

Netherlands judge rules Samsung Galaxy S, S II violate Apple patents, bans sales - bond
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/24/netherlands-judge-rules-that-samsung-galaxy-s-s-ii-violate-appl/

======
yaix
What's with the headline?

Samsung does not violate Apple patents, it just violates one patent.

And sales are not banned, they are just to be banned (in more than a month's
time), if Samsung does not make changes.

But it made me click through, which is probably what all those inaccuracies
had been introduced for.

~~~
biot
Headlines are written for brevity and to get you to read the article. However,
you'll note the corrections made to the article indicate the original version
said that Samsung violated other Apple patents and that the ban was immediate.
Only once the Dutch was properly translated did the corrections render the
headline a bit off.

------
kayoone
This is so ridiculous. I cant decide between a S2 and a Iphone 5 anyway but
this makes me lean heavily towards the Samsung device. Patenting the way to
unlock a phone via dragging an image ? God, i need to puke.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Just remember Apple is being sued as much as it's suing. Yes, it is disgusting
business practice across the industry, but nobody is immune and nobody is
pure. Apple gets the most air time because they are Apple.

Take some of your anger and let your representatives know how sick the patent
system is. Then do it again and again. We need to get the message to them!

EDIT: Yes, this case is Europe, but if America became more intelligent with
patents, Europe, who already is more intelligent, would likely follow.

~~~
KirinDave
> Just remember Apple is being sued as much as it's suing.

That doesn't make it acceptable. I'm tired of making excuses for Apple,
personally. I like their products, but they've worn my goodwill towards their
brand down to a nub by being one of the most ruthless and (in my opinion)
unethical brandishers of patents worldwide.

~~~
mitchty
So Apple doing bad things makes you mad at Apple. But the fact that other
companies also play the same game, some less successfully and most
importantly, with less press, doesn't impact your opinion of those companies?

You should direct your anger at the source of the issue, software patents.
Getting angry at companies doing what they need to in the current environment
isn't very productive.

~~~
chc
What they "need to do"? Why did Apple need to sue Samsung? Apple doesn't
_need_ the cash, Samsung's tablets aren't hurting iPad sales very much, and
Samsung didn't show any inclination to pre-emptively sue Apple.

~~~
mitchty
If you don't enforce your patents there isn't much point to having a patent.

It has less to do with sales. The whole patent suit situation is systemic to
the patent system. That and Apple tends to get into the news often it becomes
"newsworthy" enough to report.

~~~
reddit_clone
> That and Apple tends to get into the news often it becomes "newsworthy"
> enough to report

Oh? Not simply because they are one of the worst offenders?

How may patent law suits is Google engaged in right now that is instigated by
Google?

------
danieldk
Given that the ban starts only on October 13 and Android 3.0 does not violate
the relevant patents (according to Dutch news sites). Couldn't Samsung just
update the firmware in the meanwhile to change the behavior of touch-based
photo browsing to whatever Android 3.0 uses?

Edit: according to the judgment summary the Galaxy Tab does not violate said
patents.

~~~
pieter
Yes, this is exactly what they're going to do. They've already said they'll
update the firmware before the deadline to remove the scrolling behavior, so
their phones won't get taken out of the stores.

[1] Dutch: [http://tweakers.net/nieuws/76361/samsung-blijft-galaxy-s-
ii-...](http://tweakers.net/nieuws/76361/samsung-blijft-galaxy-s-ii-in-
nederland-verkopen.html)

[2] Translation:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h...](http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Fnieuws%2F76361%2Fsamsung-
blijft-galaxy-s-ii-in-nederland-verkopen.html)

~~~
CWIZO
As ridiculous as this is, I hope that this at least means we'll get the 3.0
update sooner to our SGSII phones ...

~~~
buster
I don't think any phone will get 3.0 because this is the "tablet version"..
4.0 (or what icecream sandwich will be) will be the united 2.3 and 3.x
branches. You'll have to wait a little longer, although Icecream Sandwich will
be released soon

------
pkandathil
There were the violations by Samsung of the Apple patent:

EP 2,058,868 - method of scrolling / browsing gallery;

EP 2098948 - recording a "flag" in connection with multiple screen taps, of
which Samsung would use the system by using Android 2.3 or later version;

EP 1,964,022 - method of "unlocking" of a portable device through the touch
screen an "unlock image" in a way to drag.

Patenting phone unlock and how to browse through pictures is a douche move.

