News - Final USITC ruling places ban on some Samsung imports to US

[HEXUS]

Subject to a 60 day presidential review some older Samsung devices will be barred.

Read more.

[3dcandy]

If the president wants to appear fair then a veto *should* be used...but since when has fair applied to Apple?

[NecronomicoN]

The 501 patent: a plug which detects when a stereo headset is plugged in

Both my Realtek and Creative Labs audio solutions do this. How the Hell did Apple patent this?

[jimbouk]

Realtek: Headquarters Taiwan
Creative Technology: Headquarters Singapore

My guess that helped Apple get some nice protectionist patents in America...

[Roobubba]

We'll see what Obama does in due course, but my confidence in the US being a reasonable player in the world, rather than a playground bully, is slipping pretty much every day. We already know that Apple is a horrendous company, it's just a shame that the US government doesn't rein them in at least from time to time...

[KeyboardDemon]

Maybe Samsung should change their headphone detection to assume all headsets are stereo unless it detects a mono unit.

[crossy]

Only last week the US President vetoed a similar ruling banning the US import of some older Apple devices as they were found to infringe upon certain Samsung patents. A USITC final ruling judged to ban the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 but Pres Obama stepped in to prevent the action. Whether the same will happen with the Samsung devices ban decision remains to be seen. An article on ZDNet this weekend reckons the presidential veto should be used again, this time in Samsung's favour.

Got to say that if the veto isn't used in this case as well then it's a pretty clear case of tilting the playing field against non-US companies.

The 501 patent: a plug which detects when a stereo headset is plugged in

Seriously?! Allowing for my shockingly poor knowledge of how these things work, surely the fact that a circuit is completed by insertion of the plug counts as "obvious" and "essential technology". What the eff are they going to patent next, the membrane switch? Idiots! The brainless drone at the USPTO who permitted that to get through should be taken outside, strapped to chair, and soundly beaten with a stout book consisting of at least 500 copies of this page: What is a patent? with the bit that says

Your invention must ... have an inventive step that is not obvious to someone with knowledge and experience in the subject

highlighted on every copy.

The devices banned were largely older models such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Problem I've got, is that from the larger suefest Apple v's Samsung, we've seen already how Apple likes to "extend and eradicate" - with that other case not covering newer gear like the S3, then mysteriously the case was extended to cover those too.

Was in the local phone shop with el missus at the weekend and I just wasn't able to come up with a convincing reason why the iPhones were so expensive when she asked. ( She's now got a Nokia Lumia. )

[Agent]

Both my Realtek and Creative Labs audio solutions do this. How the Hell did Apple patent this?

Because the US patent system is broken and useless.

All this is being absorbed by consumers - so we all lose out in the end.

[keithwalton]

The 501 patent: a plug which detects when a stereo headset is plugged in

Both my Realtek and Creative Labs audio solutions do this. How the Hell did Apple patent this?

Because the patent is specific to mobile applications. They just re-purposed an existing technology into a new application usually enough to get a patent.
However i'm pretty sure my old nokia could do that and it pre-dated the iphone ...

[MercutioUK]

If the president wants to appear fair then a veto *should* be used...but since when has fair applied to Apple?

FAIRly overprice?

[crossy]

(The 501 patent: a plug which detects when a stereo headset is plugged in:
Both my Realtek and Creative Labs audio solutions do this. How the Hell did Apple patent this?)
Because the patent is specific to mobile applications. They just re-purposed an existing technology into a new application usually enough to get a patent.
However i'm pretty sure my old nokia could do that and it pre-dated the iphone ...

I think what's got NecronomicoN and I confused is how "headset detection on portable music device" is different enough from "headset detection on portable communication device". E.g. I'm pretty sure that my old Creative Zen Touch was clever enough to stop playing if you unplugged the headphones, and I'm also pretty confident that the Nokia N95 (which beat the iPhone to market by a couple of months - unless Apples patent was for iPod of course) also was able to change behaviour automatically based on whether you plugged in a headset or not.

It's probably sour grapes on my part, but that patent grant sounds suspiciously like the usual "oh it's an Apple patent, they're a tech company I've heard of, so this will obviously be okay".

[Ksyruz]

Don't see how this works, as these devices are out of production. Thus it would not effect Samsung in any way, but make us feel sorry for them as the patents infringed upon are really daft.