6 ms·

I think suggesting that nobody is hurt by ridiculous injunctions like this is a bit disingenuous. Firstly, consumers are denied the chance to purchase a produc

by jclulow 14y ago

I think suggesting that nobody is hurt by ridiculous injunctions like this is a bit disingenuous. Firstly, consumers are denied the chance to purchase a product that exists; it's been made! It's ready to ship! Sure, you might not want one, but it's certainly possible that other people do. Something else an injuction does is robs a manufacturer of any time-to-market advantage that they may have had releasing the product when they were actually trying to do so. Holding sales back by even a month can mean the missing of critical retail periods throughout the year. I'm not even arguing either way about the validity of the claims behind the injunction here -- if it turns out they are in the wrong, then they should certainly pay damages to Apple based on how much damage that they caused by doing the wrong thing (i.e. profits from sales). How much the target of an injunction benefits from being allowed to sell their product is concrete and measurable. How much Apple benefit by preventing a competitor from placing a product on the market is, in stark contrast, essentially unknowable and thus difficult to compensate for if Apple turn out to be wrong.

X-Istence 14y ago
If consumers want the device they can simply purchase an Apple device. If Google did indeed violate the patents in question the features the user want are available in Apple's products. You mention first-mover advantage ... that is exactly what patents are supposed to grant, you invent something cool, you get a patent on it, and then YOU get exclusivity on that invention for X years so you can recoup your costs of R&D. If company Y owns the patent and company X clones it and sells it for $50 cheaper company Y is now disadvantaged even-though it spent all of the money researching and developing it in the first place. Apparently the Judge agreed that company Y is in the right and that company X should no longer be allowed to sell their widget until the lawsuit is settled.
- mtgx 14y ago
  The slide-to-unlock in Galaxy Nexus is quite different from the one in iOS. I thought patents were given based on a certain implementation of an idea. And yet Apple still won the injunction with that alleged patent infringement.
  - esolyt 14y ago
    The injunction was actually based on the unified search box patent only.
- esolyt 14y ago
  Having a patent to a feature does not necessarily mean you implemented it in your products. And besides, what if I want the extra features that Galaxy Nexus has?
- kristiandupont 14y ago
  > If consumers want the device they can simply purchase an Apple device. If Google did indeed violate the patents in question the features the user want are available in Apple's products. This statement is only true if (features that violate patents) == (all features of the product), which is obviously not the case.
- przemelek 14y ago
  Nope. It works slightly different, first companies like Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and others invested billions of dollars in creating telecommunication standards. Next those companies are forced to license patents for those technologies to Apple. Apple creates phone which base in 95% on technology created by those companies, they are adding several features like "slide to unlock" or "pinch to zoom" and patent it. Samsung, Motorola and others looks on Apple product and says "OK, so it means that customers want other UI, we can give them it too", they are participants in OHA which created very similar to iPhone project of OS for mobile phones (in the same time). So they start to produce and sell such phones. Now Apple goes to court and pretends that theirs big "innovation" is so unique that it should let them to block anything similar to theirs "inventions" (in the same time Apple took notifications system from Android)... what is the most funny part, Motorola and Samsung must license to Apple patents needed to build cell phone, but Apple may do not license theirs patents. This cause that patents for cell phones which costed billions of dollars are cheap for Apple (but its competitors needed to pay billions for those), but patents from Apple which costed only money needed for filling patent applications are impossible to obtain by its competitors.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    So, the takeaway is, "Damn, Apple is good at this capitalism game."
    - przemelek 14y ago
