8 ms·

Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

52 points by zacharye 15y ago

systemizer 15y ago
Apple's aggressive patent strategy is really turning me off; as it should for other people as well. I hope this is understand not only by the Tech community, but also average consumers. I don't know their claims, but given the past, this is getting out of hand. Last month, I would have said that I would consider buying an Ipod because it is a great product; but because of the past events, I would not consider buying an Apple product whatsoever. Man up, Apple. You are going to have competitors in the mobile and tablet industry. Stop trying to cop out with all this patent crap.
- barkingllama 15y ago
  You can only hope that Apple is being as obnoxious as possible to spark interest in patent reform.
  - scottmp10 15y ago
    Unfortunately this is clearly not the case. There actions are clearly harming both competitors (Samsung, etc) and consumers (through less consumer choice in the tablet market).
    - admiralpumpkin 15y ago
      So your implied argument is that patents hurt consumers because they don't allow one company's patented innovations to be used without restriction by other companies? Your view is that the limit of one's benefit from an innovation should be the time between when one releases an innovative product and when your competitors release copy-cat products?
      - Hyena 15y ago
        Unless you're spending immense amounts of R&D, that tends not to be as severe a problem as constricting development because of patent thickets or creating aggregately large legal problems (Lodsys, et al).
      - joe_the_user 15y ago
        A patent system that has most of its connection to actual innovation definitely hurts consumers. Apple's claims against the Android tablets have been shown here to involve something like the claim that Apple invented the tablet, something that's also been debunked here.
      - Natsu 15y ago
        Motorola Mobility can get an injunction blocking Apple products in Germany banning the iPad. What good would it do if we could have no tablets at all, because they each violate each others' patents over trivial things? Seriously, one of the patents is over automatic linking. Okay, it covers something more general, actually, but that's the embodiment that's the most recognizable.
      - scottmp10 15y ago
        I see what you are saying and I think there are short-term and long-term consequences. Certainly an injunction hurts consumers in the short-term since they have less choice. The patent-advocate would argue that in the long-term this model rewards innovators more and thus more people invest in innovation, helping consumers over the long term. You are correct that my personal opinion is in favor of no patent protection. However my original point was that Apple's patent actions have had significant short-term impact that hurts consumers. You can certainly make an argument that there is a long-term positive impact, but I do not believe that Apple is in any way harming the patent system itself.
  - thebrokencube 15y ago
    That's a pretty interesting point of view, one I never even considered. One can only hope.
- neuroelectronic 15y ago
  A lot of Apple zealots are siding with them, saying that other tablet makers are directly ripping them off. I imagine a lot of the people who hold this position have never used a computer before their iPhone. "All cellphone makers enforce their patents - all of them. Further, patent enforcement is critical to technological development. Companies will stop investing in R&D if others can simply wait for the product to come out, copy it and avoid all the costs associated with inventing it."
maeon3 15y ago
Your product is in the shape of a rectangle, we invented rectangle. Pay us money for our invention or we will sue you in 50 different nations. there needs to be a penalty for the attacking company when frivolous patent suits are shown to be ridiculous.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  The problem is that very few claims are genuinely ridiculous. There can be differences of opinion on what's valid, and things which are untested in law, but for the most part there will be a germ of something at the heart of the claim which will make it potentially reasonable. Judges tend to throw the genuine dross out very early on. The one that always springs to mind is the MacDonald's too hot coffee case. On the surface it sounds like complete nonsense but when you look at the detail the claim was perfectly reasonable and deserved to win (which it did).
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    I think there are plenty of frivolous cases. When I looked at the details of thee hot coffee case the claim seemed even more absurd. The physical damage was worse than I expected but that doesn't make her less responsible.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
      The fact that: (a) MacDonalds had been warned about this repeatedly in the past and (b) that the coffee was being served at temperatures significantly higher than you'd normally get from a kettle at home / work thus rendering the sort of normal expectations you might have moot didn't seem pertinent to you?
      - grannyg00se 15y ago
        a) Warned about what exactly? That people are going to be reckless and possibly injure themselves? What action is McDonalds supposed to take to prevent idiocy? It's not a children's toy. It's for adult consumption. b) Why would I expect that it would be similar to what I do at home? It's McDonalds. They serve their coffee very hot. People like to drive to work, and still have it hot when they arrive. Also, I have no expectations of those cups other than that they are flimsy. The temperature issue is not relevant anyway because if she wasn't negligent in her use of the cup the contents would have been kept safely contained. A knife in a restaurant can cause significant damage as well if you decide to be an idiot and try to remove an eye lash from someone's eye with it. Would you say that the knife was too sharp? That it is sharper than the knives you use at home?
bryanlarsen 15y ago
