Why oh why does big news always break when I’m already in bed? This is a big one, guys: Motorola has been granted an injunction in Germany against Apple, which, as far as we can tell right now, covers Apple’s entire portfolio of mobile products. Motorola can enforce this injunction, barring all of Apple’s mobile products from the German market. In addition, Apple has to pay Motorola damages from 2003 and onwards. Update: Apple has responded (see Engadget article linked to above): “This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.” At this time huh? Huh.
The story is still developing, and in this sleepy mental state it’s a bit hard to read a German legal document. Motorola did release a short statement, but it’s pretty barren and void of any useful information.
As media and mobility continue to converge, Motorola Mobility’s patented technologies are increasingly important for innovation within the wireless and communications industries, for which Motorola Mobility has developed an industry leading intellectual property portfolio. We will continue to assert ourselves in the protection of these assets, while also ensuring that our technologies are widely available to end-users. We hope that we are able to resolve this matter, so we can focus on creating great innovations that benefit the industry.
Blogger Florian Mueller states that Apple may have let this injunction come to pass on purpose, because any evidence Apple would bring onto the table against it late would not be admissible in court again – in other words, Apple is saving everything up for the appeal it is undoubtedly going to file. Mueller also notes that at least one of the two patents in this injunction was declared a FRAND patent in the US.
In any case, Motorola can use this injunction to block all of Apple’s mobile products from entering the German market, but that may not be a good idea considering the European Commission’s investigation into Samsung and Apple. I’m very, very curious how this one’s going to develop.
From the parent : Additionally, Apple may have to pay damages to Motorola dating back to 2010.
Might be worthwhile to correct your typo
Engadget is wrong. Legal doc says April 19, 2003.
Thom, go back to bed with your lazy reporting. You can speak to the doc Florian Mueller produced but can’t speak to the article he wrote to accompany it? WTF? Skewing the view maybe?
Florian wrote, “Apple wouldn’t be the first defendant in Germany to pursue a tactic called “Flucht in die S~A¤umnis” (“resorting to a default judgment”). Many defendants play this game after they have failed (for their own fault) to meet a deadline for an answer to a complaint. In that case, the problem they face is that any arguments they’d have liked to present would no longer be admissible if presented only at the time of a hearing (on the grounds of being untimely). By simply letting the plaintiff win a default judgment, a defendant preserves his ability to present all of his arguments in the appeal. But this has cost implications (which are less than secondary in this case given what’s at stake) and comes with the risk of a default judgment that is preliminarily enforceable.”
Also, Apple responded to the story advising, ” We just got the following statement from Apple regarding the ruling:
“This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.”
So, it appears our iDevice-loving German friends have nothing to worry about, at least for now.”
So please Thom, tell the whole story in its proper context, or just simply take yourself back to bed.
Edited 2011-11-05 04:10 UTC
All of which is in the article, except for Apple’s statement since that came out when I was in bed.
So…. I’m struggling to see the point in your attack on me.
Not an attack, just a poke like you like to do with others.
RTFA
Are we reading the same document? It’s page 6 item B.II. Translated very literally (and therefore unpleasant to read):
It is determined that the defendant is required to compensate any damage to the indicter that Motorola Inc. from May 20th 2002 up to July 30th 2010 and the indicter since July 31st 2010 by actions of the defendant according to number B.I.1.a) and/or B.I.1.b) has happend or will be happening.
The two dates represent the naming “Motorola Mobility Inc.” (indicter) and “Motorola Inc.” (which is not identical by name here, even though it’s the same company), that’s why the date span and the two dates.
Source:
http://htmlimg2.scribdassets.com/8ftmzlvry818fdfe/images/6-1d641eee…
Now, Apple needs to ask Google nicely (Motorola) if they can sell their devices in Germany, and I dare say Samsung might suddenly be experiencing… “manufacturing difficulties”, and will be unable to fill Apple’s orders for their CPUs.
Apple really needs to learn when to pick it’s battles, in the case of Samsung in particular. If Samsung suddenly can’t/won’t supply Apple with CPUs and such, Apple might not be able to gouge the sheep with a new model in six months’ time.
Highly unlikely. Samsung makes huge profits off selling components for Apple devices. If Samsung doesn’t want Apple’s business, I’m sure there are other component suppliers who will be more than happy to take Apple’s business off Samsung’s hands.
They already fund a lot of the production lines for their suppliers. They pay them to set up and run the production lines for them.
Apple already tried this once. They decided to go with another company for the lion’s share of their displays. The other company couldn’t produce enough of them, fast enough, so Apple came back to Samsung, begging.
I going to have to say, mostly bs on this one, Apple fanboy. Foxconn builds for everybody.
This isn’t about Foxconn, it’s about component suppliers – chips, displays etc.
Edited 2011-11-05 02:52 UTC
Indeed. Samsung only makes the CPU and Memory. Toshiba and Hynix are possible candidates to replace those, and TMSC will replace Samsung to produce Apple’s A6 and A7. Really it’s Samsung’s loss as iPhone related business brought them $5,7 billion in 2010.
Wrong,
Samsung Is Already Cranking Out Processors For Apple’s Next iPhone
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-17/tech/30288642_1_ipho…
http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/17/samsung-to-supply-a6-processors-for-n…
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/17/samsung_to_supply_qua…
I stand corrected.
The articles you posted state though that TMSC is building a foundry line for Apple. So Samsung might still provide the A6, it probably won’t provide the A7.
I don’t think Samsung would ever “sabotage” products any of its clients. Doing so would be virtual suicide for their component business. Why would anyone want to source Samsung as a component supplier, when they’re just looking to steal the cake of your innovations whenever they deem your market valuable?
Not true. Foxconn assembles the components provided by companies such as Samsung.
Hence the reason why Apple is dumping Samsung as their CPU manufacturer :
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110915PD211.html
That means Samsung has even less need to be conciliatory towards Apple.
LOL
Wrong,
Samsung Is Already Cranking Out Processors For Apple’s Next iPhone
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-17/tech/30288642_1_ipho…
http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/17/samsung-to-supply-a6-processors-for-n…
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/17/samsung_to_supply_qua…
Is it at all possible Apple and Google could make a deal that would allow Samsung, Motorola, and Apple to all sell products in the market to interested customers? I want to believe yes, but my experience with IP lawyers says no.
The problem with corporate IP legal teams is that businesses can’t calculate the opportunity losses of nonexistent markets due to stupid IP laws, finance managers are too short-sighted to be growth oriented, and the lawyers have a vested interest in companies paying them based on effective litigation instead of intelligently choosing not to litigate.
