
Apple Files Patent Suit Against Samsung Over Galaxy Line of Phones and Tablets - pathik
http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110418/apple-files-patent-suit-against-samsung-over-galaxy-line-of-phones-and-tablets/
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Groxx
>
> _[http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/files/2011/04/apple-v.-samsu...](http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/files/2011/04/apple-v.-samsung-2.png)
> _

I think they have an actual case here. That's about as blatantly-copying as
you can get without making a _complete_ knock-off that's _designed_ to fool
people.

~~~
abstractbill
There's only so much variation you can have once you've decided that most of
the surface area of a phone is going to be taken up by a touch-sensitive
screen.

~~~
Bud
Yeah, exactly: Samsung was FORCED into using the exact same number of icons,
arranged in the same 5 rows of 4 icons, in the exact same shape. Also forced
into a 4-icon shaded bar at the bottom with the 4 key icons in said bar, and
forced into using a near-identical "phone" icon in the exact same place,
because after all, a light-green phone icon with a diagonally-slanted
depiction of a phone handset was the only possible way to go. Samsung was also
clearly forced into using the exact same means of depicting multiple screens
of icons.

Come on. Samsung clearly didn't even TRY to distinguish their product, here.
This is about as obvious as it gets.

~~~
uvdiv
The 5x4 layout seems pretty unremarkable -- should each phone manufacturer
have to trademark their own layout (n,m), for nonzero integers n,m? Will small
players be forced to adopt button grids like 21x1 if they can't license
actually-usable arrangements?

I don't think it's reasonable that a simple silhouette of a phone, used as an
icon to represent a phone, is trademarkable. The color is more interesting,
until you look at wikipedia and see that mobile phones were using almost the
exact same iconography -- phone silhouette over light green background -- at
least as far back as 1989:

Nokia Mobira Cityman

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia#First_mobile_phones>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia_150_and_nokia_1100.j...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia_150_and_nokia_1100.jpg)

The only difference is that the icon has been rotated and now has a shorter
aspect ratio. Also the silhouette is now white instead of black.

~~~
cube13
>I don't think it's reasonable that a simple silhouette of a phone, used as an
icon to represent a phone, is trademarkable.

Trademarks are an interesting case, though. You can trademark common ideas,
especially if you're the first one to get the trademark for that specific use.
They're extremely focused in that they can only be used in a specific way. MS'
trademarks on Windows and Word, for example, only apply to operating systems
and word processors.

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erikstarck
Wow. That's almost as if someone would take the original Xerox Parc computer
designs and, you know, build a copied computer of and sell in their own name.

~~~
Anechoic
IIRC, Apple licensed GUI elements from PARC.

~~~
jonknee
Considering they filed a suit against Apple for infringement, I don't think
that was the case.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
New York Times [1] -- March 24, 1990:

 _"A Federal judge today dismissed almost all the closely watched copyright
lawsuit filed by the Xerox Corporation against Apple Computer Inc. [...] Even
if Xerox prevails on the one count it can still pursue, it cannot win much
because the judge threw out all the counts seeking damages, attorneys involved
in the case said. [...]

Xerox had sought to have Apple's Macintosh screen copyrights declared invalid,
contending that they were fraudulently obtained because Apple had failed to
tell the Copyright Office about Xerox's prior work. Xerox also accused Apple
of unfair competition, saying that Apple's claim to Macintosh screen
technology had made it difficult for Xerox to license its technology to other
companies."_

I think the Wikipedia article on _Apple v. Microsoft_ says it best:

 _"Xerox's lawsuit appeared to be a defensive move to ensure that if Apple v.
Microsoft established that "look and feel" was copyrightable, then Xerox would
be the primary beneficiary, rather than Apple."_

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-
s-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-suit-
against-apple-barred.html)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corporation)

