6 ms·

Apple goes after Galaxy S3, Note in new court filing

54 points by option_greek 14y ago

chollida1 14y ago
Oh oh. This is going to get ugly very quickly. The Galaxy S3 is the first phone I've seen in 5 years that people I know actually prefer over the iPhone. At the fund I work at, of the 14 employees, 9 have switched from iPhones to the S3 and only 1 has gotten a new iPhone.
josteink 14y ago
I'll repeat my statement from when the 1 billion dollar verdict was made, since it seems like little will change before people vote with their wallets: Today Apple went down in history as the biggest patent-troll of all time, stiffling innovation and competition like nobody has ever done before. If you are a software-developer you should recognize the fundamental threat which Apple represents to your profession. Boycott Apple if you want to be able to stay in business in the long term future. Throw away your Macbooks, iPhones and iPads. Ditch your iTunes and iTunes account. Get rid of everything Apple. All of it. Be vocal about your code of ethical software conduct and how that prohibits involving anything made by Apple into anything you ever do.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ThePherocity 14y ago
  Apple is a company compelled to be greedy. It's actually the law for Apple to make as much money as possible given any legal and ethical way it can. Suing another giant tech company over legitimate patents is ethical. The system is designed so that a trial determines if the patents are legit. This is what happened. If you don't like that, then fix the fucking patent system. Quit whining that your favourite tech company lost. Companies are not teams, they are simply the manufacturer of a product that you either bought or chose not to buy. If you don't like the way a company is legally and ethically running it's business, then change the law. Don't boycott the company who is succeeding best at working within the framework provided.
  - statictype 14y ago
    Suing another giant tech company over legitimate patents is ethical If you don't like the way a company is legally and ethically running it's business, then change the law. Don't boycott the company who is succeeding best at working within the framework provided. You seem to be confused about the difference between 'ethical' and 'legally allowed'.
    - ThePherocity 14y ago
      No, I'm not, and the reason you think I am is because you're not looking at the whole picture. Apple invests it's shareholder dollars in R&D on the promise that they will return on that investment. Apple spent years getting it right, and then Samsung copies the work and spits out a competing product in a fraction of the time. Apple is suing because Samsung stole ideas, and Samsung is leveraging it's business on Apples R&D. Now, I don't think ideas or design should have a monetary value. But if you live in a world where ideas have currency, then stealing ideas is theft. We need to change the laws so ideas are free to all men. Apple isn't the problem, it's simply the best at navigating the problem.
      - sanxiyn 14y ago
        "Samsung is leveraging its business on Apple's R&D." Samsung is leveraging its business on Google's R&D. With Google's consent. Fixed that for you.
        ThePherocity 14y ago
        Well, absolutely, Samsung is leveraging Google's, and many companies R&D. But R&D isn't cheep, intuitive, or obvious. Blackberry decided not to copy Apple very much, still created some great phones from a product view and they died. Nokia copied not at all, and they're not doing too well. HTC copied a little, and they are doing okayish. Samsung copied a lot more and is doing the best. My argument is all ideas should be free. We should adopt the good ideas globally so every phone copies the best ideas. You get an inventors monopoly for as long as it takes to reverse engineer. In our current product cycles, that's ~2+years. All problems solved.
- unobfuscate 14y ago
  I grew up using a Mac. My dad first bought a Macintosh SE back in the late 80’s, and I spent my days playing breakout (or whatever it was called back then). I finally got my own machine in the mid 90’s, my sparkling little Performa 5200. I learned how to program on it, building little programs using a Pascal-like language. On my walks to school, there was a daily battle with all my PC owning chums, the evangelical nature was strong. After a stint using University machines, I picked up the first Intel Macbook back in 2006. My laptop died earlier this year, and I decided to simplify my portable life by picking up the New iPad. I’ve also owned a few different permutations of the shuffle over the years, enjoying it's simplicity and lack of features. With news of the forthcoming retina 13 inch Macbook pro, I was contemplating getting a new laptop (the ipad is fun, but I miss coding on the go). But today, that thought officially died. We are done, Apple and I. They have gone too far, and I can no longer support them as a company. Every dollar I spend on their products will go toward killing the very place I call home. I encourage everyone to vote with their wallets. If you believe Apple is hurting our industry, stop supporting them. Next time someone asks me for gadget/computer advice, I will be pointing them in a different direction.
