5 ms·

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 gene

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.

dep_b 8y ago
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?".
- tooltalk 8y ago
  >>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).

dep_b 8y ago

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?".

tooltalk 8y ago
>>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).