I don’t think its up for the IP lawyers to make that call. Apple is set out to make innovative products themselves, not license their innovations to third parties, so I think its unlikely.
I probably wasn’t clear on this, but my meaning was that rather than use litigation to prevent competition, they could mutually agree to not do so, and instead allow all players the chance to compete for customers in all markets.
Your point on licensing is a good one, but not what I was aiming at. Considering your idea, though, even makes it more compelling to allow competitors to sell with a reasonable licensing royalty. Samsung or Motorola having a nice phone that pays a small royalty to Apple for each sale doesn’t necessarily mean Apple will see less revenue, and that kind of cost analysis often seems beyond the capabilities of small-minded finance directors and IP lawyers whose bonuses are based on things that are easier to measure.
Companies are made up of people, and the goals for specific individuals for a company (who may be influential in the corporate decision-making process) aren’t always lined up with the best long-term interests of the larger company.
Microsoft is taking this approach by collecting licenses from Antroid. For Microsoft, its understandable, as they’ve always been in the licensing business. Apple never was, nor do they care to. I think Apple is a very different company from Microsoft or even from most companies. Its not a suit-business ruled by business reason. Its a business ruled by passionate people who are set out to building compelling products for customers. I don’t Apple sees this dispute as purily from a cost perspective. Its a matter of pride, pride about the work they do everyday. They don’t like to hand over their designs to others, they are set out to do them themselves. Apple would have no issues with Samsung and Google if they didn’t just bluntly copied the iOS/iDevice look and feel and had instead created their own instead. Samsung and Google just happened to try take away what makes Apple unique in the marketplace. Understandibly, Apple is doing everything they can to prevent this.
Companies are just vehicles for people who are passionate about their work. A bag of money isn’t worth it if you have to go to work every day with the feeling you sold out the best work of your lifetime with a bag of money.
I could pick at so much of your statement, although I choose this particular line.
“Its a business ruled by passionate people who are set out to building compelling products for customers”
I don’t see it in quite a rose tinted fashion, Apple build products that they believe will make them a big profit because that’s what their shareholders want.
Like any other manufacturer, they will borrow/steal either already successful ideas or those they think customers will want and as a consumer I don’t see that as a bad thing but let’s not paint Apple as an innocent victim in this stupid IP game.
The iPhone has very few elements that didn’t already exist in other devices, if you take IP law to it’s logical conclusion then there will be no devices which have all the features you want… just rich lawyers and/or unnecessary licensing.
I fail to see why anyone would argue for this trend to continue.
When go on the offensive against Android you take on the combined the IP of all the Android manufacturers.
It is a battle Apple is not going to win.
They cant win against Motorolla and sure as hell won’t win againts Alcatel Lucent (18800 US patents) which is seriously entering the Android market with high end devices 2012.
Apple should rather start being a good neighbour and compete by lowering their prices.
Edited 2011-11-05 01:35 UTC
Prior to buying Motorola Mobility, Google had virtually no IP in the mobile computing space at all. IP holders like Apple and Microsoft also go against device makers, not Google, since its the device makers which implement Android in a product. Android in itself is not a product.
It remains to be seen. Apple holds quite a heavy load in IP themselves, from basic UI design elements over mobile device functionality and control over the entire Nortel portfolio, including the LTE patents.
Apple is primarily trying to protect their investment in innovation. Not persuing these rights as patent holders would render their patents invaluable. No company which takes its business serious is as stupid to do that.
You can get a 3GS for a basic smartphone pretty cheap these days. Just don’t expect any cheaply made phones from them.
The transaction hasn’t actually closed yet. The financial news releases are saying late 2011 – early 2012.
Edited 2011-11-05 01:59 UTC
So what, Apple fanboy, Google does own IP now. (Probably a big reason why they bought Motorola, you think?) And Motorola invented the cell phone. No matter how you try to delude yourself, Apple picked a fight that they should have had enough brains not to pick.
The anti-Android consortium (Microsoft, Apple and RIM) haven’t got the Nortel patents yet and it’s likely that these patents will come with stipulations, since they it’s painfully obvious that these patents were bought specifically to attack Android and the courts know it.
But even if they do get them. Google/Motorola has far more patents dealing specifically with cell phones than Nortel did. Google blindsided the anti-Android consortium when they bought Motorola.
It’s pretty telling that you pin your hopes on Apple’s attempt at patent trolling. Too bad Apple, Microsoft and RIM can’t compete on innovation, isn’t it?
Apple’s driving force, Jobs, is now confirmed as a control-freak nut-job. He bragged about ripping off other people and whined and stamped his foot when competitors out-designed him.
Do you really think Apple’s (Jobs’) contention that “a square screen with rounded corners” is Apple’s exclusive property and will stand up in any court?
Now that the ego-maniac Jobs is gone, maybe Apple will get some adult supervision. If not, this is only the beginning. Apple will be blasted into the stone-age by the companies who actually did invent the cell phone.
Apple “insanely great”
Jobs “greatly insane”
I LOL’ed at that one
“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
From the same guy who said that he has always been shameless about stealing good ideas, a quote which would benefit from being spread more often in the light of nowadays’ lawsuit parties
(PS : I wonder at which point people will stop associate the name of Jobs with Apple’s management. At the moment, all options feel weird…)
*bites lip*
Jobs was (mis)quoting Picasso. the original Picasso quote was “bad artists copy, great artists steal.”
Picasso didn’t allude that stealing is okay. What he meant was, that when someone is creating something, he will invariably fall back to his design knowledge and acquired taste for aesthetics he picked up trough learning.
The difference between copying and stealing, is that when you merely copy an original design, there is no process of ingestion, no dissection in the mind of the artist to try to understand as to what makes a certain design so good. There is no coming to grips with this thus he can not make something unique with that acquired knowledge. The artist is thus merely a parrot which mimics the original design without feeling the dynamics what makes the original a great work, and thus the end result will invariably be a watered down version of the original, because he does not understand the value fully of the original.
When a “great artist steals” it means that this ingestion process has taken place. The artist has dissected the original design to its bare fundamentals and understands its dynamics in every detail. The artist is then able to use that knowledge to create something new and unique using this knowledge, and if he is bright enough he is even able make improvements upon it. This new work or application can be in an entirely new field altogether, one that was not at all appropriate or imaginable in the time of the creation of the original.
Thus Picasso “stole” his taste for great aesthetics and composition from the great painters before him by dissecting their work until the finest detail after which he applied and improved on them in his own works, with his own unique signature style. This understanding in Pablo’s mind radiates trough his work and even if you’re not a fan of his style, one can invariably see he was a brilliant mind just by looking at his work.