- rimantas 14y ago
  > Today Apple went down in history as the biggest > patent-troll of all time, stiffling innovation and > competition like nobody has ever done before. Only Apple is no patent troll, because they produce and sell high quality products which other companies try to copy. Please, tell me how much innovation will be stiffled when Samsung can no longer produce these highly original connectors http://www.davidglover.org/facsimilist/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/apple-iphone-usb-cable-2007-vs-samsung-galaxy-tab-usb-cable-2010.jpg http://www.davidglover.org/facsimilist/wp-content/uploads/20..., or USB adapters: http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Samsung-Power-Adapter-ripoff-1.png http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Samsung-P... > Throw away your Macbooks, iPhones and iPads. Indeed, you won't need them, others came with a plenty of fresh ideas: http://dewith.com/2012/its-not-just-phones/ http://dewith.com/2012/its-not-just-phones/
  - vibrunazo 14y ago
    See, this is why we should use the term "patent extortion" instead of trolls. To avoid pedants like the above.
    - fpgeek 14y ago
      I tend to prefer "patent ogre" myself.
  - unobfuscate 14y ago
    How exactly is this whole power adapter and usb connector thing even relevant? Who sits down, and decides to buy a product based on the configuration of the included cables? I sure don't. Nobody is arguing Apple hasn't done great things for the evolution of phones and laptops, but so have other companies. Least we all forget, Apple is the granddaddy of ripping off technologies (and good for them, we are better off for it).
  - emehrkay 14y ago
    Yeah they definitely are not patent trolls unless the meaning of the term has changed since Lodsys made the news earlier this year. Lodsys seems to just be a company who has a bunch of patents and waits for someone to implement one and sue. Apple created something, got it patented, and took it to court. To me that seems like it is what the patent system is about. I dont agree with patents in the current form, but that is the game right now.
- wissler 14y ago
  Yes, the time has come for an Apple boycott, both by consumers of their products and by any decent engineers that work for Apple.
josteink 14y ago
I just had a realization that at this point Apple is actually seeking to ban an order of magnitude more devices than they actually make them-selves. I know the term "patent-troll" is often preserved for non-practising entities, but at this rate Apple is clearly doing its best to qualify for the badge none the less.
- bane 14y ago
  IMHO, this is worse than any existing patent-troll. Patent trolls seek to force license agreements with practicing entities through litigation. They are, at worse, a serious annoyance. Apple is seeking to entirely kill off an industry competitor from the marketplace (and their claims at being willing to license are disingenuous at best as the suggested publicly known license fees show). They are now a serious and terminal problem for the entire industry. There was a brief moment a few months ago where I thought about buying some new Apple hardware, the new rMBP look delish. But now? Never mind. I'll wait till Samsung brings out a decent ultrabook with a high res display and give them my money directly.
  - v0cab 14y ago
    > Apple is seeking to entirely kill off an industry competitor from the marketplace Samsung had the South Korean government block the iPhone from South Korea for two years when it was released.
- v0cab 14y ago
  Apple don't make that many products themselves. If the Samsung Galaxy S Note S2 Ultra S is banned in the US, consumers will still be able to buy the Samsung Galaxy S Note S2 Ultra X. When Samsung had the South Korean government block the original iPhone from South Korea, it was Apple's only phone.
adrinavarro 14y ago
The S3 is probably the first Samsung phone 'designed by lawyers', as someone posted here a few weeks/months ago. Samsung really made an effort to avoid infringing 'trade dress' and other claims made by Apple. Most patents they're going after this time shouldn't exist at all (or, at least, many other manufacturers would be affected).
hammersend 14y ago