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Kylekramer
Any clue why Apple is beating around the bush and not going after the main
source (especially since this is just finishing off the trifecta of suing the
main Android OEMs). While Samsung has been pretty blatant in their ripoffs of
the iPhone design, I'd have to imagine they are better suited to fend off
Apple than Google in this field and the suit is somewhat biting the hand that
feeds Apple supplies. Are they just trying to make it known that "You go
Android and we sue"?

~~~
azakai
> Any clue why Apple is beating around the bush and not going after the main
> source

Because Google is not actually doing anything infringing.

Google is writing code, but software patents in the US do not apply to
abstract code. They apply to specific devices. So if a patent is being
infringed, it is done by the phone manufacturers and shippers, and not Google.

If that sounds odd, then it is, but that is how the patent system currently
works.

~~~
warfangle
Also, the button layout that they complain about isn't necessarily stock
android. It's a UI modification Samsung put on top of things. This is stick
android 2.3, for example: [http://www.itsagadget.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/2010/...](http://www.itsagadget.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/2010/12/Android-2.3-Home-Screen.jpg)

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YooLi
Would all the knee-jerk comment posters actually click through and see that
it's not an 'Android' lawsuit.

~~~
shagrath
except the Samsung Wave, running on Bada and similary looking to the iPhone is
not cited in the lawsuit...

~~~
r00fus
The Wave2 looks very unlike an iPhone. I would never mistake the two.

However, the Samsung i9000S (Galaxy S) looks very much like the iPhone (3GS)
and on casual observation may be mistaken for one another.

It takes a lot to get trade-dress lawsuits won, so I expect this will only put
pressure on Samsung to do what Apple wants, and is not intended to actually
win.

(which, btw, shows how broken the legal system is, since cases are more used
to bully smaller players than to win on merits)

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ChuckMcM
Patent-a-geddon continues. I wonder if this is an artifact of the great
expiring due to start in 2015 of various silly patents.

~~~
alanh
Source? Considering software patents are continuously filed and granted, I’m
not sure what you’re talking about.

~~~
ChuckMcM
The great surge of technology patents started around 1990 and had really
picked up steam by 1995 [1]. Patents, unlike Copyrights, are not 'renewable'
in the sense that once their 20 year term expires they revert to the public
domain by law. Further, now that folks have successfully litigated bogus
Patent Marking [2] you can't use an old Patent number on your design to
intimidate folks into not copying it.

So while filing rates continue to be high (although as you see from the linked
graph issue rates have been falling) the patent office has become better
educated about what should be and what shouldn't be patentable (not perfect
yet but its getting noticeably better, if only because patent examiners are
entering the market who grew up in a digital age).

So a side effect is that when the patent claims for issued patents expire,
that's it, no more revenue. You can perfectly legally implement the RSA key
exchange algorithm now (as an example) without infringing on any patents. This
was speculated to be the primary reason that RSA Data Security Inc was trying
to get people signed up to use their _Copyrighted_ implementation of same,
since if you licensed the copyrighted code, and then decided to stop paying
them license fees and implement it yourself they couldn't sue you for patent
infringement but they would want to go through your code to see that you
hadn't used large parts of their software in your new design. That approach
was unavailable if you hadn't been given access to their source code.

So starting in 2010, and accelerating until 2020 _all_ of those patents that
were issued between 1990 and 2000 will revert to being public domain. It is
one of the reasons I predict a tech boom in 2015 - 2025 :-).

I did not anticipate however that prior to their death that these companies
would go all out in try to extract some, possibly any, value from them by
suing the pants off everyone. I don't _know_ , but I suspect that this is at
least partly responsible for the current fracas.

[1] <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=patents+us>

[2] [http://blogs.forbes.com/docket/2010/09/02/patent-marking-
law...](http://blogs.forbes.com/docket/2010/09/02/patent-marking-lawsuit-
trollers-get-a-boost-with-brooks-brothers-opinion/)

------
EGreg
"“Samsung’s Galaxy Tab computer tablet also slavishly copies a combination of
several elements of the Apple Product Configuration Trade Dress,” Apple says
in its suit, noting that Samsung’s tablet, like Apple’s, uses a similar
rectangular design with rounded corners, similar black border and array of
icons."

