Apple v Samsung: Can Look and Feel Be Patented?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

Problems is that things like steering wheel couldn't be used by anyone else if developed now if I understood right. What is after joystick, buttons, switches, what after those? What about other ideas like indicators, gears and so on. Just the interface... When the most obvious and best ways are exhausted, we are left with clunky user interfaces...

Cars weren't always steered with steering wheels. Many features of modern cars were patented, and only used by others under licence. Until the patents expired.

Patents also ensure that multiple solutions are tried, and when the patents expire the best are universally adopted.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Precisely. In the short term, this may restrict consumer choice, but in the long term it's almost certainly good for the consumer, since it will mean that manufacturers will have to devise innovative devices, not simply copy what other companies have already done.

This is right.

The "restricting consumer choice" claim is a bit of a canard anyway...patents are *supposed to* prevent knock-offs which, of course, does prevent consumer choice by restricting the right to sell the product to the patent holder.

[tubemonkey]

Nothing like having your own paper trails slip the noose around your neck

Apple-Samsung Jury Foreman Says Google E-Mail Persuasive

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Cars weren't always steered with steering wheels. Many features of modern cars were patented, and only used by others under licence. Until the patents expired.

Patents also ensure that multiple solutions are tried, and when the patents expire the best are universally adopted.

Exactly. Tillers and joysticks have been tried.
Even as recently as the 50's yokes were tried.
Modern steering wheels are a result of decades of incremental refinements.

Plus, it costs money to develop good solutions so patents give a *temporary* monopoly to the inventor to benefit from their development before it enters the public domain and the common heritage of humanity.

One thing being ignored in all the handwringing over the verdict is that the smartphone industry isn't just Apple and Samsung.

There are other players in the business who played by the rules and didn't copy Apple designs. So Samsung's shortcuts not only saved Samsung from having to develop their own legal solutions, it allowed them to undercut companies like HP, Nokia, and RIM that spent good money trying to do the right thing and compete fairly.

Maybe the folks that think that even at $1billion Samsung is coming out ahead are right...?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

So Samsung's shortcuts not only saved Samsung from having to develop their own legal solutions, it allowed them to undercut companies like HP, Nokia, and RIM that spent good money trying to do the right thing and compete fairly.

Maybe the folks that think that even at $1billion Samsung is coming out ahead are right...?

Who says cheaters never prosper?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Nothing like having your own paper trails slip the noose around your neck

Apple-Samsung Jury Foreman Says Google E-Mail Persuasive

Or having a jury foreman with a Patent of his own so he understands the rules of the game. Odd that the Samsung lawyers didn't try to keep him off the jury.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Or having a jury foreman with a Patent of his own so he understands the rules of the game. Odd that the Samsung lawyers didn't try to keep him off the jury.

The plot thickens

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

When the most obvious and best ways are exhausted, we are left with clunky user interfaces...

Things always seen obvious after a patent is given.

[ScotiaBurrell]

...I don't think this jury's ruling will stand...

If this jury thought they knew the right result without instructions, and if they hurried so much they made glaring mistakes, and they did, and all in Apple's favor, something isn't right in this picture. As the legal blog, Above the Law expressed it:

Here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen of the Apple v. Samsung jury: It would take me more than three days to understand all the terms in the verdict! Much less come to a legally binding decision on all of these separate issues. Did you guys just flip a coin?

If it would take a lawyer three days to make sure he understood the terms in the form, how did the jury not need the time to do the same? There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like $2 million dollars for a nonfringement.

Come on. This is farce.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...12082510525390

Damage done...too late to put horses back in barn.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This case had nothing whatsoever to do with copyright; it was about patent infringement.

Being in a book forum, and being forgetful, I got confused.
Apache

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Apache

Being in a book forum, and being forgetful, I got confused.
Apache

Do what I do when I address these related topics and call it patent/copyright/blah-blah. That covers all the various legal terms involved.

[afv011]

Apparently the jury decided Samsung was guilty the first day of the trial. Samsung only started presenting their evidence the 2nd week.

Apple v. Samsung juror Manuel Ilagan said the nine-person jury that heard the patent infringement case between the companies knew after the first day that it believed Samsung had wronged Apple.

Source

Doesn't sound very impartial to me, but then, what do I know?

[fjtorres]

Not all evidence is created equal. Apparently the jury found the Samsung memo and the Google email compelling evidence that Samsung set out to copy Apple and persisted after Google told them to change.
As the NBC report (above) said: Apple had the easier case to present and they went first. Samsung had the harder job: erase the scenario Apple had painted and replace it with a more believable one.

Next step is to see what the Judge does. (Treble damages is one option, banning Samsing products another, more exist.)
After that, it'll be up to the appeals court.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

After that, it'll be up to the appeals court.

By the time that rolls around, the affected devices will already be obsolete and Samsung won't care if they're banned.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by afv011

what do I know?

...answers to all my android questions!