I don't get how they could possibly have been granted the "click a phone number in browser etc. and make call" patent when it is so painfully obvious. On an integrated device like a smartphone it makes intuitive sense to make any discrete form of data clickable and routed to whatever the most logical application is. It would be like patenting right clicking and downloading an image in a browser on the desktop. Ludicrous.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mark_l_watson 14y ago
Apple management are becoming real assholes. I had planned on buying a new rMBP but have permanently taken that off of my shopping list because I don't like where Apple is heading. A few months ago I bought my stepson an iPad 3 for his birthday and that might be my last Apple purchase. I recently bought Galaxy S III phones for my wife and I and I don't see so much similarity with the iPhones, not even getting into prior art issues. Apple has the legal right to peruse any legal proceedings they want but as consumers we can vote with our wallets. And, there are now some very sweet non-Apple laptops :-)
- v0cab 14y ago
  You can hardly take the ethical high-ground if you've been buying Samsung products.
esolyt 14y ago
Galaxy S3 is specifically designed not to look like the iPhone. Galaxy Note is a completely different type of product. It has a stylus and a giant 720p screen. It seems unlikely that anyone would confuse these products with an iPhone. They are not trying to be like iPhone. I honestly don't understand what Apple is trying to do. There must be a logical explanation.
- orangecat 14y ago
  I honestly don't understand what Apple is trying to do. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
neya 14y ago
Apple supporters - Please understand that this is a clear abuse of patents by Apple more than anything else. Why? Because, the phones they are suing right now (Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note) are phones that have been designed to NOT look like the iPhone (as Apple had alleged earlier) nor use any of their technologies. This is clearly to stiffle innovation and competition by unethical means, by abusing the patent system. What's disheartening is that Samsung actually spent considerable effort to make these phones look different (Heck, one of them even has a stylus, something Steve Jobs himself was against) and yet they still find Apple suing them. What are the patents that Apple is using to sue Samsung against? The four new patents Apple is leveraging against Samsung include the '647 "Data Detectors" patent, the '721 "Slide-to-unlock" property, the '172 "Word completion" invention and the '604 "Universal search" patent. All of them Bullshit. Understand this, my fellow HN'ers, make no mistake, this is a threat for the entire Start-up community. Tomorrow you might be sued for the same BS reasons if you started a phone company as well (Sorry for repeating this, but I feel it's important). This is one of the primary reasons why we don't see hardware-based start-ups - Because of the fear of being sued by monopolies like Apple. If you would like to show your support, please consider boycotting Apple. There is strength in numbers. Please show your support. And my only message to Apple is - Fuck you, Apple. Its only a matter of time until you will collapse for all the unfair BS you have done to us, as a community. Thanks for reading.
- siglesias 14y ago
  What's disheartening is that Samsung actually spent considerable effort to make these phones look different When Samsung closes a door, they open a window. Check out the S Voice UI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxYZXjXozc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxYZXjXozc This is the one thing that made the 4S stand out from the 4, and Samsung basically wholesale copied the UI.
  - neya 14y ago
    Before you mistake me to be a 'fanboy' of Samsung, please understand, I am not, instead, I just want to tell you the facts. Samsung Galaxy S2 was released in May 2011, iPhone 4s, was released in October 2011. The Galaxy S2 has had a voice command feature well before Siri came into light. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0A-zCis_A0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0A-zCis_A0 Also, its funny how I don't see you mention about the slide-down notifications that Apple has 'wholesale ripped off' (in your language).
NameNickHN 14y ago
I wonder if Apple and Samsung have some kind of deal where they sue each other for marketing purposes. It keeps them in the news, in blogs and in discussion forums. Few other products receive this magnitude of in-depth feature and style comparison. Samsung may have to pay one billion to Apple, but maybe they saved much more money that it otherwise would have had to spend on marketing.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