Ah yes, rectangles with rounded corners, the presence of black borders, and
the ability to have icons.

But joking aside, the samsung one sold in Korea does look very similar.

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ephcon
Trade dress concerns trademarks, not patents.

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noonespecial
This is actually a pretty good example of patenting "product" and not
"process". No comment on if this is good or bad, but we should probably decide
explicitly if we're going to grant monopolies on entire kinds of products. It
seems more like a trademark issue than a patent issue.

~~~
cube13
>No comment on if this is good or bad, but we should probably decide
explicitly if we're going to grant monopolies on entire kinds of products.

That's exactly what the patent system was intended for, though. If you
invented a new product, you were granted an effective monopoly on that
specific invention for a certain amount of time(now 25 years in the US).

~~~
noonespecial
I was under the impression that it was something more like "method and process
for making a better mouse trap" and not "any old thing that catches mice".
We're to the point now that mouse trap makers are suing the breeders of cats.

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r00fus
Anyone here notice that this suit basically comes right around the time that a
credible iPod Touch competitor arrives?

Maybe there's another "line in the sand" that Apple had set for the
Google/Android that just got stepped over?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
As far as I know, the Galaxy Player isn't even on the market yet [1]. However,
it does very much look like an older generation iPod touch. It even has the
same color scheme and metal rim.

iPod touch: [http://media.obsessable.com/media/2008/09/12/575/apple-
ipod-...](http://media.obsessable.com/media/2008/09/12/575/apple-ipod-
touch.jpg)

Galaxy Player: [http://www.samsunghub.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/12/galaxy-...](http://www.samsunghub.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/12/galaxy-player.jpg)

But no, I don't think the release of the Galaxy Player has much to with it.
I'm willing to bet Apple would've sued Samsung anyway, as Apple has been
hunting Android handset makers since early last year.

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/16/samsung-galaxy-
player-4-a...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/16/samsung-galaxy-
player-4-and-5-hit-the-us-this-spring/)

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arron61
Apple is lame. They claim Nokia is suing them with dumb patents and then
proceed to sue others with their dumb patents...

~~~
jameskilton
Frankly, those images are rather damning. The devices and the interface are
too similar for Apple to just let this slide. If anything I would say Apple
_has_ to do this to avoid setting a very dangerous precedent.

~~~
cookiecaper
Those images are not that damning imo. Both phones are rectangular and thin.
Does Apple have a monopoly on rectangular, thin phones? My G1 would look the
same if it were thinner.

Does Apple have a monopoly on icons arranged in a grid? If so, the Windows
desktop and many other interfaces are at risk.

~~~
jameskilton
It's trademark... No you can't go on individual features, like being
rectangular, or a grid of icons, or thin, but once you put that all together
in a certain way, you start getting into design trademarks.

Samsung's phone is close to the same dimensions AND has the grid of
applications AND has that grid at the same dimensions AND has the "dock" AND
that "dock" has 4 applications AND the phone has a single "home" button at the
bottom AND the speaker at the top is thin and rectangular... as the iPhone.

Yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but when you start confusing
consumers as to who's is who's, you're no longer in the "flattery" area.

~~~
thezilch
I believe you only can stand on the "dock" issue, not including it having 4
apps, as the grid constitutes that number. EVERY other point can be found
together on phones pre-dating the iPhone.

~~~
wtallis
Even if the concept of third-party prior art applied to trademark disputes,
there would have to be a pre-iPhone product that exhibited _all_ of those
features for it to be a good defense. Merely showing that each feature had
appeared before in some product would not be sufficient.

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kenjackson
Here's some pictures from the Palm OS a few years before iOS:

<http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6542>

I guess if the issue is that the grid has to be 4x4 w/ a black background. But
otherwise, this looks like the standard paradigm for app launching on mobile
phones.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
And here's a screenshot of Apple's Newton OS, which came out three years
before Palm released its Pilot in 1996.

<http://pdadb.net/img/os/newton/newton_os_2.0_all_icons.png>

The lawsuit isn't just about Samsung using a desktop metaphor. They copied all
sorts of hardware and software characteristics from the iPhone.