This sort of behaviour isn't visible to consumers, so it doesn't hurt them in the short term. But it does piss off developers. If they keep up pissing off developers with patent & app store shenanigans they'll lose their most passionate developers and end up with just those who are in it for the money. And we know how that ends up. ~10 years ago passionate developers jumped from Windows to OS X, even though at the time there was virtually no money in OS X application development. And the availability of some very nice applications was a large driver of the OS X market share increase from 2% to 15%.
- rimantas 15y ago
  > And the availability of some very nice applications was a > large driver of the OS X market share increase from 2% to > 15% I doubt it very much. I'd say people came to OS X by discovering other Apple products first (iPod and iPhone). Also, developers who would be most pissed of by this most likely are Android developers already.
  - bryanlarsen 15y ago
    Sure, the iPod got people into the store, but presumably people played with the machine in the store or at a friend's house or read reviews before actually buying the machine. Sure, lots of developers have left already because of the app store shenanigans. But judging by the tone of comments here in Hacker News, the patent shenanigans have alienated another group.
ryandvm 15y ago
So... I feel like Apple has come full circle. I find myself wishing for a Hooters waitress to come running down the aisle of the next Apple PR event and hurl a sledgehammer through the presentation.
- js2 15y ago
  Discus thrower - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anya_Major http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anya_Major
mrinterweb 15y ago
It seems thar Apple does not care about the negative PR lawsuites like this generate for them. Apple owes a lot of their success to being cool and innovative. Lawsuites like this make apple neither.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
melling 15y ago
At least Apple is a company that sells something and is trying to protect their products. They are playing the game under the current law, which is clearly flawed. Rather than complain everytime Apple/Microsoft, etc go after others, can we try to get problem solved? The game is so flawed that there's an entire industry built around it, and it's getting worse.
sukuriant 15y ago
Am I the only person that actually thinks that charger cable (assuming its the same size) is a bit suspiciuos? It's like Samsung is either being lazy at this point, or is trying to goad Apple on to attack them. I have to side with Apple on the shape of the charger issue. Especially since there are plenty of shapes they could have used, some of them standardized, like mini/microUSB... By the way, the clenching feature was two bumps at the ends of the charger that, I think are used for holding the charger in place. A question of course is, "should this be patentable". I'm not arguing that right now, and haven't thought about it enough to have a position, but it is awkwardly similar, and when there are already a fair amount of already-existing standards they could have chosen, they went with an Apple-specific one. ... that's all I'm saying.
- Terretta 15y ago
  You are not the only one. What's more, Apple didn't start this. A few times in the past, I've traced the history of these suits in HN threads. Everyone is suing everyone, but reporters love to highlight Apple because it's a brand that ignites page views.[1,2,3] Part of the (broken) cross licensing process is testing and setting cross licensing pricing using these suits and settlements. Given the limited market and limited market info for patent values and the unpredictability of enforcement results, this litigation seems to participants as reasonable a method as any for determining the cross licensing value if you're not going to just put everything in a pool (which certainly is supposed to work better, except when Samsung or Nokia sues over the very patents they put into the pool). Most forget that Apple spent 20 years of R&D on personal mobile devices, then moved into phones in a way that made it obvious the rest of the industry was stagnantly producing what the carriers wanted instead of what humans would really use. As Apple's "Jesus phone" swallowed demographic segments whole, raking in the lion's share not of units shipped but of profits, the mobile industry went nuts at seeing the lucre they'd left on the table and started suing Apple from every side, both directly and through intermediaries. Of course, Apple, with its 20 years of actually innovative R&D in the space, countered. When some of the industry start playing the "fast follow" game instead, Apple is forced by trade law to defend against that or they de facto give up their rights to the undefended points. The charger and cable design show this wasn't a happy design coincidence; this was a calculated move to establish a "me too" product line. Part of that calculation was "What will be our expense from design and patent assertions by Apple when we fast follow these products so closely?" Before Apple got into mobile, this was how the business was done, but it wasn't in the press because nobody was interested. The only thing different now is that we're talking about it. (Footnote: the Prada phone design timing has been debunked[4] previously.) 1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-motorola-android-patent-lawsuit 2. http://news.designlanguage.com/post/1252039209 3. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-in-the-telecoms-trade/ 4. http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-samsung-f700-prada-phone-rumors-debunked-20147320/
epo 15y ago
Except for ammunition to the endless legions of kneejerk anti-Apple fandroids, what is the point of this article? It is essentially content-free, the limited claim being that Apple, who are infringed upon in many areas, is suing people who rip off its case designs as well as Samsung who ripped of the design of the iPad wholesale. The patent system exists, Apple are using it correctly. Companies like Samsung should quit whining and stop copying.
marshray 15y ago
Sounds like Apple has been taken over by the business people and IP lawyers. They're already out of new ideas.