54 points by option_greek 14y ago

Oh oh. This is going to get ugly very quickly. The Galaxy S3 is the first phone I've seen in 5 years that people I know actually prefer over the iPhone. At the fund I work at, of the 14 employees, 9 have switched from iPhones to the S3 and only 1 has gotten a new iPhone.

josteink 14y ago

I'll repeat my statement from when the 1 billion dollar verdict was made, since it seems like little will change before people vote with their wallets: Today Apple went down in history as the biggest patent-troll of all time, stiffling innovation and competition like nobody has ever done before. If you are a software-developer you should recognize the fundamental threat which Apple represents to your profession. Boycott Apple if you want to be able to stay in business in the long term future. Throw away your Macbooks, iPhones and iPads. Ditch your iTunes and iTunes account. Get rid of everything Apple. All of it. Be vocal about your code of ethical software conduct and how that prohibits involving anything made by Apple into anything you ever do.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ThePherocity 14y ago
Apple is a company compelled to be greedy. It's actually the law for Apple to make as much money as possible given any legal and ethical way it can. Suing another giant tech company over legitimate patents is ethical. The system is designed so that a trial determines if the patents are legit. This is what happened. If you don't like that, then fix the fucking patent system. Quit whining that your favourite tech company lost. Companies are not teams, they are simply the manufacturer of a product that you either bought or chose not to buy. If you don't like the way a company is legally and ethically running it's business, then change the law. Don't boycott the company who is succeeding best at working within the framework provided.
- statictype 14y ago
  Suing another giant tech company over legitimate patents is ethical If you don't like the way a company is legally and ethically running it's business, then change the law. Don't boycott the company who is succeeding best at working within the framework provided. You seem to be confused about the difference between 'ethical' and 'legally allowed'.
  - ThePherocity 14y ago
    No, I'm not, and the reason you think I am is because you're not looking at the whole picture. Apple invests it's shareholder dollars in R&D on the promise that they will return on that investment. Apple spent years getting it right, and then Samsung copies the work and spits out a competing product in a fraction of the time. Apple is suing because Samsung stole ideas, and Samsung is leveraging it's business on Apples R&D. Now, I don't think ideas or design should have a monetary value. But if you live in a world where ideas have currency, then stealing ideas is theft. We need to change the laws so ideas are free to all men. Apple isn't the problem, it's simply the best at navigating the problem.
    - sanxiyn 14y ago
      "Samsung is leveraging its business on Apple's R&D." Samsung is leveraging its business on Google's R&D. With Google's consent. Fixed that for you.
      - ThePherocity 14y ago
        Well, absolutely, Samsung is leveraging Google's, and many companies R&D. But R&D isn't cheep, intuitive, or obvious. Blackberry decided not to copy Apple very much, still created some great phones from a product view and they died. Nokia copied not at all, and they're not doing too well. HTC copied a little, and they are doing okayish. Samsung copied a lot more and is doing the best. My argument is all ideas should be free. We should adopt the good ideas globally so every phone copies the best ideas. You get an inventors monopoly for as long as it takes to reverse engineer. In our current product cycles, that's ~2+years. All problems solved.
unobfuscate 14y ago
I grew up using a Mac. My dad first bought a Macintosh SE back in the late 80’s, and I spent my days playing breakout (or whatever it was called back then). I finally got my own machine in the mid 90’s, my sparkling little Performa 5200. I learned how to program on it, building little programs using a Pascal-like language. On my walks to school, there was a daily battle with all my PC owning chums, the evangelical nature was strong. After a stint using University machines, I picked up the first Intel Macbook back in 2006. My laptop died earlier this year, and I decided to simplify my portable life by picking up the New iPad. I’ve also owned a few different permutations of the shuffle over the years, enjoying it's simplicity and lack of features. With news of the forthcoming retina 13 inch Macbook pro, I was contemplating getting a new laptop (the ipad is fun, but I miss coding on the go). But today, that thought officially died. We are done, Apple and I. They have gone too far, and I can no longer support them as a company. Every dollar I spend on their products will go toward killing the very place I call home. I encourage everyone to vote with their wallets. If you believe Apple is hurting our industry, stop supporting them. Next time someone asks me for gadget/computer advice, I will be pointing them in a different direction.
rimantas 14y ago
> Today Apple went down in history as the biggest > patent-troll of all time, stiffling innovation and > competition like nobody has ever done before. Only Apple is no patent troll, because they produce and sell high quality products which other companies try to copy. Please, tell me how much innovation will be stiffled when Samsung can no longer produce these highly original connectors http://www.davidglover.org/facsimilist/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/apple-iphone-usb-cable-2007-vs-samsung-galaxy-tab-usb-cable-2010.jpg http://www.davidglover.org/facsimilist/wp-content/uploads/20..., or USB adapters: http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Samsung-Power-Adapter-ripoff-1.png http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Samsung-P... > Throw away your Macbooks, iPhones and iPads. Indeed, you won't need them, others came with a plenty of fresh ideas: http://dewith.com/2012/its-not-just-phones/ http://dewith.com/2012/its-not-just-phones/
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  See, this is why we should use the term "patent extortion" instead of trolls. To avoid pedants like the above.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    I tend to prefer "patent ogre" myself.
- unobfuscate 14y ago
  How exactly is this whole power adapter and usb connector thing even relevant? Who sits down, and decides to buy a product based on the configuration of the included cables? I sure don't. Nobody is arguing Apple hasn't done great things for the evolution of phones and laptops, but so have other companies. Least we all forget, Apple is the granddaddy of ripping off technologies (and good for them, we are better off for it).
- emehrkay 14y ago
  Yeah they definitely are not patent trolls unless the meaning of the term has changed since Lodsys made the news earlier this year. Lodsys seems to just be a company who has a bunch of patents and waits for someone to implement one and sue. Apple created something, got it patented, and took it to court. To me that seems like it is what the patent system is about. I dont agree with patents in the current form, but that is the game right now.
wissler 14y ago
Yes, the time has come for an Apple boycott, both by consumers of their products and by any decent engineers that work for Apple.