~~~
sjs
Yeah, it is a dick move. At the same time if it moves the whole industry
forward then it's good for us as well. Mixed feelings.

Do you remember how we unlocked phones before the iPhone? On Nokia phones it
was Menu, * which was great but my mom never remembered to use it and was
always pocket-calling me. I promise you that problem has not occurred since
she got an iPhone. The first time I saw slide to unlock I was amazed, yes over
such a small thing. And it's a great example of why I like Apple's products.
They take the time to find good solutions to common, everyday problems.

Now everyone uses slide to unlock. I like competition as much as the next guy
but it's hard to see how most of Apple's competition is _not_ riding on their
coattails with Android. We all know what Android was going to be prior to the
iPhone's release, a BlackBerry wannabe.

Microsoft is notably not just copying Apple. HP/Palm also. Mostly just the
Android OEMs who seem to wish Android were iOS.

~~~
icebraining
Nokia _did_ have slide to unlock way before the iPhone:
[http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/cellphone_design/...](http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/cellphone_design/dkmb86g_438fwgxrnfn_b.jpg)

This is a clear case of adding "...on a computer" like that was some great
revolutionary advance. It isn't. It's the obvious translation of an existing
concept.

~~~
sjs
Many great ideas are obvious in hindsight. If it was so obvious why had nobody
done it?

Would you say, "Oh Amazon? Whatever they're not doing anything new. They're
just selling shit except their store is on the web. Big deal, that's not
innovative just because they're doing it on a computer."

My mom owned a Nokia slider back in the late 1900s, but the model preceding
that one. If Nokia had kept making top-end phones like those were in their day
I would probably still be buying Nokias. I swore by them. You could drop them,
throw them, soak them, anything. Dry it out, take it apart, and it was fine.
About 7-10 years ago, with a lot of their models, the worst case scenario was
you bought a new case. And the UI was actually quite good, definitely superior
to other phones of the time (that I tried anyway).

I had a Nokia phone from the late 1900s until 2008. The last Nokia product I
bought is the n810 and it was not very good. I loved the idea but the
execution was poor (and I got the 3rd version). I rarely used it and then
never used it once I got an iPhone. The iPhone 3GS was a better browser than
the Internet Tablet, better GPS (it's using other location data but I don't
care, it's still better), and happened to also be my mp3 player and phone.

It's sad to see Nokia today, I really hope they can turn around but I have
less hope for Nokia than I do for webOS :(

~~~
icebraining
_> Many great ideas are obvious in hindsight. If it was so obvious why had
nobody done it?_

Because it didn't make any sense considering the technical constraints and the
physical design. Smartphones before the iPhone had much smaller screens,
usually resistive (requiring a stylus to operate properly) and had keyboards,
which were much more practical for unlocking. Just look at the best
smartphones of 2007: <http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6452_7-6600061.html>

_> Would you say, "Oh Amazon? Whatever they're not doing anything new. They're
just selling shit except their store is on the web. Big deal, that's not
innovative just because they're doing it on a computer."_

Basically, yes. Other people had the same idea, and there were other ecommerce
websites launched before or at the same time. It was a matter of understanding
sales - particularly mail order - and the Web, which wasn't exactly common.

Was it innovative? Yeah. Was it innovative enough to get a _20 years monopoly
over it_? No. Is Apple's slide to unlock innovative enough for that? Hell no.

~~~
sjs
> _Because it didn't make any sense considering the technical constraints and
> the physical design. Smartphones before the iPhone had much smaller screens,
> usually resistive (requiring a stylus to operate properly) and had
> keyboards, which were much more practical for unlocking._

Except as I pointed out that sort of thing just doesn't work for a lot of
people. "Press this strange combination of keys in the right order and it
unlocks" is not a usable solution for the masses. This was the status quo for
at least 10 years, I remember the Menu * thing from 1998 and my last Nokia
phone in 2008 had it.

Doing something in a different way than the way everyone else had done it for
over 10 years prior is innovation. I'm not saying it warrants a patent and I
never did say that. You say it's not innovative but it clearly is. As you
pointed out the slide to unlock feature is trivial compared to the bigger
change of using touch as the main input mechanism.