      Nope ;-) Problem with Apple is that if all players will play using Apple strategy we will not have any innovation at all. Motorola, Nokia, Samsung invested billions in mobile technology without knowing if this will even work, they risked and created cell phones and so on. They had big invest, big risk and at the end big win. Apple didn't take any risk, they simply polished existing products and started to sell it with much higher price tag. This isn't wrong, wrong is this that Apple tries to block another players using courts. Apple didn't make big invest, didn't take big risk, but takes biggest win by using patent system to force all competitors to give to Apple theirs patents (and when Motorola says, OK we want 2.5% of iPhone price as fee for our patents Apple screams that Motorola wants way too much... yeah, it's only essential technology for mobile phone, so who cares?), without letting them to use Apple's patents. If players like Motorola or Nokia would use Apple strategy we would simple still using line phones. Because nobody would invent cell phones, the best strategy would be to patent idea of cell phone and to wait till somebody will build it and to sue him. Patent system was intended to promote innovation, but here it isn't doing it, it is used to block innovation. Google didn't patent notifications, so thanks to this users of iOS5 may use much better notifications. Thanks to this that Google didn't patent it, users of Apple so competitor product may use it. But Apple patents all small things blocking other players. Apple behaves like parasite on innovation tree, and patent system should protect whole tree because this guarantee progress and innovation.
- jclulow 14y ago
  Suggesting that people should "just buy an iPad" is an unhelpful over-simplification. I appreciate that a patent is a state-granted monopoly on your idea. I feel it to be a mostly unhelpful right to be granting in the consumer software and device market. Regardless of how I feel about patents, though, an injunction prior to trial presupposes (on some level) that the charged party is guilty enough to warrant forcing them not to trade. Injunctions are often helpful in potential libel cases, where the release of libellous information may cause largely unmeasurable but generally irreversible damages. I really don't think they're helpful when the extent to which the charged party may benefit is able to be measured (i.e. profit on sales) and the tangible outcome of that benefit redirected to whomever wins the suit (via the court-ordered payment of damages).
- ralfn 14y ago
  This is nonsense. Even when all products are allowed on the market we generally do not get the features we desire. Its the paradox of choice, and how it makes people unhappy. If a shop sells peanut butter that is chunky, but also another brand that is extra spicy. Suddenly, we can imagine a peanut butter that is both chunky and spicy. So, the choice already feels limited with both products on the market and is now even more limited, when their feature set may not overlap. And as for the suggestion that these patents are the result of R&D. They are not. Not like some of the frand patents actually are. Originally, the patent system was invented to encourage sharing secrets. But if you cant keep it a secret, because its just too obvious, you shouldnt be able to get a patent. Patents are now mostly used in an anti competitive sense. The patent system, at least in these days, is counter productive. And the US will in time eat itself up. Because from China to Europe, we dont care about these ip laws to the same extent, and dont really serve our interests.
  - simonbrown 14y ago
    Europe doesn't care about IP laws to the same extent as the US?
    - ralfn 14y ago
      Well, not all of Europe. It really depends on how much IP they have. So, holland, my country, is likely in favor of IP because with our current portfolio, the export of IP minus the import, is profitable. This is not the case for any eastern european country, nor for some of the more traditional economies in western europe. So beyond morality, for many countries, IP law just means opting in to pay other countries. And unlike traditional goods, you cant block the export or import of IP. You can only hope to compromize on some kind of compensation.
- vidarh 14y ago
  The Apple products don't meet my needs, due to their restrictions. Some Android devices do. For a lot of users, the features the users want will not be available in either product if Apple has it the way they want.
calinet6 14y ago
Well if you put it that way, why the hell would Apple not try to get this injunction? Any public company in their right mind should take advantage of this sort of market advantage. The legal/patent system that allows this is broken, that's certain. But can we really blame Apple for using it to their advantage? It's sort of genius. Evil genius, but still...
- Goronmon 14y ago
  But can we really blame Apple for using it to their advantage? Of course.