josteink 14y ago

I just had a realization that at this point Apple is actually seeking to ban an order of magnitude more devices than they actually make them-selves. I know the term "patent-troll" is often preserved for non-practising entities, but at this rate Apple is clearly doing its best to qualify for the badge none the less.

bane 14y ago
IMHO, this is worse than any existing patent-troll. Patent trolls seek to force license agreements with practicing entities through litigation. They are, at worse, a serious annoyance. Apple is seeking to entirely kill off an industry competitor from the marketplace (and their claims at being willing to license are disingenuous at best as the suggested publicly known license fees show). They are now a serious and terminal problem for the entire industry. There was a brief moment a few months ago where I thought about buying some new Apple hardware, the new rMBP look delish. But now? Never mind. I'll wait till Samsung brings out a decent ultrabook with a high res display and give them my money directly.
- v0cab 14y ago
  > Apple is seeking to entirely kill off an industry competitor from the marketplace Samsung had the South Korean government block the iPhone from South Korea for two years when it was released.
v0cab 14y ago
Apple don't make that many products themselves. If the Samsung Galaxy S Note S2 Ultra S is banned in the US, consumers will still be able to buy the Samsung Galaxy S Note S2 Ultra X. When Samsung had the South Korean government block the original iPhone from South Korea, it was Apple's only phone.

adrinavarro 14y ago

The S3 is probably the first Samsung phone 'designed by lawyers', as someone posted here a few weeks/months ago. Samsung really made an effort to avoid infringing 'trade dress' and other claims made by Apple. Most patents they're going after this time shouldn't exist at all (or, at least, many other manufacturers would be affected).

