
Apple v. Samsung: Surprises in Latest Court Documents - pnayak
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-monday-trial/
======
shrikant
The five 'reveals':

1\. Apple’s early vision for the iPad [...] were extraordinarily chunky and
included a kick-stand

2\. Google told Samsung that its devices looked “too similar” to Apple’s iPad.
Google demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”

3\. Apple made 23 to 32 percent on gross margins for iPads sold between April
2010 and March 2012.

4\. The iPhone design was inspired by a Sony designer talking about "portable
electronic devices that lacked buttons and other ‘excessive ornamentation,’
fit in the hand, were ‘square with a screen’ and had ‘corners [which] have
been rounded out"

5\. Apple researches consumer sentiment on existing products in order to
optimize future designs.

------
justinschuh
Wired's article certainly presents Apple's side of the story. Although, the
Samsung take is pretty interesting:
<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120726121512518>

Apparently, Apple argues that FRAND patents should be effectively free,
estimating that Samsung's standards patents are worth less than 1¢ per device.
Whereas, Apple thinks its design patents are worth $24 per device, and their
utility patents are another $3 on top of that. Were that to hold, it would
eliminate Samsung's profit margin. So, it's hard not to read this as Apple
trying to cage viable competitors entirely out of the market through legal
maneuvering.

~~~
spiralpolitik
FRAND patents of the like Samsung are complaining about are usually patents on
the individual component chip. Manufacturer of said chipset license the patent
when they make the chipset then sell the chipset to downstream integrators
like Apple. Given the cost of the chipset is far cheaper than the overall cost
of the device 1c per chip is reasonable, especially when said chipset may
require the licensing of hundreds of other patents as well and devices
requiring several chipsets. If Samsung wins here they will effectively kill
FRAND licensing and costs will increase significantly as everybody will now
want $25 per device for their patents.

As part of the standards process Samsung has committed to licensing these
patterns under Fair, Reasonably and Non-Discrimartory terms, which means they
can't ask Apple for a different rate than they give say Motorola or HTC.
Because Apple's Design patents are not FRAND they are under no obligation to
give anything to Samsung.

Because Samsung's patents are standards essential you can't build a cellphone
without needing them (hence the FRAND licensing), while its certainly possible
to build a cellphone that doesn't violate Apple's design patents (RIM, Nokia
et al don't seem to be getting sued for example). This doesn't mean that Apple
is right for suing companies for violating them, but what Samsung is doing is
far far worse.

~~~
patrickaljord
So if Samsung builds ground breaking technology that is so important that it
gets included in every smartphone, they can't charge more than 1c per chip.
However, if Apple builds trivial "slide to unlock", they can charge $25 per
phone and block devices from entering the market? What is the incentive of
doing research and developing important wireless technologies if you'll be
less rewarded than the company who developed "slide to unlock". Shouldn't
important techs get the most rewards? I'm against software patents, but if the
law's going to support them at least it should be coherent.

~~~
josephlord
If Apple charge $25 for a patent that isn't worth that much then people won't
licence it and will find alternatives. If Samsung charges a high rate for one
patent (of hundreds) people have to either completely drop the standard or
pay.

I don't know if the Samsung patents are groundbreaking or not. It could be
that there were other similar options the standards committee could have
selected but with Samsung in the room the choice with the Samsung patent was
made so all implementers need a license.

Big companies often want to get their technology into the standard as that
enables them to get a small per unit license fee across large numbers of
devices. I know that was the case when I worked at Sony. If Samsung didn't
want to make that patent FRAND they could have made it clear during
standardisation and I'm sure it would have been left out. If patents in this
area don't get into standards they are effectively worthless.

Remember that the a group of competitors sitting in a room discussing future
terms of business is either a standards committee or an illegal cartel. The
difference is the rules under which they operate to give others access to the
market which include the FRAND commitments.

~~~
Peaker
The problem is a patent may be worth so much because it is so trivial that
doing anything _else_ is silly.

Apple should never have been granted a patent for slide-to-unlock, that's a
trivial consequence of using a touchscreen UI.

~~~
josephlord
I'm not sure that really is the case. Nokia, Sony Ericcson, Palm and MS had
touchscreen handhelds for years before the iPhone. Either that should have
generated clear prior art or there are other options that aren't silly. If
Apple came up with something new that really makes all the old ways seem silly
maybe it really is a valuable technology that they can charge high prices for.

If the Apple patent is shown to be invalid they won't get anything and Samsung
won't have to work around it but whatever the situation there is no value in
comparing prices between FRAND and non FRAND patents.

I don't recall any of the tech giants including Google and Samsung campaigning
to get rid of whole categories of patents of for other major reforms. I would
like patent reform but The law as it exists should be enforced.

Edit: Note that in this and my earlier post I am not commenting on the
validity of either sides patents or what exactly the damages or license fees
for either should be BUT that there is little value making a comparison
between FRAND committed prices and those for any non FRAND prices.