52 points by zacharye 15y ago

Apple's aggressive patent strategy is really turning me off; as it should for other people as well. I hope this is understand not only by the Tech community, but also average consumers. I don't know their claims, but given the past, this is getting out of hand. Last month, I would have said that I would consider buying an Ipod because it is a great product; but because of the past events, I would not consider buying an Apple product whatsoever. Man up, Apple. You are going to have competitors in the mobile and tablet industry. Stop trying to cop out with all this patent crap.

barkingllama 15y ago
You can only hope that Apple is being as obnoxious as possible to spark interest in patent reform.
- scottmp10 15y ago
  Unfortunately this is clearly not the case. There actions are clearly harming both competitors (Samsung, etc) and consumers (through less consumer choice in the tablet market).
  - admiralpumpkin 15y ago
    So your implied argument is that patents hurt consumers because they don't allow one company's patented innovations to be used without restriction by other companies? Your view is that the limit of one's benefit from an innovation should be the time between when one releases an innovative product and when your competitors release copy-cat products?
    - Hyena 15y ago
      Unless you're spending immense amounts of R&D, that tends not to be as severe a problem as constricting development because of patent thickets or creating aggregately large legal problems (Lodsys, et al).
    - joe_the_user 15y ago
      A patent system that has most of its connection to actual innovation definitely hurts consumers. Apple's claims against the Android tablets have been shown here to involve something like the claim that Apple invented the tablet, something that's also been debunked here.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      Motorola Mobility can get an injunction blocking Apple products in Germany banning the iPad. What good would it do if we could have no tablets at all, because they each violate each others' patents over trivial things? Seriously, one of the patents is over automatic linking. Okay, it covers something more general, actually, but that's the embodiment that's the most recognizable.
    - scottmp10 15y ago
      I see what you are saying and I think there are short-term and long-term consequences. Certainly an injunction hurts consumers in the short-term since they have less choice. The patent-advocate would argue that in the long-term this model rewards innovators more and thus more people invest in innovation, helping consumers over the long term. You are correct that my personal opinion is in favor of no patent protection. However my original point was that Apple's patent actions have had significant short-term impact that hurts consumers. You can certainly make an argument that there is a long-term positive impact, but I do not believe that Apple is in any way harming the patent system itself.
- thebrokencube 15y ago
  That's a pretty interesting point of view, one I never even considered. One can only hope.
neuroelectronic 15y ago
A lot of Apple zealots are siding with them, saying that other tablet makers are directly ripping them off. I imagine a lot of the people who hold this position have never used a computer before their iPhone. "All cellphone makers enforce their patents - all of them. Further, patent enforcement is critical to technological development. Companies will stop investing in R&D if others can simply wait for the product to come out, copy it and avoid all the costs associated with inventing it."

maeon3 15y ago

Your product is in the shape of a rectangle, we invented rectangle. Pay us money for our invention or we will sue you in 50 different nations. there needs to be a penalty for the attacking company when frivolous patent suits are shown to be ridiculous.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
The problem is that very few claims are genuinely ridiculous. There can be differences of opinion on what's valid, and things which are untested in law, but for the most part there will be a germ of something at the heart of the claim which will make it potentially reasonable. Judges tend to throw the genuine dross out very early on. The one that always springs to mind is the MacDonald's too hot coffee case. On the surface it sounds like complete nonsense but when you look at the detail the claim was perfectly reasonable and deserved to win (which it did).
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  I think there are plenty of frivolous cases. When I looked at the details of thee hot coffee case the claim seemed even more absurd. The physical damage was worse than I expected but that doesn't make her less responsible.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    The fact that: (a) MacDonalds had been warned about this repeatedly in the past and (b) that the coffee was being served at temperatures significantly higher than you'd normally get from a kettle at home / work thus rendering the sort of normal expectations you might have moot didn't seem pertinent to you?
    - grannyg00se 15y ago
      a) Warned about what exactly? That people are going to be reckless and possibly injure themselves? What action is McDonalds supposed to take to prevent idiocy? It's not a children's toy. It's for adult consumption. b) Why would I expect that it would be similar to what I do at home? It's McDonalds. They serve their coffee very hot. People like to drive to work, and still have it hot when they arrive. Also, I have no expectations of those cups other than that they are flimsy. The temperature issue is not relevant anyway because if she wasn't negligent in her use of the cup the contents would have been kept safely contained. A knife in a restaurant can cause significant damage as well if you decide to be an idiot and try to remove an eye lash from someone's eye with it. Would you say that the knife was too sharp? That it is sharper than the knives you use at home?

