Aside from enriching lawyers, was there any benefit to this extended dispute? While this drained company's coffers ( and whatever they would have funded instead) was there direct harm from the dispute? I'm trying to find a reasonable perspective despite my unreasonably low (re: forming an opinion ) specific knowledge.
The benefit is precedent. Apple shows that they will do everything they can to enforce their patents, and Samsung shows that they will fight back. Both companies thus lower the chance that someone else will do the same thing.
That benefits THEM...how does it benefit the world? Were these infractions that threaten the incentive to innovate, or they infractions just because they could call them infractions? If someone else DID do the same thing, would the world be better off or not?
IBM is considered an IP failure for allowing the PC-clone market to come into being...even though it is highly unlikely computing would have taken off the way it did otherwise.
The notion hinges on the idea that someone or a group of people can invest time and resources into innovation with the understanding that they will get paid if the idea pans out.
The arguments for and against this notion are perpetual.
Backing up: I'm aware of the sides of the "how to spur innovation" argument. I'm asking if, in this set of proceedings, there was any impact OTHER than these two companies establishing that they will vigorously defend their claims AND I'm asking if those claims lie near any areas of interest.
For example, the "Dummie's Guide" trade dress cases about yellow or the one-click patent lived at the edges of those spheres, and thus helped define what the edge was. Was this a case that largely only impacts these two companies, or does the matter at hand fall into well-established realms and this was just a matter of legal details?
These are questions most journalism does a terrible job of covering, and hunting down legal blogs that also have enough technical knowledge AND aren't biased because patent attorneys tend to fall into the "everything must be protected no matter what" camp is quite an exercise.
I am unfamiliar with patent law, but the traditional discussion about it is whether it actually reflects these supposed values. Consider the major innovations of our time. Did patents play any role? As far as I can see, the best innovations spread quickly beyond the inventors (touch screens and gestures), and the remaining patentable details turned out to be either trivial details (eg icon placement on a home screen) or regulatory capture (see: codecs).
It just seems like patents were invented for an entirely different type of innovation than occurs now in software.
It's an extremely hard to thing to study, however, because the normal way to measure "innovation" is literally to count patents, making it extremely difficult to compare patents vs innovation.
Not at all - and I don't really care about them in this case, I'm more wondering what precedent was set for the world BY this case. (not just the ruling, but the entire proceeding).
Let me amend: I _should_ not be surprised at corporate indifference, but I'll admit I'm nonetheless surprised more often than I should be.
People should carefully consider the IBM PC clone situation before they leap to the defence of things like patents, how much more innovative would IBM have been if it was allowed to hold a virtual lock on business computers, vs the entire PC market?
There are few things that benefit everyone all the time. If we eliminated everything that only benefits a few people at any given time, what kind of world do you think we’d end up,with?
...I'm not sure why you have this response. I was asking the question, not suggesting an answer. To answer why I'm asking the question:
Nothing is perfect, but that doesn't' mean things can't be improved. If this case had near-zero benefit to the world outside of these two companies, and had it never happened not much outside of these two companies would be impacted, then it's a piece of evidence (one piece, not independently conclusive) that the IP issues involved are too heavy, no longer useful as a matter of public policy.
If, on the other hand, this impacts many companies in a good way, or settles certain legal issues that enables real innovation (as opposed to just locking down licensing requirements that don't spur innovation), then it's a piece of evidence (not independently conclusive) that the IP issues involved have actual merit and the protected and expensive fight is regrettable for the cost but not the existence.
And of course, on the gripping hand, any number of nuanced levels in the middle, including related issues like "took too long". "issue was important, but settlement leaves outside companies just as confused", etc.
Being far too ignorant to have an opinion (as I mentioned in my OP) I was hoping to get some enlightenment, some details, some sources, not hoping for a strawman shutdown. If we did so to every question on the internet, what kind of world do you think we'd end up with?
Well, since we don't know the terms of the settlement, we don't really know. Presumably one team's shareholders are slightly better off, and the other team's are slightly worse off than before, but it's hard to say by how much. In terms of global benefit, it's very hard to say, but humans aren't global optimizers.
IIRC Apple won bans for Samsung devices on US market, which gave them time to catch up with innovations in the next iPhone generations. These innovations were not so easy to copy unlike the whole smartphone concept and "round corners design".
There were preliminary injunctions on Samsung's tablets that were later overturned. Apple lost all design claims on tablets everywhere, due to the obviousness and prior arts. In the UK where Apple's EU-wide community design claims were handled, Apple was ordered to stop and correct Apple's misleading PR campaign against Samsung. The company continued their crap about Samsung's non-existing infringement and Apple was subsequently sanctioned for defying the court order.
As a consequence of Apple's overwhelming victory, in spite of SCOTUS's recent opinion on design damage award, we are probably going to see a lot of outrageous design patent litigation by a new species of patent trolls in coming months.
I had hoped that Samsung would fight Apple's absurd design claims to the end so as not to set any dangerous legal precedence, but it looks like Apple's hometown advantage (ie, judge, jury, POTUS) was a bit too much for Samsung to handle.
All in all, it's a huge loss for the tech industry with no benefit. Apple is not immune from potential design litigation, either.
If I would put three pieces of black masking tape on the iPhone 3G and Galaxy SII covering the locations of the brands and the home button you would have a really hard time telling them apart.
The OS is different but at first glance they don't look very different at all. Packaging had been cloned. The shape of the charger and connector had been cloned.
