Apple gets $1B

[TripletDaddy]

I will be neither surprised nor concerned.

If it is a better phone, then Android fans should have nothing to worry about, I would assume. I've never needed extensive customization rights on my phone so I don't get what all the fuss is about. I guess I don't use it for custom things. I use it for phone, clock, camera, video, some games, look up stuff on the web now and then. That is about it.

Seriously, what are you super-spies doing with your phones that you need all this customization above and beyond what the phone is spec'd to do?

[Guest]

NOK is up more today, on a percentage bases, than Samsung is down.

Carriers like to make money. If they can find alternatives that only require $70-$100 subsidies and have market traction, they'll flip the bill to help push them at the retail level, which has a large impact on consumer behavior for devise purchases.

Next year will be fun for devises, no matter the outcome (winners and losers).

[Surfah]

Sounds like Samsung has nothing to worry about then. A few tweaks here and there to avoid patent infringement and they will be good to go.

The GSIII wasn't apart of Apple's suit. Like I said, the first phone designed by lawyers.

[MartyFunkhouser]

I will be neither surprised nor concerned.

If it is a better phone, then Android fans should have nothing to worry about, I would assume. I've never needed extensive customization rights on my phone so I don't get what all the fuss is about. I guess I don't use it for custom things. I use it for phone, clock, camera, video, some games, look up stuff on the web now and then. That is about it.

Seriously, what are you super-spies doing with your phones that you need all this customization above and beyond what the phone is spec'd to do?

The customization are things as simple as adding widgets to your home screen. I can open up my phone and on the home screen see time, weather, a week of my calendar, and have access to the most used apps. I also can organize applications into folders on another home screen, have quick access to other applications through widgets. I don't like the iOS set up of the home screens being nothing more than applications in a 4x4 grid.

The biggest issue with this whole thing is the ridiculousness of the patents. I can see this impacting Android losing functionality such as pinch to zoom, tap to zoom, etc. that are just natural means of manipulating text on the screen. However, I'm sure that they will find away around it. One thing is clear, Apple has better patent attorneys if they are getting this stupid patents and Google has failed on the notification patent (you know the notification system that Apple the great innovators that do everything without influence from everyone took from Android).

[FMCoug]

Some here know where I used to work before moving to Utah. While there, we got sued for patent infringement by a small player in the same industry. Their claim was they patented the concept of a website search based on common profile attributes in order to come up with a score to define how closely the profiles match. No claims that we reverse engineered anything or stole source code, etc. Just the concept. I never heard the result but I know it never went to trial. My guess? We paid them off.

My company was a subsidiary of a $5B company. Do the math. It's quite the racket. Step 1. File a bunch of patents on concepts. Step 2. Wait for someone to hit it big on that concept. Step 3. Sue them for patent infringement. It's the patent lottery.

Patenting a "concept" or "look and feel" is just stupid.

EDIT: Interestingly, the company in question was Utah-based and a certain message board owner worked there until he quit for moral reasons.

[il Padrino Ute]

Some here know where I used to work before moving to Utah. While there, we got sued for patent infringement by a small player in the same industry. Their claim was they patented the concept of a website search based on common profile attributes in order to come up with a score to define how closely the profiles match. No claims that we reverse engineered anything or stole source code, etc. Just the concept. I never heard the result but I know it never went to trial. My guess? We paid them off.

My company was a subsidiary of a $5B company. Do the math. It's quite the racket. Step 1. File a bunch of patents on concepts. Step 2. Wait for someone to hit it big on that concept. Step 3. Sue them for patent infringement. It's the patent lottery.

Patenting a "concept" or "look and feel" is just stupid.

EDIT: Interestingly, the company in question was Utah-based and a certain message board owner worked there until he quit for moral reasons.

Jefe used to work for hookerbooker.com?

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Some here know where I used to work before moving to Utah. While there, we got sued for patent infringement by a small player in the same industry. Their claim was they patented the concept of a website search based on common profile attributes in order to come up with a score to define how closely the profiles match. No claims that we reverse engineered anything or stole source code, etc. Just the concept. I never heard the result but I know it never went to trial. My guess? We paid them off.

My company was a subsidiary of a $5B company. Do the math. It's quite the racket. Step 1. File a bunch of patents on concepts. Step 2. Wait for someone to hit it big on that concept. Step 3. Sue them for patent infringement. It's the patent lottery.

Patenting a "concept" or "look and feel" is just stupid.

EDIT: Interestingly, the company in question was Utah-based and a certain message board owner worked there until he quit for moral reasons.

Richard Posner, the judge I previously mentioned, made reference to this. I guess it's called patent trolling.

Patent law is not my thing. The extent of any knowledge I have is limited to the IP class I took from Tom Lee. He's a Chicago trained guy so I heard some of Posner's arguments in the class. Basically the key issue is to examine why we have a patent system and what incentives do they create. The patent system is obviously needed for pharmaceuticals given the money, time and regulatory hoops that have to be jumped through; otherwise, there's a question as to how innovative the pharmaceutical industry would be if they couldn't have some exclusivity to what they created.

