Apple's helpful guidelines for competitors to avoid patent infringement

[murraypaul]

To tie in more legal woes for Apple, with the situation in China:

Apple loses iPad trademark case in China

Apple could face disruption to its iPad sales in China after a court rejected its claim to own the iPad trademark in the country and a rival sought to halt sales of the tablet device in two Chinese cities.

[...]

In 2006, Proview Electronics (Taiwan) agreed to sell Apple the “global trademark” for the IPAD name for £35,000, according to Proview, but the two companies have subsequently disagreed about whether that deal included China.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

To tie in more legal woes for Apple, with the situation in China:

Apple loses iPad trademark case in China

You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Now this I can make real easy for you. Name 5 innovative products DESIGNED in China by Chinese? You might name Hanlin 920, but for that one the innovation took place overseas, at E-Ink in Taiwan, not in China. I have been to China hundreds of times, can speak and read Chinese and even I cannot come up with five examples.

Chinese products have a long history of a being a race to the low end of the price range. Take a walk through Chinese malls, except for the expensive imported items all the local stuff is just "me-too". There is no innovation (even hardly any new design for garments or shoes), and why should anyone go through the trouble and expense of developing something when, as soon as the goods hit the store, the first copy products appear? Companies like Adidas have seen copies of their designs hit the stores before they themselves did (local companies paid Adidas employees to smuggle out the designs during development).

No copyright and no patent protection sort of does make sense for dirt poor countries. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all started out this way. But they reach the point --- like China does now, when they need to upgrade, when they need to promote innovation, because they cannot just compete on price anymore as costs are too high. But for even half developed countries without these protections there is only a race to produce at the lowest price, at the expense of jobs in developed countries, of course. When making dirt cheap products, who can afford to pay good wages? How can you create any value beyond production cost without them?

A.) You have illicitly shifted the burden of evidence from yourself. You made the claim about Chinese creativity. The onus is on you to provide the evidence for it.

B.) The claim was about creativity, not innovative products. All innovative products may very well be creative, but creativity as a category is far more extensive than innovative products.

C.) You have not provided any evidence that this purported lack of creativity is due to a lack of copyright and patent protections. You have simply assumed it in your reply.

As to how you create value beyond production costs, that is a phenomena inherent within the capitalist mode of production itself. Laborers produce more value in a given time period than they require to sustain themselves and their families during that same time period. The difference between what they receive in wages and the value that they produce, once constant capital costs have been subtracted, is the profit. How much the workers receive in wages above and beyond their subsistence costs is a matter of struggle between the workers and the owners (the concept of what constitutes 'subsistence' varies from country to country and region to region throughout history, of course). So yes, you can definitely produce value beyond the production costs while creating copies of products designed elsewhere.

[andym]

Oh dear, this forum only gets madder and sadder.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by andym

Oh dear, this forum only gets madder and sadder.

You'll soon learn to recognize the players.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by andym

Oh dear, this forum only gets madder and sadder.

Originally Posted by kennyc

You'll soon learn to recognize the players.

Madness, takes its toll.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Madness, takes its toll.

Sounds like time to listen to some Madness.....

[mrscoach]

My hubby thought I was joking when I told him of this list. He also asked, "How do you have more square than rectangular? Who's stupid thought was that? A square IS a rectangle, and if they want 'more square' then there is no actual definition of that."

I guess that's the math teacher in him coming out. He would penalize a student if they said something was 'more square than rectangle'.

[HappyMartin]

Its just capitalism folks. Sheesh, I thought it was what we all wanted? Remember how GM bought up and destroyed public transport systems in the States in order to create a market for cars.

Well this is the same but not as big a deal. Its a tablet. Its not changing the landscape of entire cities.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

Its just capitalism folks. Sheesh, I thought it was what we all wanted? Remember how GM bought up and destroyed public transport systems in the States in order to create a market for cars.

Well this is the same but not as big a deal. Its a tablet. Its not changing the landscape of entire cities.

Actually no, it isn't capitalism at all. It is an attempt to gain a monopoly through the courts, to circumvent the market.

[HappyMartin]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Actually no, it isn't capitalism at all. It is an attempt to gain a monopoly through the courts, to circumvent the market.

And is that not their right? Is hubris, arrogance and stupidity against some rule of capitalism? If Apple gets away with it then lay the blame with the courts. Companies are not people despite what our legal systems pretend. Companies are amoral.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

And is that not their right? Is hubris, arrogance and stupidity against some rule of capitalism? If Apple gets away with it then lay the blame with the courts. Companies are not people despite what our legal systems pretend. Companies are amoral.

All I am saying that such behavior is anti-capitalistic. Are companies amoral? Are people amoral? Companies are run by humans.

[HappyMartin]

Very few people are amoral. As long as we labour under the misguided delusion that companies are like people or have the rights of people we will be tempted to ascribe moral qualities to them. Companies are established in order to achieve certain narrowly defined goals. We can attempt to tack certain qualities we would describe as moral onto these goals but really companies are there to make money. The rest is window dressing. Companies are controlled to some degree by laws that they must follow. Part of the process is that are permitted to challenge the laws and the interpretation of the laws. That is all that is happening.

You may as well get angry with a lightning bolt as a company as I see it.

[HappyMartin]

I am beginning to this this belongs in the P&R sub forum

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

And is that not their right? Is hubris, arrogance and stupidity against some rule of capitalism? If Apple gets away with it then lay the blame with the courts. Companies are not people despite what our legal systems pretend. Companies are amoral.

No, misuse of the legal system for gain is neither capitalism or a right.
The term for it is and always has been corruption.