
Apple, Samsung Declare Peace - codermobile
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/apple-samsung-settle-patent-infringement-dispute
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ergothus
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.

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ComodoHacker
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".

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tooltalk
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.

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bsiemon
It is interesting to think about these trans-national corporations fighting
wars and then signing peace treaties. Used to be only nation states did that.

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afandian
Nah, private companies have got involved in that kind of thing since forever:

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company)

~~~
denzil_correa
UFC : The Chiquita banana company who lobbied for the "1954 Guatemalan coup
d'état" \- an operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan
government. Why? The elected president policies were a threat to UFC's
exploitative labor practices. CIA involved, Guatemalan government overthrown,
dictatorial rule, civil war for decades.

The CIA even launched another operation to find the Soviet influence in
Guatemala to justify the coup. The operation was a failure.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état)

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pecg
And the same kind of practices where done in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Colombia, Bolivia, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, to name a few.

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ksec
Apple needs to focus on Qualcomm, and that is why it is time to end the case
with Samsung once and for all.

On one hand Qualcomm CEO have said it is all about the cost of patents, and
they will very likely settle out of court. Downplaying whatever damage there
is, on the other hand they don't seem like they will settle.

Another interesting battle looming.

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tooltalk
Apple has 90+ other pending patent litigations. I hardly doubt this closure is
going to help them focus on Qualcomm.

Apple was forced to settle with pretty much every wireless patent holders and
all in patent holders' favors (eg, Nokia, Ericsson to name a few) in the past
-- I'm not sure if that's going to change this time.

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foobarbazetc
Definitely padded the bank accounts of a bunch of law firms though.

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TimTheTinker
Law firms aren't incentivized to conclude litigation, are they?

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bigpicture
Of course they are. A firm-wide email celebrating the "successful" conclusion
of a litigation and naming specific associates who did important work is
primarily how associates gather the necessary recognition to make partner.

The last thing an associate wants to have happen at the partnership vote is
for 2/3 of the senior partners to say "who?" when their name comes up. The
last thing a partner wants to have happen is to get a reputation of "nobody
ever makes partner working for him/her".

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kodablah
> Apple said after its May victory that the case “has always been about more
> than money” and “it is important that we continue to protect the hard work
> and innovation of so many people at Apple.”

So...is that what was accomplished here?

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tooltalk
not so much of accomplishments, but two take-aways that come to my mind are:

1) you can't mess around with a politically well connected American company.
Of course, I'm talking about the Obama administration's reversal of Samsung's
ITC win that would have settled this lawsuit back in 2012.

2) thx to Apple, now we are very likely to see more absurd design patent
lawsuits in coming months.

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ratsmack
I have personally become weary of ridiculous patents over extremely trivial
items that the average person considers obvious. These pissing contest stifle
new and improved technologies built upon older ideas and makes it impossible
for new startups to enter the field.

The entire idea of patents is sound, but the rules we play by need to be
revised... hopefully our nations lawmakers will one day see how destructive
the current rules are.

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habitue
_Is_ the entire idea of software/design patents sound?

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matthewmacleod
It generally seems at least as reasonable as any other form of IP protection.
After all, the underlying principle is that the creators of an 'invention'
deserve some kind of protection from others who would profit from their work
without requiring the same level of investment – with idea that it's better
for society in the long term to avoid a 'race to the bottom'. I'm not sure
that's particularly different whether we're talking about creative work,
physical inventions, manufacturing processes, computer software, or design
languages.

It does seem that the rules governing them need to be revised. Many patented
ideas are utterly trivial, or have no practical implementation, or are just
unused. The terms are clearly too long as well. But the underlying idea
doesn't seem terrible.

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post_break
I have to wonder if Apple got Samsung to reduce the cost of their displays in
the deal. Or the ability to license the tech to build them themselves. Just a
complete shot in the dark but I could see Apple seeing that as a huge win.

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chadash
TLDR; Apple and Samsung seem to be tired of fighting this fight, so they
settled. They have each spent hundreds of millions in legal fees on the ordeal
and they avoid spending hundreds of millions more by settling the ordeal,
which can go on a long time.

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tooltalk
Well, no. Samsung won the SCOTUS decision last year that cancelled out Apple's
hometown jury's absurd design patent award. The case was sent back to the
district court for damage-only re-trial where Apple's hometown jury awarded
even more money to Apple.

Apple clearly had no desire to settle, but Samsung clearly saw that there was
no way that they could get a fair trial like they did in non-US courts around
the globe. Samsung probably ended up paying slightly less the amount the last
jury awarded, plus some humiliating terms and conditions.

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deltateam
Because the technology and hardware being debated was obsolete.