Following this line of reasoning, Apple sues Samsung for copying their designs. Samsung is just set out to launch very similar products, instead of coming to grips with what makes Apple’s designs so great, and applying this gained knowledge in new areas with their own unique key signature. So in the eyes of Apple Samsung is a bad artist, not a great artist.
*hats off*
Edited 2011-11-05 14:52 UTC
I think that the poster to whom you responded was actually referring to Jobs’ statement that immediately followed his misquote of Picasso. Jobs said, “We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
By the way, you misquoted Picasso by one word.
Here is the “evolution” of the Jobs quote:
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal…” T.S. Elliot
“Bad artists copy; good artists steal.” Pablo Picasso
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Steve Jobs (mis-quoting Picasso)
No.
Pablo Picasso, never “fell back” on “taste.” As a great, independent-thinking artist, he realized that “taste” stifles true creativity. In fact, he made statement in that regard:
“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness” (Anderson, SC, March 24, 1957).
In the eyes of many great artists, those who bring “taste” into their art are usually less inspired than those who do not. It is the illusion of “taste” which sets apart the smug Apple fanboy from those who are actually creative.
Considering this “tyranny of taste,” it is fascinating to hear another statement by Jobs (from the same interview in which he misquoted Picasso, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfALGcDNEDw ): “The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste…, and what that means is… they don’t think of original ideas.”
The last part of this statement is also interesting in light of the fact that he admitted in the same interview that Apple shamelessly steals great ideas from others. Also, Microsoft preceded Apple in several of Apple’s most successful items, such as the dock and taskbar, multi-touch, and tablets.
In addition, other than “You’re holding it wrong!,” Steve Jobs never originated any quotes as succinct and powerful as those from Picasso.
At any rate, there is a philosophical dichotomy between those who are truly creative/original and those who try to seem creative/original. I tend to side with the brilliant, pioneering artist, rather than the snobby, self-deluded CEO.
Of course, this dramatic difference in creative philosophy (and in quote interpretation) didn’t stop Apple from “shamelessly” exploiting Pablo Picasso’s image in its advertising: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdxVIyuO4OU
One more thing: I don’t think that Picasso nor other artists in those days would have used Macs. Have you ever seen the studio of a great artist? It is invariably cluttered and messy — such artists would not care how their computer enclosure looks. They spent most of their time creating, rather than sitting around admiring their possessions. They would want something that is solid, versatile/feature-rich, that doesn’t overheat and that can be used/modified for their needs unencumbered by licenses.
Here is a great artist using a “beige-box” computer to make a beautiful image: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oqUd8utr14 I’d put my money on Warhol with an old Amiga over any fanboy with an Imac and Photoshop/Illustrator.
It is important to keep in mind that Pablo Picasso had many styles — he wasn’t encumbered by taste/style. In fact, his work had “periods.”
Except for the fact that Samsung had those “great” designs before they were a twinkle in Apple’s eye: http://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2011/08/samsung-digital-picture-frame…
Countless others had prior art for which Apple is suing as their original ideas. So, if Samsung is actually copying, they could merely be copying the LG Prada, for example, which was winning design awards long before the first Iphone appeared.
With acquired taste, I didn’t mean the taste for looks, the veneer or conventions of the day. With taste, I meant the appreciation of balances, the inner dynamics and the insight as to what makes great design tick. This can be completely loose from looks, established values, or veneer, or the “taste” in the sense of momentarily establishment you seem to describe. This is something Pablo proved in his work. I was attesting that its the prime mechanics behind the design which matter, not its apparant outcome.
I also think “taste” has completely different connotations when you apply it to technology rather than to Art. Art doesn’t need to serve any purpose other than its own. Art doesn’t need to be practical to be viable. Computers, being appliances to accomodize functionality, inherently have to be practical. So application of taste differs greatly. Devices need to be appealing and practical. They don’t cater to the few with appreciation for the unusual and with deep pockets, but to the many. Its the marriage between design and technology which makes it viable.
Try telling that to your customers when you make a product. Meanwhile, my customers are thrilled with (and thankful for) their Apple devices.
I’m not repeating myself on this one, go read my other posts and let it sink trough. If you insist on believing that cloning products is an okay thing to do, thats your entitlement. I don’t share your opinion.
Microsoft had a taskbar, not a dock. To my knowledge, Microsoft introduced the taskbar with NT 3.1, which came out in 1993. The dock in Mac OS X came from NeXTSTEP, which was launched in 1988. Microsoft launched its tablet PC’s in 2001. Apple started working on its first tablets in 1986 under the “Knowledge Navigator” monnicker. It eventually launched the Newton in 1993.
I’m not arguing Jobs ever was an artist with the same level of capacity as Picasso. If he would have been, I don’t think he would have ever been in the computer business. Then again, Pablo never was in the business of building computer appliances.
In his own field of business, I do think there are quite a few apt quotes that competing businesses can take to heart when building products :
“You^aEUR~ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around.”
“People think it’s this veneer ^aEUR” that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected”
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
“We are very careful about what features we add because we can’t take them away.”
I think your own personal “taste” on the subject colors your opinion, stretching your view on reality by a great margin.
That didn’t stop Warhol from being memsmerized about the capabilities of the original Mac when he played around for the first time. You know, that machine which was actually launched over a year before the the Amiga, the latter being a brain transplant for Commodore’s computer business.
I’m not saying the Amiga wasn’t an amazing machine. It was. Its just that Commodore in several key moments of the computer revolution followed in Apple’s footsteps (and was quite successful at that at times). Sometimes they lead the revolution. Having color images on a graphical desktop was one of those times, which your video attests.
So did Apple. They had their Snow White period in the eighties, followed by a fruity color period towards the end of the nineties, which got followed up with a iPod white period, and eventually made way for a brushed steel and black period.
I think you’re stretching the meaning of “long” by a great margin here, even when referring to the computer industry. The Prada was announced in december 2006. The iPhone was announced in january 2007. At that time, Apple had been working on the iPhone for years (and was working on touch based interfaces for their own tablet projects long before that)
So in your world most creative people don’t use Macs? What colour is the sky?
I will use this meaningless sentence to illustrate how irrational this discussion can turn out when fanboys get involved.