- saalweachter 14y ago
  Yes. I'd prefer to just leave the post at that, but to make a bit more of a contribution to discussion, fiduciary duty is a myth invented sometime in the 70s or 80s. No one has ever been sued for not maximizing the profits of the company the run. A corporation doesn't have to be evil, even if being evil were more profitable than being good. They can just choose to be less profitable and no one cares. Given the choice, I'd much rather live in a mildly competitive, mildly cooperative capitalism where companies compete on things like price and quality (and salary!) without trying to burn the crops and salt the fields of the competitors the way Apple is now.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    I absolutely agree with you, given the choice and the ideal world, I'd much rather live in a fair system where companies compete on the things that actually matter. Absolutely. I just think we're fooling ourselves if we think that we can simply expect people to adhere to this with no tangible incentive, rather than build a system which has the desired result. In other words, it's still the system that's broken. There are a lot of companies I'd like to boycott (and I certainly boycott and disagree with Apple's decision on this specific matter), but I don't blame the companies for trying to make money—regardless of "fiduciary duty" which is pretty irrelevant (I was just talking about the nature of companies to make money and dominate the market if possible; this would be true of any company, not necessarily just public companies with duty to shareholders). This is a tough call, and I'm sure it was tough even for Apple's legal team. Is it worth tarnishing their image to attempt to hold a competitor from the market for another couple months? Looked at from a strictly logical standpoint, with profits enabling more technological developments and more production capacity, as well as more advertising and sales efforts, it just might be worth it. You know that a whole team debated this and did dozens of calculations and eventually the call was made, but knowing Apple, this was no butt-hurt matter of principle. This was a market decision based on something they could do that would be beneficial for their company in the grand scheme of things. Do I agree? Not really. I think the company's reputation is way more important than this injunction. But it's an exceedingly complex decision, based on many factors that I don't have information about, and they made a different decision. I honestly can't blame them for that. It's easy to answer my question with a simple "yes." It hurts you. It doesn't feel right. Companies shouldn't be so impersonal. They should play nice. I know. We need to fix the system that allows despicable acts like this. But in the context, it makes perfect sense. "Blame" is not addressable here except to the system. (As is usually the case, but that's for another essay...)
flyinRyan 14y ago
>Firstly, consumers are denied the chance to purchase a product that exists; it's been made! It's ready to ship! Sure, you might not want one, but it's certainly possible that other people do. What kind of ridiculous justification is this? "But I had the car! It was ready to sell! I had someone who wanted to buy it! It's not right to stop me just because the car didn't actually belong to me, the guy I stole it from doesn't even know it's gone!"
- jclulow 14y ago
  Firstly, the (at this stage surely still alleged) infringement on another's intellectual property is not equivalent to the theft of a car, or the selling of a bridge that you don't own, or whatever. Secondly, I was simply saying that injunctions can disadvantage some people or organisations, and that they don't even have to be people directly involved in the injunction.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    I was using a more extreme example to make it more obvious how ridiculous what you were saying was. Let's try again: imagine there were a truck load of Android pads going somewhere but the truck got stolen. The thief quickly gets the pads to his story and sends out advertisement everywhere that he has the new Android pad for $1! People are lined up outside the store ready to buy but before he can open the police show up, shut the store down and recover the pads. The people only lost out on a sale that never should have existed. It's not the fault of the police for stopping the sale, nor the person who reported the crime. It's the fault of the thief. Likewise, if this product infringes patent(s) then it should not exist. Any disappointment to the customers if the fault of the company that made the illegal product, not the ones who stop sale (the judge) nor the people who reported the infringement (Apple).