When we're talking about something like iOS/iPhone, we're not talking about the same development time and regulatory quagmire. Perhaps an IP guy can talk about this, but I also wonder if there are other IP based causes of action based on trade dress if Samsung's Android presentation looks too much iOS. But patenting a lot of these things that are being litigated seems like a mistake. Instead of encouraging innovation, we're stymieing it. Was the concept of icons on GUI litigated to death back in the 80s/early 90s because both the Mac and MS had them? Blackberry had icons on its phones, Apple made a huge innovation with the iPhone -- but iOS is still basically a GUI with icons. We're not talking about the creation of Aspirin or Penicillin here.

It's also interesting that Posner is one the foremost experts on antitrust law and I think he looks through that lens at these patent actions between Apple and Google. The economic basis for antitrust law is to rid the market of the inefficiencies inherent in monopolies. MS threw its weight around with computer makers by threatening to reduce discounts to them for their OS if the makers flirted with any other OS maker. A superior OS for PCs (I'm not counting Linux) was impossible because of MS's power to crush any particular computer maker.

The idea here is that Apple is trying to achieve the same result through the patent system. While Apple should enjoy the fruit of its labors (isn't it already? Even with Samsung supposedly blatantly copying Apple, Apple just set a record as the most valuable company in history) it shouldn't be able to stymy competition.

[Guest]

I guess it's called patent trolling.

Good post. One quibble...

I don't consider Apple's suit patent trolling, per se. It may be abusing the patent system to protect market share, but that's just part of playing in the big leagues, in my mind.

I see patent trolling as something separate. Patent trolling is when firms create, or purchase from distressed companies, patents and use them a their primary source of income - via licensing. The firm has no intent to ever create anything, or bring any product to market, their only goal is to create a portfolio to then extract license fees.

See Intellectual Ventures as an example.

[Uncle Ted]

[Surfah]

LOL. That's pretty funny. It will be interesting to see how the new Nokia phone running Windows 8 does. The few Windows phones I have played with I really like. They're just lacking in support and development. It's sad to see how far Nokia has fallen. If they had hitched their wagon to Android early they could be Samsung. Their phones at one time were the best on the market. But they clung to Symbian for way too long and then decided a marriage with Microsoft was good. Whoops.

I need to pick up the Jobs bio. I almost did at Costco the other day but was afraid I wouldn't have time for it with football starting.

Their meeting was in Jobs’s conference room, where Gates found himself surrounded by ten Apple employees who were eager to watch their boss assail him. Jobs didn’t disappoint his troops. “You’re ripping us off!” he shouted. “I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!” Gates just sat there coolly, looking Steve in the eye, before hurling back, in his squeaky voice, what became a classic zinger. “Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

[TripletDaddy]

That's the classic scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley!

[Surfah]

That's the classic scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley!

[YOUTUBE]CBri-xgYvHQ[/YOUTUBE]

[Guest]

But they clung to Symbian for way too long and then decided a marriage with Microsoft was good. Whoops.

Remember when they jumped on board with MS, it was already so very, very late in the game. Too late. For both of them, really. Nokia had no chance to be Samsung. They didn't make that move until early 2011. Nokia didn't even ship their first windows phone until the end of 2011.

It will be interesting to see what they come out with next Wednesday - their announce day.

Nokia will probably continue their big push in China. China will pass the US as the largest smartphone market in the world within the next year and everyone's trying to position themselves for the win there.

Samsung is the current market leader in China, but IIRC, Nokia has a double digit market share.

[Uncle Ted]

LOL. That's pretty funny. It will be interesting to see how the new Nokia phone running Windows 8 does. The few Windows phones I have played with I really like. They're just lacking in support and development. It's sad to see how far Nokia has fallen. If they had hitched their wagon to Android early they could be Samsung. Their phones at one time were the best on the market. But they clung to Symbian for way too long and then decided a marriage with Microsoft was good. Whoops.

I need to pick up the Jobs bio. I almost did at Costco the other day but was afraid I wouldn't have time for it with football starting.

Their meeting was in Jobs’s conference room, where Gates found himself surrounded by ten Apple employees who were eager to watch their boss assail him. Jobs didn’t disappoint his troops. “You’re ripping us off!” he shouted. “I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!” Gates just sat there coolly, looking Steve in the eye, before hurling back, in his squeaky voice, what became a classic zinger. “Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

Yes, you need to read Jobs' bio. In that book it points out that Xerox had invested in Apple and invited Apple's engineers to look at their research.

[Surfah]

Yes, you need to read Jobs' bio. In that book it points out that Xerox had invested in Apple and invited Apple's engineers to look at their research.

I am familiar with the pre-IPO shares and the PARC visit including Larry Tessler afterward jumping from Xerox to Apple. But I do need to pick the book up. I am sure there are details in there I am not aware of. That whole era of development was pretty interesting.