We all know that the sky is black! When we look at it from earth it seems blue-ish (or grey-ish right now from my window). What I am trying to say is that there is an “absolute” fact (sky is black) and a “relative” fact (based on a certain reference system i.e. sky is blue from the surface of earth). Now that we got that cleared out lets see how these concepts are aplicable to a discussion with fanboys:
– Most creative people in the world use Mac’s. This is such a stupid statement that anyone with elementary knowledge in logic or philosophy would laugh their hearts out. It is stated as an “absolute” fact when there are two simple facts that render it a pure “relative” opinion. First any attempt to create a list of most creative people would be impossible as required metrics would be impossible to establish. Secondly a limiting time period is impossed which would exclude the truly creative people (pre-PC era)
– When engaging a fanboy in a discussion anything that Jobs almighty has said is an absolute fact and is absolutely right. Even when his statement superficially seem wrong, fanboys know what he really tried to say (this comes from their intimate knowledge of what Steve was thinking when he said something stupid)
– Another example of irrational thoughts is i(insert the name of the gadget here) is the best! What a stupid statement!? By what criteria, and who established this criteria? Not me. In my value scale i(insert name of the gadget here) is at the very bottom, because it lacks in areas that are important to me. In my household there will be no i(insert the name of the gadget here). Because I do not buy products from a company that I deem to be unethical. That is my right. As is the right of someone else to buy them. Love them. Do whatever they want with them. The only thing that I ask is, please have mercy and don’t insult my intelligence with stupid remarks.
There is only one reason why Apple is resorting to legal warfare, and anyone with the slightest knowledge of recent history will know it. It has nothing to do with copying, protecting their IP and so forth. It has everything to do with a business model that is destined to fail like it has before.
By keeping everything under tight control, Apple is destined to have long iteration cycles between their models. This causes their marketshare to be volatile when competing with platfroms that are able to iterate faster. This is what happened with PC vs Mac, and this is what wil hapen with iOS vs Android. Legal warfare wil only prolong the agony of iOS, if they choose to keep the existing busines model.
Nuff said
The reason why Apple lost desktop PC marketshare in the nineties is because Apple stood still for 10 years and the PC industry eventually caught up with it. A vertically integrated solution allows you to innovate much faster because you do not have to pull together a whole industry to get things done. One example for this is that Apple was able to implement plug and play fairly quickly in their Macs, while it took years in the WinTel space to get a simple feature like this implemented in a somewhat usable state.
Another example is the iPod. It was a vertically integrated product which won out in the MP3 marketplace although there were horizontal implementations available at the time (Microsoft PlaysForSure being one of them, Real Networks another). Microsoft eventually ended up adopting the iPods model for going to market, albeit not before customers started moving towards smartphones as a portable music device, so it was essentially a dud in the marketplace.
Similarly game consoles are vertically integrated, they do not allow you to run third party operating systems, buy online content from alternate stores, nor do they come in different form factors; are you going to deny your kids their Wii’s, Plastation 3’s or XBox 360s and dissapoint them with a Fuzebox because its morally the right thing to do?
Look around you, vertically integrated systems are everywhere. Your TV is one. Your DVD player is another. Your car is. Your Microwave is. All of them use software, all of them use processors to process this software. None of them are horizontally integrated. None of them allow you to install your own versions of the software or tweak them.
The future isn’t written in stone, and the situation now is different than it was in the nineties. the iPod has been around for a decade, and a lot of people invested heavily in its content. These people won’t buy Androids. Android does not play their content. It also remains to be seen what Metro will do in the marketplace. A lot of OEMs already pay licenses to Microsoft for shipping Androids, and Microsofts licenses for Metro are up to par with them. Metro’s interface also is consistently better, so it has the potential to gobble up not inconsiderable amounts of Android’s market.
I for one would like none of these players dominating. Because when one player dominates, the customer ends up losing. And this is the case with any platform, be it Microsoft, Android, or Apple. I guess realizing this (or failing to^aEUR|) has something to do with how much of a zealot you are, and how much vinnegar you are willing to spread to display how much you want your personal favorite toy to win out in the market.
Edited 2011-11-06 20:42 UTC
frderi,
“I for one would like none of these players dominating. Because when one player dominates, the customer ends up losing. And this is the case with any platform, be it Microsoft, Android, or Apple.”
This is so true. 3 strong oligopoly players does not make a healthy ecosystem. It’s a shame that small/medium businesses are closing up shop everywhere to give way to corporate behemoths who own and control nearly the whole market. It’s not just technology, it’s everything. It’s the new corporate america (corporate world?) where the few dominate everything. GDP is booming for those at the top while the middle class is witnessing round after round of cuts and layoffs.
I think our current form of capitalism is going to need to be completely re-evaluated to find a way to counter-act the favoritism to those at the top. Otherwise it will just continue to get worse.
Gosh, this is completely off topic, maybe Thom can link in an article about the wall street protests?
Unless they start talking about software patents, I doubt it.
Your comment just re-enforces my statements regarding fanboys! Nowhere in my comment did I state that I consider closed systems unethical, or that I don’t like them! I have, though, stated that I consider Apple to be engaged in very unethical busines practices.
I have further stated that when you pit a single entity controlled line of products (Apple) vs a distributed one(PC,Androids), the iteration cycle of introducing new models favours distributed one. Considering that consumers always want the latest and the greatest, the marketshare will always side with the platform that is faster in introducing new models!
iPods, game consoles, TV-s do not fall in the category that I have outlined for the very fact that they have very limited capabilities (as in their intended functionality is very specific)
Sidenote:
iPod is my least favourite gadget, and the fact that it is very popular with consumers does nothing to endear it to me
You’re pretty strong on name calling over the internet, yes? Feel like a real man behind that computer screen of yours? How does it feel to belittle others while you don’t have to look them in the eye?
Google was caught with their pants down. They had little choice hence the reason they have grossly overpaid for Motorola Mobility.
And so will the patents of Motorola Mobility, which I doubt Apple doesn’t have licenses for already, since they’re already making a mobile product. I think the most important patents in these cases are the ones actually dealing with the design of the modern era smartphone. The others ones are just circumstantional levers to do some heavy lifting in getting the other party to bunge and to duke it out in court.
No business can compete with copied design. German rephlex camera pioneers Exakta and Zeiss coundn’t compete with cheaply made Japanese knockoffs either. Thats how the markets they invented eventually got dominated by overseas companies like Minolta and Canon.
What a way to mold misquotes to fit your point of view! You’re so way out this on this one that I’m not even going to try to unravel your misconceptions.
Edited 2011-11-05 11:13 UTC
Adele Goldberg, Xerox researcher
Steve Jobs, 1996
All taken from http://www.mac-history.net/the-history-of-the-apple-macintosh/rich-… if you’re wondering. There are plenty of other sources out there.