~~~
kenjackson
Are they suing using the Newton UI patent? I don't think so. Shipping and
patenting 10 years later doesn't help. In fact this Apple could be prior art
against itself.

This just weakens Apple's position.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
My point is that Apple _isn't_ suing just because Samsung chose to use a home
screen filled with icons.

From the article:

 _"It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the
iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even
the packaging." an Apple representative told Mobilized._

And from the WSJ article about the same topic:

 _Alan Fisch, an attorney with Kaye Scholer LLP in Washington D.C., said, "By
sheer volume alone, this is a substantial assertion of intellectual property
rights."_

~~~
kenjackson
Except it also looks a lot like the HP iPaq 100 series that predates the
iPhone. A full screen touch device with no keyboard and rounded corners. The
200 series came in black.

Apple's alleged "trade dress" is the evolution of the touch device w/ no
keyboard.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_Apple's alleged "trade dress" is the evolution of the touch device w/ no
keyboard._

You're one of the few people who have actually seen Apple's court filing? I'd
appreciate it if you'd share it with me. My email address is in my profile.

As for the iPAQ 100 & 200: they aren't phones, they came after [1] the
introduction of the iPhone [2], and I personally don't think they look
anything like Samsung's Galaxy S or Apple's iPhone:

[http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/ppct/2007/IPAQ-200-highres.j...](http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/ppct/2007/IPAQ-200-highres.jpg)

[1] iPAQ 100 & 200 announcement: September 6, 2007:
[http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/06/hp-unleashes-ipaq-
series-...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/06/hp-unleashes-ipaq-
series-100-and-200-pdas/)

[2] iPhone announcement: January 9, 2007:
<http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/>

~~~
kenjackson
You are right on the date. Off by some months that year... in any case, just
to make sure I'm not off again, we can just go back to an early iPaq, such as
the 3100.

[http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2001pmc/pr2001012902...](http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2001pmc/pr2001012902.html)

[http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/10680_div/1068...](http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/10680_div/10680_div.html)

Announced in 2001. A mere _six years_ before the iPhone was announced. Sure,
doesn't look exactly like the iPhone, but if one can't see that the
evolutionary footprint wasn't established, they aren't looking very hard.

Put it another way, if you show me an iPaq in 2001 and say in 10 years phones
will look like the Samsung Galaxy my response would probably be,
"disappointingly little will change over 10 years".

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_doesn't look exactly like the iPhone_

I agree completely. And if we're going that far back in time, I'd say that
Apple's Newton MessagePad was closer to the iPhone than the iPAQ 3100 was.

So there we are, back where we started. I propose we just wait until we know
exactly what Apple is suing Samsung for. To name one possibility, I wouldn't
be surprised if Apple uses one of its multitouch patents against Samsung.

~~~
kenjackson
Well let's continue the discussion when the filing is released. :-)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Sooner than I had expected, here it is:

<http://cdn0.sbnation.com/podcasts/apple-samsung-lawsuit.pdf>

Nilay Patel did a write-up:

[http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-
analys...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/)

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drivebyacct2
Apple invented the phone, the idea of representing applications as icons in a
grid, and the idea of having quick access to specific applications.

Those features have existed in countless other operating systems, and DEs?
Blasphemy.

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smogzer
Singularity should not ben pattentable. Like 15 years ago i described how
myspace future phone would be like: no physical buttons taking space, a gps,
runs linux, and a thinnier form than my current ipaq. So, after a decade after
the first ipaqs the samsung galaxy from where i am typing finally arrives.