Sure. I'm pretty sure you could also walk into any Bestbuy with just one piece of black masking tape and nobody would be able to tell flat panel TVs with thin bazel from one another once the brand gets masked. Further Apple's design was not even new, much less unique. Apple's lawyering helped -- along with Apple's hometown Judge Koh who disallowed prior arts to stand in the court. So your point being?
Design patents are for very specific design elements, not the overall impression. Apple did assert trade dress claims (overall impression) against Samsung tablets (and IIRC smartphones), but the appeals court rejected it -- you can't assert trade dress claims on non-ornamental (or functional, obvious) features.
The TV market is an excellent example of the sort of market you think smartphones are in. Everything you said makes perfect sense and would find consensus here if the context was TV sets. They are not marketed for their design aesthetic, because the audience doesn't care. They look at headline dimensions (screen size, bezel size, thickness), bullet-point features[1], image quality and price.
This is not remotely similar to the way the iPhone was marketed. At the time it looked utterly distinctive to all its competitors so Apple used that as the key differentiating feature in its marketing.
Samsung released a product that was so aesthetically close it wouldn't pass the masking tape test, certainly not with the iPhone's target audience. It's important to remember that nearly everyone being marketed at had never bought any modern smartphone before, ever, from any brand.
[1] This is why Samsung aren't making sets that mimic LG's OLED industrial design—they're making old-school backlit LCDs with the marketing label "QLED".
Unsurprisingly a touchphone developed prior to the iphone also is a slab of black with a touchscreen covering most of the screen and fairly minimal buttons on the edges. It was only distinctive when compared to non-touchphones.
You are wrong again. You still don't understand what can be protected under "trade mark" or trade dress.
The infamous Coca cola bottle (16oz) is far from generic. Their bottle design is not driven by function (ie, maximum capacity, minimal materials required to make one, anti-slippery, etc). We can tell it apart from other soda bottle designs precisely because the bottle's curvy contour is purely "ornamental" and unique. The Coke's bottle therefore can be protected by "trade mark" -- although the EU has however has stricter standards and has refused to grant it.
Their 8oz soda can design however is utterly generic and they differ very little from generation to another. It's difficult to tell it apart from other soda cans -- not without the white logo and red background which is also trade marked -- because it's functionally necessary to come to that design to achieve maximum volume capacity and minimum materials used. This shape/design of the cans therefore can not be trade marked.
Your earlier comparison is absurdly flawed because once you mask prominent non-functional (or ornamental) features (with 3 tapes), what you end up with is a generic rectangular shape which can be attributed to any mobile device, which has been around much longer than Apple's birth and certainly not created by Apple.
Both the Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone 3G have a rounded shiny border. That's necessary to have a working touch-based phone? I don't think so. The home button deviates from the Android standard in such a way that it looks more like an iOS home button. It runs a custom version of Android in which every change they did made it look more like iOS (icons, the bottom dock, some look and feel changes). It's also quite obvious from some internal documents they were trying to copy it as much as possible, plus Google warning them beforehand already they were taking it too far.
I have an HTC HD2 and another Nokia smartphone from the same era that really didn't need to look that much like an iPhone to offer comparable services. Put three pieces of tape on that Nokia, three pieces of tape on the HTC and three pieces of tape on the Samsung Galaxy S and ask anyone which one of those two is an iPhone 3G by looking at the front, without turning them on.
Everyone picks the Galaxy S instead of saying "well I guess none of those?".
>>Both the Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone 3G have a rounded shiny border. That's necessary to have a working touch-based phone?
Not only are you unfamiliar with the patent laws involved in these lawsuits, but you are also now purposely conflating two different types of patent/copyrights issues -- that of design/trade dress issues and utility patent (touch). There were predecessors like the LG Prada (2007), Pidion (2006), and other phones that had the combined or separate features, indicating the mobile device designs were already converging on to what the first iPhone later revealed. The fact that the iPhone's predecessors were poorly implemented are besides the point, especially in design/trade dress where only the look and overall impression matters.
As I noted here in my earlier comment about "Apple's lawyering," the problem wasn't that there weren't prior arts to destroy Apple's claim to the original designs/trade dress; it was that Apple's lawyers tried very hard to prevent prior arts to stand in the case. Apple's homeown judge Koh eagerly obliged and allowed almost all Apple's evidence to stand while disallowing disproportionate number of Samsung's evidence and experts. In once instance, Magistrate Judge Grewal allowed Apple's motion for evidence spoliation against Samsung when it was revealed that Samsung failed to retain all dated documents required, but when Samsung asked the same to Apple just two days later, as it turned Apple also failed to retain their documents too, Grewal refused reasoning that Samsung's motion was one day after the tentative deadline. This was reversed only after a brief public uproar, but there were other examples of such odd procedural rulings that crippled Samsung's defense. Samsung likewise had counter-evidence to Apple's 130+ page doc Samsung allegedly used to copy Apple design, but wasn't allowed.
Let's not even go to the Obama administration's reversal of Samsung's win at ITC in 2013 which would have banned all iPhone importation (or forced Apple to settle the case amicably back then).
From memory, I really don't think so. I just checked the photos of both and I'm sure I would not only tell them apart, but also tell you which one is which, despite of me not owning any iPhone with that design nor Galaxy SII ever in my life. There are plenty of distinct shapes and features on both devices that it's quite hard to confuse them - and that's only speaking about its front side, as soon as you look from a different angle or take one to your hand, it becomes impossible to make a mistake.
I have no idea about packaging, chargers and connectors though. Those may be copied, I don't know. The device itself is distinctively samsungy though. I really don't think that "if you covered rounded edges, you would have hard time telling Openmoko Neo1973 (its design actually came earlier) and Apple iPhone apart" is a sound argument.