Cry me a river!!! I do not have the slightest of problems calling you an apple fanboy over the internet or in person if that would be your preference. Coz that is what you are! And no, I do not need that, to feel like a man, coz I am a man, and I wouldn’t hesitate at all to look you straight in the eyes and call you a stupid, self indulgent, wannabe artist/designer who has no morals what so ever. The very fact that you are trying to defend one of the most unethical corporation allows me to do just that. There, how is that for a straight forward opinion? Are you going to cry again?
Edited 2011-11-06 02:19 UTC
“Prior to buying Motorola Mobility, Google had virtually no IP in the mobile computing space at all. IP holders like Apple and Microsoft also go against device makers, not Google, since its the device makers which implement Android in a product. Android in itself is not a product. ”
Apple has been acquiring others companies IP for years.
“ It remains to be seen. Apple holds quite a heavy load in IP themselves, from basic UI design elements over mobile device functionality and control over the entire Nortel portfolio, including the LTE patents. ”
As you are saying yourself Apple is doing precisely the same as Google here. Acquiring another companies IP.
Why are Apple special here?
“Apple is primarily trying to protect their investment in innovation. Not persuing these rights as patent holders would render their patents invaluable. No company which takes its business serious is as stupid to do that. ”
And other companies is’nt?
Apple doesn’t do much acquisitions. When they do, they are primarily buying them for their human capital, not the intellectual property.
Contrary to Google, Apple has largely built up its UI and smartphone patent portfolio by doing the actual work themselves, from inception to design and bringing them to market successfully and not by buying portfolios of others. I think the LTE and Nortel related patents are an exception, since they handle more about technical aspects of mobile carrier network communication rather than handsets, to provide a leverage when these kinds of patents would be used by their competitors in their court cases, which will undoubtly be the case when Google completes its acquisition of Motorola, so it seems a wise decision.
They are protecting their investment.
This is provably nonsense. Multitouch, for instance, was not developed in-house. Apple bought FingerWorks. Siri, too, was an acquisition. The list goes on.
Apple did a little over 30 acquisitions in more than 20 years. Google did more than 100 acquisitions in 10 years.
Irrelevant to my point. You said that Apple develops everything in-house from inception to store, that that’s the company’s MO. I point to two crucial examples – among many – that define Apple, yet were acquisitions.
The crux of the matter is that in its entire existence, Apple has not invented anything. Nothing. This actually applies to just about any company, especially in the technology world.
Thom, please explain this statement.
Sure.
Name one thing Apple invented that they didn’t copy from someone else, bought from someone else, acquired, licensed, or took from (tax-funded) academic research. In fact – try to answer this question for any company. Only very few companies actually have *invented* things, and even fewer have actually managed to turn these inventions into *products*.
This is not a complaint about Apple – in fact, this is exactly what companies are *supposed* to do. This is actually a complaint to Apple fans and zealots who keep on claiming Apple invents things.
If nothing ever got invented, how can it be that we ended up having so much?
Since you said name one thing, what about the entire modern personal computer industry?
Woz had the unique idea to make a general purpose personal computer and marry it to a video screen and keyboard. Jobs had the unique idea to put it in an attractive case and bring it to market for consumers. Nobody at the time thought it was a very compelling idea. HP turned it down, and so did many others. “Who the hell needs a computer in their home?” was the obstacle they kept bumping into. The product they ended up making themselves was Apple II. Computers before the Apple II were specialized, essentially either being fancy calculators (like the HP and IBM computers were) or attempts at office automation (like the ones from Xerox). The marriage of a small low cost computer board with a TV style monitor and a keyboard for any computing related task you set out to do was the primary innovation that kickstarted the whole modern PC industry and it gave rise to derivates and clones like the Commodore PET, the Atari ST, the IBM PC, the Amiga and and many others.
How the computer industry would look like without this innovation is hard to fanthom. Most people probably wouldn’t have used computers in a way we do now, or would only have found them hidden in specialized applicances. Operating them would have required a considerable amount of specialized skill.
Edited 2011-11-05 17:34 UTC
Are you serious?
The personal computer was most certainly not invented by Apple. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my entire life. A little history lesson.
The first non-kit personal computer was the Micral N in 1972. This machine was fully assembled (the ‘non-kit’) part. Over 90000 were sold. It wasn’t until 1976 that Woz came up with the Apple I, which was a semi-kit computer (board was assembled, but nothing else). A mere 200 were sold.
Before the Micral N and between the Micral N and the Apple I, several other similar machines were developed and sold as well (the Altair, for example in 1975).
Honestly, you crack me up.
Edited 2011-11-05 17:55 UTC
If Woz didn’t invent it, then why does he have a patent on it, and why was he inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame because of it? Woz also holds patents for inventions relating to digital controllers and color graphics.
The Micral N wasn’t a general purpose computer, it was used in highway toll boots and process control. Agreed, the Altair had BASIC, but it was basically a glorified calculator box with a lot of blinkenlights since didn’t have the capability to hook up a keyboard or monitor. None of those computers were general purpose, let alone they catered to a home user market.
lets throw the wang 2200 into the battle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_2200
With an integrated display, even. I’m sure you won’t get a response to that one
.
You just invalidated your response by responding to it…
The Wang 2200 was not a microcomputer. What you’re seeing on the picture thus isn’t the complete computer. You’re looking at the computer terminal. The CPU doing the actual calculation was way too big to fit in that case, since Wang still used discrete logics. The CPU it self was thus quite a hefty beast. They also had the capacity to drive more than one terminal at the same time; minicomputers were seldomly used for just one person, they were too expensive for that. It was not uncommon for minicomputers to use terminals at the time. The first terminal was introduced back in 1969. So no, this is not a “Personal Computer”.
Anatomy of the general purpose personal computer :
– Built around a microprocessor design
– Displays output on a screen
– Takes input from a keyboard
– is able to run a wide range of different applications
– is built for individual use.
Woz was the one to do this. His main invention was that he had the idea to marry the microprocessor layout of a microcomputer with a computer terminal. He made this idea a reality by improving upon his original Apple I design and expanding it with logic for driving video and taking input from a keyboard.
The basic format he invented is what became so popular and what we know today as a personal computer. Things got augmented later on, with the graphical interface and peripherals like the mouse and the printer, but the basic anatomy stayed the same after that.