This is what innovation looks like, the iPhone changed the status quo:
<http://www.marco.org/2010/08/19/a-smartphone-retrospective>

~~~
icebraining
You're confusing things. Having a big, capacitive touch screen was in fact an
innovation. But having that, Slide to Unlock is obvious.

 _Except as I pointed out that sort of thing just doesn't work for a lot of
people. "Press this strange combination of keys in the right order and it
unlocks" is not a usable solution for the masses. This was the status quo for
at least 10 years, I remember the Menu_ * _thing from 1998 and my last Nokia
phone in 2008 had it._

But they did that because they were limited by the keyboard, and Apple did not
innovate on "ways to unlock the screen using a keyboard". They innovated on a
different part of the phone, which allowed them to take a different approach
on phone unlocking.

 _Doing something in a different way than the way everyone else had done it
for over 10 years prior is innovation._

Unless it's obvious, which taking as the starting point the _actual_
innovation - the big capacitive screen - it was.

 _As you pointed out the slide to unlock feature is trivial compared to the
bigger change of using touch as the main input mechanism._

Well, exactly. But the patent, which is what's being discussed, is only about
slide to unlock, nothing else.

------
SnowLprd
From an ethical perspective, I find Samsung's inability to innovate and
subsequent willingness to carbon-copy the iPhone and iPad to be reprehensible
and wrong. It's sad that Samsung seemingly can't come up with much original on
their own.

From the perspective of fostering general innovation in the marketplace and
increasing the greater good, software and design patents need to go bye-bye.
Apple's just playing the game according to the current rules, and the current
rules really need to change.

~~~
nodata
My G2 has a back button, a home button and an options button below the screen
which takes up most of the device. An iPhone doesn't.

The battery is user replaceable. I can plug in an sd card. On an iPhone I
can't.

On the G2 I can switch between recent applications by holding the home button.
I can access the contents of my phone by using a web browser. I can sync
without iTunes.

Doesn't sound like a carbon copy to me.

~~~
evilduck
Samsung didn't invent any of that.

~~~
evilduck
I'm sorry, why the downvote? This is about Samsung creating a product that's
not a copy of Apple right?

The Home, Back and Menu actions are _required by Google_ and who suggests
manufacturers make them hardware inputs. They're not "differentiating their
product from Apple", they're complying with the specified requirements to run
the OS they chose. They _could_ have innovated by making them gestures or a
touchpad or something, but they didn't.

Switching applications with home buttons and other OS behaviors _are not
Samsung's ideas_ , they're part of the stock Android OS.

For Samsung's actual contributions to the product, compare their first Android
device, the I7500, to their Galaxy II line. Which direction did the design
travel?

I7500:
[http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2009/04/i7500_...](http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2009/04/i7500_samsung.jpg)

iPhone:
[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/iphone...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/iphone-4-top-
new-1.jpg)

Galaxy II:
[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/04/11z428...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/04/11z428207gsii.jpg)

~~~
nodata
I didn't downvote you, but I guess the reason is that it's irrelevant which
parts Samsung invented, and which parts Google invented since the point is
that Apple didn't.

But Apple's new version of iOS "copies" several of the features from my phone.

~~~
evilduck
You original reply was to this:

 _I find Samsung's inability to innovate and subsequent willingness to carbon-
copy the iPhone and iPad to be reprehensible and wrong. It's sad that Samsung
seemingly can't come up with much original on their own._

And you countered with an HTC G2 example, tangential to the Samsung vs. Apple
story. My point was circling back around to the linked story and GP post which
was Samsung vs. Apple. Feature copying between Google and Apple is an entirely
different debate.

Samsung is very clearly trying to ride Apple's coat tails in ways that HTC and
Google are not.

------
jwn
Can anyone speculate on the likelyhood of Apple getting such a ban enacted in
the US? If it looks impending I want to order one before it happens.

------
krelian
If there is any chance that this will lead to some people in power realizing
the ridiculousness of it all then it was all worth it.

------
goombastic
Companies should make phones completely without an OS and allow people to load
them up with the OS of their choice. Something like Cyanogenmod on a blank
phone would be awesome.

~~~
hessenwolf
I'd pay extra not to have to bother spending 8 weeks compiling gentoo.

~~~
sukuriant
Why the downvote. He has a point. Preinstalled operating systems are
incredibly convenient, something the average user doesn't want to have to do.

------
epaga
Seems like the violations are software-only (slide to unlock for example), so
an Android update by October 13 should solve their problem...or am I missing
something?

~~~
bonzoesc
Do you think Samsung could get an update out in under two months?