hammersend 14y ago

I don't get how they could possibly have been granted the "click a phone number in browser etc. and make call" patent when it is so painfully obvious. On an integrated device like a smartphone it makes intuitive sense to make any discrete form of data clickable and routed to whatever the most logical application is. It would be like patenting right clicking and downloading an image in a browser on the desktop. Ludicrous.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mark_l_watson 14y ago

Apple management are becoming real assholes. I had planned on buying a new rMBP but have permanently taken that off of my shopping list because I don't like where Apple is heading. A few months ago I bought my stepson an iPad 3 for his birthday and that might be my last Apple purchase. I recently bought Galaxy S III phones for my wife and I and I don't see so much similarity with the iPhones, not even getting into prior art issues. Apple has the legal right to peruse any legal proceedings they want but as consumers we can vote with our wallets. And, there are now some very sweet non-Apple laptops :-)

v0cab 14y ago
You can hardly take the ethical high-ground if you've been buying Samsung products.

esolyt 14y ago

Galaxy S3 is specifically designed not to look like the iPhone. Galaxy Note is a completely different type of product. It has a stylus and a giant 720p screen. It seems unlikely that anyone would confuse these products with an iPhone. They are not trying to be like iPhone. I honestly don't understand what Apple is trying to do. There must be a logical explanation.

orangecat 14y ago
I honestly don't understand what Apple is trying to do. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

neya 14y ago

Apple supporters - Please understand that this is a clear abuse of patents by Apple more than anything else. Why? Because, the phones they are suing right now (Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note) are phones that have been designed to NOT look like the iPhone (as Apple had alleged earlier) nor use any of their technologies. This is clearly to stiffle innovation and competition by unethical means, by abusing the patent system. What's disheartening is that Samsung actually spent considerable effort to make these phones look different (Heck, one of them even has a stylus, something Steve Jobs himself was against) and yet they still find Apple suing them. What are the patents that Apple is using to sue Samsung against? The four new patents Apple is leveraging against Samsung include the '647 "Data Detectors" patent, the '721 "Slide-to-unlock" property, the '172 "Word completion" invention and the '604 "Universal search" patent. All of them Bullshit. Understand this, my fellow HN'ers, make no mistake, this is a threat for the entire Start-up community. Tomorrow you might be sued for the same BS reasons if you started a phone company as well (Sorry for repeating this, but I feel it's important). This is one of the primary reasons why we don't see hardware-based start-ups - Because of the fear of being sued by monopolies like Apple. If you would like to show your support, please consider boycotting Apple. There is strength in numbers. Please show your support. And my only message to Apple is - Fuck you, Apple. Its only a matter of time until you will collapse for all the unfair BS you have done to us, as a community. Thanks for reading.

siglesias 14y ago
What's disheartening is that Samsung actually spent considerable effort to make these phones look different When Samsung closes a door, they open a window. Check out the S Voice UI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxYZXjXozc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxYZXjXozc This is the one thing that made the 4S stand out from the 4, and Samsung basically wholesale copied the UI.
- neya 14y ago
  Before you mistake me to be a 'fanboy' of Samsung, please understand, I am not, instead, I just want to tell you the facts. Samsung Galaxy S2 was released in May 2011, iPhone 4s, was released in October 2011. The Galaxy S2 has had a voice command feature well before Siri came into light. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0A-zCis_A0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0A-zCis_A0 Also, its funny how I don't see you mention about the slide-down notifications that Apple has 'wholesale ripped off' (in your language).

NameNickHN 14y ago

I wonder if Apple and Samsung have some kind of deal where they sue each other for marketing purposes. It keeps them in the news, in blogs and in discussion forums. Few other products receive this magnitude of in-depth feature and style comparison. Samsung may have to pay one billion to Apple, but maybe they saved much more money that it otherwise would have had to spend on marketing.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]