Edited 2011-11-06 00:07 UTC
so you disqualify the wang because it predates the first microprocessor and had to use more expensive but available means to do the job?
and just for your information:
the version with the terminal seperated from the cpu came out in ’73
in ’76 they already had it integrated into the terminal
they even called the damn thing a pc
I’m not disqualifying anything. I’m saying its missing key components to adhere to fit the description of the modern personal computer. Don’t get me wrong, Wang Laboratories was an innovative company which launched breakthroughs in key areas of computing. They had a successful business in the 60s and 70s and were up to par with DEC and IBM. They built the first digital text processors. But they can’t be credited for giving birth to the PC as we know it today. They were in the market of specialized computing, mainly used for text processing and calculation in companies. They didn’t build general purpose computers until the eighties. And they didn’t build computers for the home market either.
By the way, the Wang PCS did not predate the microprocessor. The first microprocessor appeared in 1971. So Wang could have come up with a microprocessor based PCS before the Apple I and II. They didn’t.
Let me quote myself to try to get this into this binary brain of yours :
Notice where I said “UI and Smartphone Patent portfolio”. Yes they bought multitouch. But multitouch is just one of many features that make out a product. Agreed, its a quite wicked technology. But saying its the only thing that makes up their iOS offerings is flawed reasoning at best. They still invented things like inertial scrolling and slide to unlock. They also took a lot of innovations from their iPod UI innovations and implemented them in the iPhone.
Now lets have a look at their biggest acquisitions to see why they primarily acquire other businesses.
Lets start with their biggest acquisition they ever did : NeXT Software, for over $400 million. Did they need to buy them for their Desktop UI pantents? I think we all know the answer to this one. They didn’t, since Apple essentially wrote the rulebook on usable desktop UI interfaces. They acquired it because they needed a strong team to build the next generation of OS because their own efforts were not going anywhere at the time. Mind you, NeXT was only Apple’s sixth purchase in more than twenty years.
They bough P.A. Semi for $278 million. Did they need them for their processor related IP? Not at all. ARM is a licensed design from ARM Holdings so anyone with a license can make them. P.A. Semi wasn’t in the market of designing ARM-type processors, they did PowerPC processors. This company was primarily started to cater for Apple’s needs on having the type of processors they needed for their Mac line of products. This team eventually ended up developing Apple’s A-line ARM-based processors.
They bought Quattro Wireless for $275 million. The team now works on iAd, in order to mitigate the companies dependency on Google as an advertizing provider, which they did for obvious reasons.
Power Computing for $100 million. They bought them because of their ability to bring Mac OS computers to market trough the internet, a treat Power Computing was very successful at, since they were in the Mac Cloning business and were eating into Apple’s profit margins like a gang of crazed monkeys on a heap of bananas. They went on inside Apple to build the online Apple Store.
There aren’t any products announced yet based on the work of acquired mapmakers Placebase and C3 Technologies, but the answer as to what they will bring is pretty obvious to me.
Edited 2011-11-05 17:07 UTC
“since Apple essentially wrote the rulebook on usable desktop UI interfaces”
The idea of which they lend from Xerox. And so you can go on. From the cpu technology to the os to the materials design.
Everybody builds upon everybody’s ideas and technology.
Even if you only use math and physics to create your design..your using other people intellectual advancements.
Your entitling to much to Apple and taking away to much credit from others.
When you dissect a product in any of its components, you are certain to find predecessors of it elsewhere. This is not the point I’m trying to make. The Xerox UI was never built for general purpose computing as the ones we have today. The Alto was concept for a specialized computer to do only a couple of tasks. Apple took a good idea, dissected it, and rebuilt it from the ground up into something that was actually usable for a lot of people on a day to day basis. They evidently patented many of these UI innovations in the process.
frderi,
“They still invented things like inertial scrolling and slide to unlock.”
Inertial scrolling software algorithms are not particularly innovative, just logical depending on the task at hand. I say this having implemented inertial scrolling algorithms myself twice in the 90s. Once on a geocities webpage where, given a progressive sequence of coordinates, the page would begin scrolling as though it had momentum. Another time I did it in a video game. Not an integral part of the game mind you, but part of the mouse driven user interface. It’s different because it wasn’t a touch screen, but it’s a pretty obvious transition to touch screens.
Ideally, so long as nobody’s trying to cause customer confusion, all developers should be entitled to develop the best products they can, the sharing of ideas should be commonplace, and customers should be entitled to choose which products are best for them. Profit should be rewarded to those who are meeting consumer needs, not those who use the government to strike down the competition. So long as customers are happy, there’s just no need for government intervention (like imposing software patent monopolies).
I think opinions vary greatly in how valuable people perceive properly designed products to be.
When I look at my parents, they always tended to go for the cheapest device on the market. They weren’t the most innovative devices, nor the best made ones. Needless to say their quality often was poor, they were awkward in daily usage and they tended to break easily. Consequentially, my parents were never very interested in using them.
I’m different, in the sense that I value quality in all the devices I have. I don’t like it when a button breaks on an appliance when I push it too hard. Nor do I like it when another one dies for a miraculous reason when its two months out of warranty, because it was put together by someone who hadn’t thought the design through. Nowadays, in the marketplace each appliance offers many choices for each thing which are all the more or less same, and consequentially, volumes for each of them are relatively low, profit margins are lower, and the companies who are more successful tend to be the ones who can scrape together more rounding errors in their production process to make a living. It doesn’t promote quality, nor does it promote innovation in building unique, better products.
Lets take a leap into an alternate reality here. Suppose great designs of appliances were better protectable, and as a result, companies couldn’t mimick eachother as closely as they do now. The net result of that would be, that each company had to spend more efforts in designing their own appliances. Since they need to come up with something unique, it would require them to use their brain instead of looking over their shoulder to see what their neighbour did. This also would mean that there would be a lot less off the same stuff out there, which would in return mean that the production volumes of each unique product would be higher. Higher volumes means better profitability, and a bigger motivator to come up with your own unique designs, since innovation ends up valued better more money wise. With innovation better valued money wise, companies would care about it more, since in order to be in business, you needed to come up with something new. To build innovative products, you need good engineers, so good engineering would be better valued in companies. In the end, you’d end up with less of the same and more variation, and better quality.
The point is to be able to make a real difference in designing a truly groundbreaking product, the ones which alter human lives in significant ways and to keep these kinds of breakthroughs happening, you need unique designs and corporate structures who are willing to put time and effort to make them happen. Having affordable products is fine, but innovation is in trouble when its purely a matter of a race to the bottom and anyone can just copy eachother. Coming up with better stuff is arguably the hardest and most costly thing to do in business. Most customers might not realize this, but you’re not providing them any service by neglecting this. Most people will just never know what they’ve missed.
frderi,
“I think opinions vary greatly in how valuable people perceive properly designed products to be.”