~~~
Kylekramer
In most circumstances, no. When the motivation is update or have your products
removed from stores, I'd think you'd be surprised how quick Samsung can be.

~~~
wccrawford
In addition, they don't have to update EVERYTHING, just those few things...
The next update could be an emergency release addressing just those things,
and then a later update could bring everything they've been working on.

That's how I'd do it, unless the next update already had those fixed and it
was very, very close anyhow.

------
IsaacL
International law is something I'm trying to improve my knowledge of. Can
someone explain why it is that a judge in the Netherlands can block the sales
of the Samsung Galaxy throughout Europe?

~~~
speleding
All the stuff shipped into Europe by Samsung (and by many other companies)
goes through the Netherlands. If you ban import into the Netherlands you would
need to route around it. Setting up an entire operation in another country is
hard enough to make it unprofitable to do for a few models.

The Netherlands has Europe's largest port (Rotterdam) owing to its lucky
geographic position at the end of the Rhine and Meuse, two of the largest
rivers. Since transportation by boat is several times cheaper than rail or
truck this has caused most logistics companies to set up shop there.

------
kenyan_komu
Guess what I just invented a new way of opening my kitchen door, just press it
with your butt. Now I'm going sue the remaining of you 5, 999, 999, 999
humans. Seriously though they say that the thing with th gallery is the
default in android 2.3. So it is more like they are suing google? Its it time
google sued someone for violating the mobile phone patent they acquired from
motorola? they can do it in a small country like Nicaragua, u know, just to
send a msg of intent

------
davedx
Original FOSS article: [http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/dutch-court-
orders-e...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/dutch-court-orders-eu-
wide-preliminary.html)

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
That article makes the interesting point (which I'll repeat here for those who
can't be bothered to read it) that Samsung logistics use the Netherlands as a
hub for Europe.

While the ban doesn't stretch across Europe, they would have to change that to
get devices into other European countries.

~~~
bond
I think that if they don't generate the sales from that hub and only from the
subsidiaries on each country then they can still use it...

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
No, they aren't allowed to import them into the Netherlands at all for any
reason so long as the ban is in place.

------
iamdave
So does anyone know if Samsung's decision to bring Cyanogenmod aboard was
prompted by the events leading up to this? Any links/reading/conjecture on the
matter?

------
reddit_clone
Didn't apple do a blatant rip off of Android notification center concept?

I didn't see any outrage from Apple fanboys then.

~~~
cheald
Well, you see, Apple never steals ideas, they just invent them out of
chronological order sometimes. </snark>

------
Astrohacker
Patent laws should be ignored. Run your company pseudonymously, and violate
patents all you want. No one will be able to stop you.

------
Jun8
I think this will be a minority report but:

Although I hate Apple's heavy-handed approach to this, I also like the message
that this sends to Asian companies, who have quite a cavalier approach when it
comes to "borrowing & adapting" the designs and innovations from others. The
list is long and is by no means limited to Apple: Routers from Cisco, phone
designs from Motorola, etc. etc.

It may be impossible to properly enforce copyright and trademarks in China and
other neighbors but at least this shows that Europe may be a different battle
ground.

~~~
guywithabike
I'd love to hear from people who are downvoting you. Why are they downvoting
you?

~~~
cageface
I almost never downvote, and didn't in this case, but I don't think this is
sending the right message. Android is not a copy and adds more than enough of
its own twists and innovations to justify its existence. If anything losing on
trivial patents like this this is going to send the message to Asian companies
that the Western markets are stacked against them no matter what they do.

~~~
Jun8
"the message to Asian companies that the Western markets are stacked against
them no matter what they do"

Given how successful they are, that's _very_ unlikely. However, the converse
is actually true, China _is_ quite hostile to Western business, you can read
up on this on the many articles published, e.g. on the _Economist_. If you
want to be treated fairly, you have to treat others so, too, isn't this the
golden rule?

~~~
vetinari
Economist is not exactly an etalon of unbiased reporting. They have very
Anglo-Saxon centred optics.

It does not change the fact, that yes, China is very hostile to Western
businesses.

~~~
mechnik
How do etalons and optics apply here? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etalon>

~~~
vetinari
Etalon also means standard, benchmark data, other instances are compared to
this one. Originally from French.