bryanlarsen 15y ago

This sort of behaviour isn't visible to consumers, so it doesn't hurt them in the short term. But it does piss off developers. If they keep up pissing off developers with patent & app store shenanigans they'll lose their most passionate developers and end up with just those who are in it for the money. And we know how that ends up. ~10 years ago passionate developers jumped from Windows to OS X, even though at the time there was virtually no money in OS X application development. And the availability of some very nice applications was a large driver of the OS X market share increase from 2% to 15%.

rimantas 15y ago
> And the availability of some very nice applications was a > large driver of the OS X market share increase from 2% to > 15% I doubt it very much. I'd say people came to OS X by discovering other Apple products first (iPod and iPhone). Also, developers who would be most pissed of by this most likely are Android developers already.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  Sure, the iPod got people into the store, but presumably people played with the machine in the store or at a friend's house or read reviews before actually buying the machine. Sure, lots of developers have left already because of the app store shenanigans. But judging by the tone of comments here in Hacker News, the patent shenanigans have alienated another group.

ryandvm 15y ago

So... I feel like Apple has come full circle. I find myself wishing for a Hooters waitress to come running down the aisle of the next Apple PR event and hurl a sledgehammer through the presentation.

js2 15y ago
Discus thrower - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anya_Major http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anya_Major

mrinterweb 15y ago

It seems thar Apple does not care about the negative PR lawsuites like this generate for them. Apple owes a lot of their success to being cool and innovative. Lawsuites like this make apple neither.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

melling 15y ago

At least Apple is a company that sells something and is trying to protect their products. They are playing the game under the current law, which is clearly flawed. Rather than complain everytime Apple/Microsoft, etc go after others, can we try to get problem solved? The game is so flawed that there's an entire industry built around it, and it's getting worse.

sukuriant 15y ago

Am I the only person that actually thinks that charger cable (assuming its the same size) is a bit suspiciuos? It's like Samsung is either being lazy at this point, or is trying to goad Apple on to attack them. I have to side with Apple on the shape of the charger issue. Especially since there are plenty of shapes they could have used, some of them standardized, like mini/microUSB... By the way, the clenching feature was two bumps at the ends of the charger that, I think are used for holding the charger in place. A question of course is, "should this be patentable". I'm not arguing that right now, and haven't thought about it enough to have a position, but it is awkwardly similar, and when there are already a fair amount of already-existing standards they could have chosen, they went with an Apple-specific one. ... that's all I'm saying.

Terretta 15y ago
You are not the only one. What's more, Apple didn't start this. A few times in the past, I've traced the history of these suits in HN threads. Everyone is suing everyone, but reporters love to highlight Apple because it's a brand that ignites page views.[1,2,3] Part of the (broken) cross licensing process is testing and setting cross licensing pricing using these suits and settlements. Given the limited market and limited market info for patent values and the unpredictability of enforcement results, this litigation seems to participants as reasonable a method as any for determining the cross licensing value if you're not going to just put everything in a pool (which certainly is supposed to work better, except when Samsung or Nokia sues over the very patents they put into the pool). Most forget that Apple spent 20 years of R&D on personal mobile devices, then moved into phones in a way that made it obvious the rest of the industry was stagnantly producing what the carriers wanted instead of what humans would really use. As Apple's "Jesus phone" swallowed demographic segments whole, raking in the lion's share not of units shipped but of profits, the mobile industry went nuts at seeing the lucre they'd left on the table and started suing Apple from every side, both directly and through intermediaries. Of course, Apple, with its 20 years of actually innovative R&D in the space, countered. When some of the industry start playing the "fast follow" game instead, Apple is forced by trade law to defend against that or they de facto give up their rights to the undefended points. The charger and cable design show this wasn't a happy design coincidence; this was a calculated move to establish a "me too" product line. Part of that calculation was "What will be our expense from design and patent assertions by Apple when we fast follow these products so closely?" Before Apple got into mobile, this was how the business was done, but it wasn't in the press because nobody was interested. The only thing different now is that we're talking about it. (Footnote: the Prada phone design timing has been debunked[4] previously.) 1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-motorola-android-patent-lawsuit 2. http://news.designlanguage.com/post/1252039209 3. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-in-the-telecoms-trade/ 4. http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-samsung-f700-prada-phone-rumors-debunked-20147320/

epo 15y ago

Except for ammunition to the endless legions of kneejerk anti-Apple fandroids, what is the point of this article? It is essentially content-free, the limited claim being that Apple, who are infringed upon in many areas, is suing people who rip off its case designs as well as Samsung who ripped of the design of the iPad wholesale. The patent system exists, Apple are using it correctly. Companies like Samsung should quit whining and stop copying.

marshray 15y ago

Sounds like Apple has been taken over by the business people and IP lawyers. They're already out of new ideas.