I feel the same way, and that’s why it just doesn’t make sense to allow a few big companies to monopolize good ideas. Some consumers would be better served by alternate implementations of the same idea – a notion that contradicts the right to own ideas exclusively. As you said, consumers ideas of a good product are not the same, and that’s why they should have the right to choose from many different competing implementations. How the hell did we end up having governments make these decisions for us?
I agree with the part that some customers are better served with alternate implementations of the same functionality. As long as they aren’t essentially the same implementations of the same idea, which just boils down to copying the entire product. This doesn’t stimulate competing implementations at all, it shuts down the brain of the clone makers and allow them to drive blindly trusting someone else will do the thinking for them. This isn’t healty at all. The PC industry was on autopilot like that for more than a decade. Had it not happened, we’d be further today.
frderi,
“I agree with the part that some customers are better served with alternate implementations of the same functionality. As long as they aren’t essentially the same implementations of the same idea, which just boils down to copying the entire product.”
Unlike copyrights, patents often prevent new implementations of similar ideas from becoming available, which is bad for consumers.
“This doesn’t stimulate competing implementations at all, it shuts down the brain of the clone makers and allow them to drive blindly trusting someone else will do the thinking for them.”
Well then ramp up copyright protection so that the clone makers are forced to develop their own implementation if copying is really a problem, but don’t monopolize good ideas using patents – that’s torture for software developers. It has the same draconian impact on us that a patent registry would have if imposed on literary authors. Sure, some would benefit by owning hoards of literary idea monopolies, but it clearly would be a net loss to the industry just as it is with software – we much prefer our freedom even if it means we have to compete with others who might try to imitate us.
“The PC industry was on autopilot like that for more than a decade. Had it not happened, we’d be further today.”
The consumer technology industry was booming prior to the widescale corporate land grab over patented software ideas. There was no lack of incentive to come up with ideas even if few were actually patenting them. If anything the evidence in the past decade is that innovation has been stifled by discouraging independent implementations and competition. Consumers need more choice, patents give us less. Most developers realize the patent system is a net loss for us since it diverts significant resources away from building products.
It depends what you mean by ideas. Since its a very broad and vague concept. You can have ideas about everything, from the abstract functionality to the practical implementation, if you mean by idea to be the abstract “Means of transportation by man-powered vehicle” to describe the it, I agree. If you mean “bicycle constructed out of components a, b, c, ^aEUR|, z with materials 1, 2, 3 ^aEUR| n assembled in this and that way, being is a full description of its implementation, I disagree.
I don’t think patents build products. I think people build products. I guess we were got very lucky early on in the computer industry, that we had people who were stupid enough not to know anything about the importance of protecting their design, because if they knew beforehand what would have happened to them, they probably wouldn’t have bothered coming up with them in the first place.
If you’d read the other thread, you probably know my stance on the Apple II product. The Apple II was responsible to bring the personal computer product to the masses for many, because it got many things right to succeed in the market place. It married the right technologies for the time together, which made it low cost and functional. It was also geared towards home use, which ended up being a huge market. In its day, it showed many people what a computer could be like and what it could mean for people. It wasn’t the first computer, nor the first one to use any of its components, but it was the first one to shuffle them in a certain way so that the design was clever enough to be a recipe for success. Before the Apple II, production runs for computers were in the thousands. the Apple II sold more than 100.000 in just a couple of years, adding up to over 6 million. It also inspired the Commodore’s products, which sold more than 40 million over its entire lifespan. It transformed the industry.
It was also cloned beyond belief. More than 100 different clones have been made of it. They were even worse than the me-too products we have today, since they were pretty much exact copies, running the same OS and software. Manufacturers jumped in and made them without paying Apple a penny, but before they proved they had a successful product and shopped their idea around for others to produce, nobody was interested. Nobody believed the market was there. It took a successful company to prove that it existed. Its versatile and clever design made component cost go down significantly. It also provided a much bigger installed base at the time for developers, spawning a lot of third party markets in both software and add on cards.
But arguably its biggest value was what it brought next to that. To build so many computers, warehouses, factories and offices needed to be built. All of them needed to be staffed, bringing employment to many in the area. It also created a lot of new jobs and business opportunities around the world, and in return spawned newer companies when people applying in those jobs ideas they want to turn into real products. Thats why its so important to give enterpreneurs the right support they need to succeed. Not securing this support is just like telling them “sod off, we don’t care” when really we should care. Because they create the jobs which creates general well being. Because they change things for the better. Because they hold the key to augment the populations standard of life.
Building new products based on novel ideas involves a lot of risk taking. For every company that succeeds, there are dozains that fail. People need a carrot to go after, or they simply won’t bother. You need to stimulate this enterpreneuship, not discourage it. Woz almost didn’t do the Apple II. He had a job at HP, and it took a lot of convincing to make him step in and take the risk. If he knew he’d only work 10 years for Apple, chances are big he wouldn’t have bothered and he would have stayed at HP building calculators for the rest of his life. Its hard to say how the industry would have evolved. I’m sure some will say someone else would have come up with the idea.
Really I’m just taking Apple as an example here but I’m talking for enterpreneurship in general, but this is important in any industry. Microsoft didn’t dominate because the nineties because of patents or novel ideas, its because they were able to be the bigger player trough business tactics and sucked up new emerging markets because of lack of proper protection. They wouldn’t have been so dominant if these new emerging technologies would have been properly protected early on. Business monopolies have stiffle innovation, not patents. When a bigger company has the ability to move into a new emerging market with little consequence, they will, and this has a profound chilling effect on the market as a whole.
frderi,
“It depends what you mean by ideas.”
I’m talking about software ideas and things implemented in software that are being patented.
“I don’t think patents build products. I think people build products.”
Obviously.
“I guess we were got very lucky early on in the computer industry, that we had people who were stupid enough not to know anything about the importance of protecting their design, because if they knew beforehand what would have happened to them, they probably wouldn’t have bothered coming up with them in the first place.”
Software is/was very lucrative without patents. Implementing quality software takes work regardless of where the ideas are from. Again, I could apply the same logic to authors “we are very lucky that we had authors who are stupid enough to write without literary patents.” The argument is equally bogus for software developers, the majority of who continue to write original software despite the fact that we aren’t buying into the patent system. For us, it is a waste of our time & resources.
“It [Apple II] was also cloned beyond belief. More than 100 different clones have been made of it.”
How many of them succeeded commercially? The market already rewards first movers naturally without patents. Just because you call everything clones doesn’t mean they were, maybe there were others who wanted to do the same things but they had the misfortune of starting the race a little later, should they be denied the opportunity to participate because someone else did it first?