~~~
Peaker
> Nokia, Sony Ericcson, Palm and MS had touchscreen handhelds for years before
> the iPhone

They had enough physical buttons to make button unlock a viable option.

When you have only a touchscreen, the gestures available to you are taps and
swipes. Taps easily happen accidentally, so some composition of swipes to
unlock is the main obvious remaining option.

~~~
josephlord
If that is the case anyone can work around the patent for the cost of a
hardware button.

Those saying this is a major critical feature (I'm not)that reduces hardware
costs and improves product design are really making the case that it is a good
patent, novel and useful.

~~~
Peaker
Then what you consider the invention here is really the touch screen and not
the unlocking. Adding a physical button just for unlocking is less obvious
than just using a gesture already available.

~~~
josephlord
A touchscreen is an invention but people managed to use touchscreens without
slide to unlock for years. That is a separate and dependent invention.

Either the designers didn't think about this approach or thought it wasn't the
best solution. If anyone produced such a solution or documented it the patent
should be invalidated for prior art.

My initial reaction to the patent was probably that is a bit trivial but
better than many that get granted and that there should be plenty of
workarounds. The slide to unlock definitely seems obvious once you have seen
it but I'm not sure it is so obvious before you have seen it (it's quite hard
to unwind your mind to a state of unknowing). You certainly need to asking the
right questions: how can we remove all the buttons, how do you prevent it
waking too easily.

There is no need for touchscreen phones to go completely buttonless. That is a
design choice not an essential feature to exist in the market.

------
SoftwareMaven
Not good when your own designers are saying "too bad it looks like an iPhone".
The Sony concept is interesting; it would be interesting to do a courtroom
test (can the lawyers differentiate when the judge holds them up). I don't
think it would e a problem with the original iPhone, but the iPhone 4 might
be. Of course, Sony never created that product.

~~~
amartya916
I also read that Best Buy had people returning the Galaxy Tab because they had
originally thought that it was the iPad.

Link: [http://allthingsd.com/20120726/documents-in-apple-v-
samsung-...](http://allthingsd.com/20120726/documents-in-apple-v-samsung-give-
reporters-plenty-to-chew-on/)

Now, of course one can say that the consumer should have paid more attention
to the branding, but I think that's missing the point. It seems that for a few
(?) people the Galaxy tab looked similar enough to the iPad to cause confusion
and that the big box retailer conveyed the message to Samsung.

~~~
jsnell
That data point doesn't mean much. Many people who aren't into tech will just
lump a whole category of devices together with the most prominent member of
the group. I suspect it's impossible to design a tablet-like device with any
commercial potential at all that someone won't confuse for an iPad.

For example, I've had someone call my original Eee Transformer an iPad. And
here we're talking of a device that's a different color (brown), different
texture (smooth vs. crosshatched), different shape (16:10 vs. 4:3), and much
thicker. Oh, and of course attached to a keyboard...

~~~
amartya916
If I understand your point correctly, you are referring to the fact that some
products by being first-to-market or by popularity start to define a category
of products. For example, vacuum cleaners in the UK are mostly called
"Hoovers", or say "Coke" represents a cola soft drink etc.

In those cases, people won't buy a product and return it. Although they refer
to a vacuum cleaner as a "Hoover", they go in knowing fully well that they are
buying a product that does what a "Hoover" does, i.e. pick up dust. Here
people didn't go in wanting an iPad-esque product and buying a product in the
same category, but rather they mistook it to be _the_ iPad. Pardon me if this
seems a little circuitous, having trouble with words today :)

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Article missed the biggest kicker, which is that the galaxy designs pre-date
the iphone:

<http://i.imgur.com/KPGYL.jpg>

------
jemfinch
Is "revelation" really too tough a word for the authors of this article or the
readers of Wired?

I really don't appreciate this linguistic trend in the tech community to turn
verbs into nouns in a non-standard, _ad hoc_ way when perfectly fine nouns
exist. I (unfortunately) hear it with "ask" fairly frequently at work, and it
makes me feel like Jules from Pulp Fiction ("Use 'ask' as a noun again, I dare
you...")

Can anyone shed some linguistic light on this trend?

~~~
jacobolus
Pretty sure the “reveal” here is supposed to be this kind:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reveal_(arts_and_showbusiness)>

Which is slightly different from “revelation”, though I agree with you that
“revelation” is better word in this context.

------
nirvana
Hey Falling. You've been hellbanned. Your comments are not appearing to anyone
except those who have "turn dead comments on". You may have been hellbanned
for daring to defend Apple on HN, who knows since they never say, but they are
really active at censoring people for having diverse opinions.

Just thought I'd share this in case you're still reading the thread... I can't
even reply to your hellbanned comments alas.

~~~
nolok
Banned for defending apple on hackernews ? Are you actually believing what you
say ?

If anything, I would say this place is a little too full of apple fanboys, not
the other way around. Get a grip on reality.