by jclulow 14y ago

X-Istence 14y ago

If consumers want the device they can simply purchase an Apple device. If Google did indeed violate the patents in question the features the user want are available in Apple's products. You mention first-mover advantage ... that is exactly what patents are supposed to grant, you invent something cool, you get a patent on it, and then YOU get exclusivity on that invention for X years so you can recoup your costs of R&D. If company Y owns the patent and company X clones it and sells it for $50 cheaper company Y is now disadvantaged even-though it spent all of the money researching and developing it in the first place. Apparently the Judge agreed that company Y is in the right and that company X should no longer be allowed to sell their widget until the lawsuit is settled.

mtgx 14y ago
The slide-to-unlock in Galaxy Nexus is quite different from the one in iOS. I thought patents were given based on a certain implementation of an idea. And yet Apple still won the injunction with that alleged patent infringement.
- esolyt 14y ago
  The injunction was actually based on the unified search box patent only.
esolyt 14y ago
Having a patent to a feature does not necessarily mean you implemented it in your products. And besides, what if I want the extra features that Galaxy Nexus has?
kristiandupont 14y ago
> If consumers want the device they can simply purchase an Apple device. If Google did indeed violate the patents in question the features the user want are available in Apple's products. This statement is only true if (features that violate patents) == (all features of the product), which is obviously not the case.
przemelek 14y ago
Nope. It works slightly different, first companies like Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and others invested billions of dollars in creating telecommunication standards. Next those companies are forced to license patents for those technologies to Apple. Apple creates phone which base in 95% on technology created by those companies, they are adding several features like "slide to unlock" or "pinch to zoom" and patent it. Samsung, Motorola and others looks on Apple product and says "OK, so it means that customers want other UI, we can give them it too", they are participants in OHA which created very similar to iPhone project of OS for mobile phones (in the same time). So they start to produce and sell such phones. Now Apple goes to court and pretends that theirs big "innovation" is so unique that it should let them to block anything similar to theirs "inventions" (in the same time Apple took notifications system from Android)... what is the most funny part, Motorola and Samsung must license to Apple patents needed to build cell phone, but Apple may do not license theirs patents. This cause that patents for cell phones which costed billions of dollars are cheap for Apple (but its competitors needed to pay billions for those), but patents from Apple which costed only money needed for filling patent applications are impossible to obtain by its competitors.
- calinet6 14y ago
  So, the takeaway is, "Damn, Apple is good at this capitalism game."
  - przemelek 14y ago
    Nope ;-) Problem with Apple is that if all players will play using Apple strategy we will not have any innovation at all. Motorola, Nokia, Samsung invested billions in mobile technology without knowing if this will even work, they risked and created cell phones and so on. They had big invest, big risk and at the end big win. Apple didn't take any risk, they simply polished existing products and started to sell it with much higher price tag. This isn't wrong, wrong is this that Apple tries to block another players using courts. Apple didn't make big invest, didn't take big risk, but takes biggest win by using patent system to force all competitors to give to Apple theirs patents (and when Motorola says, OK we want 2.5% of iPhone price as fee for our patents Apple screams that Motorola wants way too much... yeah, it's only essential technology for mobile phone, so who cares?), without letting them to use Apple's patents. If players like Motorola or Nokia would use Apple strategy we would simple still using line phones. Because nobody would invent cell phones, the best strategy would be to patent idea of cell phone and to wait till somebody will build it and to sue him. Patent system was intended to promote innovation, but here it isn't doing it, it is used to block innovation. Google didn't patent notifications, so thanks to this users of iOS5 may use much better notifications. Thanks to this that Google didn't patent it, users of Apple so competitor product may use it. But Apple patents all small things blocking other players. Apple behaves like parasite on innovation tree, and patent system should protect whole tree because this guarantee progress and innovation.
jclulow 14y ago
Suggesting that people should "just buy an iPad" is an unhelpful over-simplification. I appreciate that a patent is a state-granted monopoly on your idea. I feel it to be a mostly unhelpful right to be granting in the consumer software and device market. Regardless of how I feel about patents, though, an injunction prior to trial presupposes (on some level) that the charged party is guilty enough to warrant forcing them not to trade. Injunctions are often helpful in potential libel cases, where the release of libellous information may cause largely unmeasurable but generally irreversible damages. I really don't think they're helpful when the extent to which the charged party may benefit is able to be measured (i.e. profit on sales) and the tangible outcome of that benefit redirected to whomever wins the suit (via the court-ordered payment of damages).
ralfn 14y ago
This is nonsense. Even when all products are allowed on the market we generally do not get the features we desire. Its the paradox of choice, and how it makes people unhappy. If a shop sells peanut butter that is chunky, but also another brand that is extra spicy. Suddenly, we can imagine a peanut butter that is both chunky and spicy. So, the choice already feels limited with both products on the market and is now even more limited, when their feature set may not overlap. And as for the suggestion that these patents are the result of R&D. They are not. Not like some of the frand patents actually are. Originally, the patent system was invented to encourage sharing secrets. But if you cant keep it a secret, because its just too obvious, you shouldnt be able to get a patent. Patents are now mostly used in an anti competitive sense. The patent system, at least in these days, is counter productive. And the US will in time eat itself up. Because from China to Europe, we dont care about these ip laws to the same extent, and dont really serve our interests.
- simonbrown 14y ago
  Europe doesn't care about IP laws to the same extent as the US?
  - ralfn 14y ago
    Well, not all of Europe. It really depends on how much IP they have. So, holland, my country, is likely in favor of IP because with our current portfolio, the export of IP minus the import, is profitable. This is not the case for any eastern european country, nor for some of the more traditional economies in western europe. So beyond morality, for many countries, IP law just means opting in to pay other countries. And unlike traditional goods, you cant block the export or import of IP. You can only hope to compromize on some kind of compensation.
vidarh 14y ago
The Apple products don't meet my needs, due to their restrictions. Some Android devices do. For a lot of users, the features the users want will not be available in either product if Apple has it the way they want.

calinet6 14y ago

Well if you put it that way, why the hell would Apple not try to get this injunction? Any public company in their right mind should take advantage of this sort of market advantage. The legal/patent system that allows this is broken, that's certain. But can we really blame Apple for using it to their advantage? It's sort of genius. Evil genius, but still...

