' in this case.

[Output]

All I can say, really. The patent trolling has got to stop. It's a bloody disaster.

I completely agree, there is no way that this is helpful in any way.

[Hicks12]

And another one...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18656402

Galaxy nexus banned, only cost £50 mill to get it blocked before the trial... madness really as it doesnt take into account potential sales that are lost, i.e not a growing trend but the fact if one person buys it and likes it they will recommend it to friends and likely that 1 becomes multiples. Regardless its a bloody corrupt system right to the core, i am confused as to how the nexus is able to be banned, it is a totally different device to the iphone it looks nothing like it and its the GOOGLE OS that covers the software side, so im assuming this case is specifically due to its looks/hardware which I dont understand at all!.

Please, someone dissolve this stupid patent system and build a better one that isnt biased to the local company or able to be thrown money at for a win...