Goronmon 14y ago
But can we really blame Apple for using it to their advantage? Of course.
saalweachter 14y ago
Yes. I'd prefer to just leave the post at that, but to make a bit more of a contribution to discussion, fiduciary duty is a myth invented sometime in the 70s or 80s. No one has ever been sued for not maximizing the profits of the company the run. A corporation doesn't have to be evil, even if being evil were more profitable than being good. They can just choose to be less profitable and no one cares. Given the choice, I'd much rather live in a mildly competitive, mildly cooperative capitalism where companies compete on things like price and quality (and salary!) without trying to burn the crops and salt the fields of the competitors the way Apple is now.
- calinet6 14y ago
  I absolutely agree with you, given the choice and the ideal world, I'd much rather live in a fair system where companies compete on the things that actually matter. Absolutely. I just think we're fooling ourselves if we think that we can simply expect people to adhere to this with no tangible incentive, rather than build a system which has the desired result. In other words, it's still the system that's broken. There are a lot of companies I'd like to boycott (and I certainly boycott and disagree with Apple's decision on this specific matter), but I don't blame the companies for trying to make money—regardless of "fiduciary duty" which is pretty irrelevant (I was just talking about the nature of companies to make money and dominate the market if possible; this would be true of any company, not necessarily just public companies with duty to shareholders). This is a tough call, and I'm sure it was tough even for Apple's legal team. Is it worth tarnishing their image to attempt to hold a competitor from the market for another couple months? Looked at from a strictly logical standpoint, with profits enabling more technological developments and more production capacity, as well as more advertising and sales efforts, it just might be worth it. You know that a whole team debated this and did dozens of calculations and eventually the call was made, but knowing Apple, this was no butt-hurt matter of principle. This was a market decision based on something they could do that would be beneficial for their company in the grand scheme of things. Do I agree? Not really. I think the company's reputation is way more important than this injunction. But it's an exceedingly complex decision, based on many factors that I don't have information about, and they made a different decision. I honestly can't blame them for that. It's easy to answer my question with a simple "yes." It hurts you. It doesn't feel right. Companies shouldn't be so impersonal. They should play nice. I know. We need to fix the system that allows despicable acts like this. But in the context, it makes perfect sense. "Blame" is not addressable here except to the system. (As is usually the case, but that's for another essay...)

flyinRyan 14y ago

>Firstly, consumers are denied the chance to purchase a product that exists; it's been made! It's ready to ship! Sure, you might not want one, but it's certainly possible that other people do. What kind of ridiculous justification is this? "But I had the car! It was ready to sell! I had someone who wanted to buy it! It's not right to stop me just because the car didn't actually belong to me, the guy I stole it from doesn't even know it's gone!"

jclulow 14y ago
Firstly, the (at this stage surely still alleged) infringement on another's intellectual property is not equivalent to the theft of a car, or the selling of a bridge that you don't own, or whatever. Secondly, I was simply saying that injunctions can disadvantage some people or organisations, and that they don't even have to be people directly involved in the injunction.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  I was using a more extreme example to make it more obvious how ridiculous what you were saying was. Let's try again: imagine there were a truck load of Android pads going somewhere but the truck got stolen. The thief quickly gets the pads to his story and sends out advertisement everywhere that he has the new Android pad for $1! People are lined up outside the store ready to buy but before he can open the police show up, shut the store down and recover the pads. The people only lost out on a sale that never should have existed. It's not the fault of the police for stopping the sale, nor the person who reported the crime. It's the fault of the thief. Likewise, if this product infringes patent(s) then it should not exist. Any disappointment to the customers if the fault of the company that made the illegal product, not the ones who stop sale (the judge) nor the people who reported the infringement (Apple).