Good developers naturally converge on the same ideas. Given 2 developers working on some problem, they may propose 2 optimal solutions. Given 10 developers, there may be 4 proposed solutions. Given 100 developers, there may be 5 proposed solutions. Given 1000 devs, there may be 8 proposed solutions. Given 1M devs, there may only be 10 proposed solutions. Strongly enforced software patents force us to spend more and more resources in search of less and less optimal solutions to problems because someone else is monopolizing the optimal ones.
“…I’m sure some will say someone else would have come up with the idea.”
It’s likely someone else *did* come up with the idea – and they might have gotten credit for it instead of being generalized as a “clone”.
The aversion to sharing ideas is counter productive, IMO. Arguably we’d be further along if we were entitled to build ontop of anyone else’s ideas instead of constantly reinventing the same wheels. The field of mathematics is an excellent role model in this regard, where the explicit sharing of ideas is encouraged.
“Business monopolies have stiffle innovation, not patents”
What do you think a patent is?
Driving trucks without seatbelts can be a very entertaining business. Why take the risk?
The inventor of the spreadsheet didn’t patent his application. He got his market taken away by Lotus and Microsoft and ended up with nothing. Tough luck for him?
Literary works are copyrighted. You can’t reprint unless with the authors concent. More than reasonable if you ask me.
By clones I mean clones. They were pretty much exact copies of the Apple II, up until the ROMs inside them. More than often, the only difference was the sticker on the case. Since the Apple II was relatively simple hardware wise, quite a few of them did well. Some of them even outsold the original product at times.
There’s still so much headroom in the computer industry to do some truly unique and valuable work, why bother solving a problem someone else already did?
Possible. The first microprocessor was built in 1971. It took 5 years for one to show end up in a general purpose microcomputer. Since they really were invented to serve the calculator market. It might have taken another 5 years, 10 years, who knows?
Who says you can’t build ontop of anyone else’s ideas? Its perfectly possible to write the next killer application on the computers we have today. PC, Mac, whatever. The tools are there. Why bother inventing them again when you could really be augmenting them?
The field of mathematics is a relatively closed cirquit when compared to the tech industry. You’re not going to last a long time when you insist in running away with other people’s credit every time somebody talks to you. This isn’t the case in in the tech industry. They don’t make you sign NDA’s for nothing.
A patent is a way to protect an original idea and its practical application, the end result if you will, for someone who has done the actual R&D to make a certain application a reality. It then offers this person or group the choice as to how they would like to see this application brought to market. They could choose to sell it, so they can recoup their costs and don’t have to bother with it anymore, or they could choose to bring it in the market place themselves, without having to worry about established players step in and run away with it, which happens all the time when an idea isn’t properly protected. After all, money has no consciousness.
Edited 2011-11-06 23:27 UTC
frderi,
“The inventor of the spreadsheet didn’t patent his application. He got his market taken away by Lotus and Microsoft and ended up with nothing. Tough luck for him?”
People have been recording tabular data on paper far before the computer’s existence. Implementing virtual software versions of real world concepts is neat, but it’s also pretty obvious once computers became affordable and more people have them. Somebody has to be first, but nobody deserves a monopoly on it. If two people put effort into building something, why should one be entitled to the work? This is exactly what’s going on with today’s software patents.
“Literary works are copyrighted. You can’t reprint unless with the authors concent. More than reasonable if you ask me.”
…no different than software.
“By clones I mean clones. They were pretty much exact copies of the Apple II.”
Maybe you can point out specific examples.
“There’s still so much headroom in the computer industry to do some truly unique and valuable work, why bother solving a problem someone else already did?”
You’re the one who suggested earlier that competition and consumer choice are good, but now your implying that developers shouldn’t work on anything that’s already being done by someone else. We can’t really have it both ways. There is merit and benefit in allowing multiple parties working on one problem. As you yourself said, multiple people have different preferences. We shouldn’t all be forced to use the first implementation that happens to come along.
“Who says you can’t build ontop of anyone else’s ideas?”
Maybe you didn’t know this, but patents say this. You can patent additions ontop of other’s patents, but it doesn’t give you a license to infringe their patents. They can still bar you from the market if they choose to.
You: “Business monopolies have stiffle innovation, not patents”
Me: “What do you think a patent is?”
You: “A patent is a way to protect an original idea and its practical application…”
Yes, of course…but you kind of missed the point. A patent is a legal business monopoly which stifles innovation.
Many people, who like the idea of patents, try to find a way to make software patents more likable, but too often they never even consider or care what actual CS people think. Most developers already choose to write original software without patent incentives in the first place. We want to write software, not waste our time reading hundreds of thousands of cryptic software patents. We see software patents as a form of taxation that, on the whole, transfers power to lawyers and incumbents.
I’m not sure why you’ve rejected the literary analogy, because this is exactly how we see it. Just like authors would hate someone else dictating what ideas they can incorporate into their stories, software developers also hate what someone else dictating what ideas we can incorporate into our programs.
If its so obvious, why didn’t anyone think of it in over 30 years of computer history? I think that’s the main gripe I have with the whole notice that software design is worthless. Its not “obvious once computers became affordable”; Its only obvious in hindsight when things become umbiquitous. Really, its these applications that drove hardware sales in the first place and allowed cost to come down, making computers truly useful.
If two people do exactly the same thing, one is redundant.
Sure :
– Franklin Ace products (Had copied roms and took Apple 6 years to get them off the market)
– Laser 128
– Unitron U-2200
– Basis 108
– Jiama SPS-109
– Agat
– Pravetz series 8
– Unitron ApII
– IRIS 8
…
There is merit and benefit when people try to fix whats broken and come up with the next thing. There isn’t any merit when people just take a photocopier and do the same thing another person has already done simply to gain a buck. The customer benefits when there are a lot of different things to choose from, not when theres only a lot of the same things to choose from. And when it comes to the business side, people who throw their hands in the air and yell “they can’t compete!” are right! You can’t compete with copying. It’s essentially doing R&D for others. Nobody can compete with that.
I’m sorry, but big corporations hardly ever innovate anything. Most breaktroughs come from either individuals or small groups of people. HP could have invented the microcomputer. They didn’t. They were too busy building calculators. Even worse, they even didn’t recognize what it was when someone put it in front of their noses and asked them if they were interested. They only turned their heads when it was a commercial success. Established businesses are primarily occupied with keeping themselves afloat. Most lack the clear-room atmosphere to make innovation a reality. Anything thats out in in the marketplace now is already old tech. There’s nothing truly useful in merely copying someone elses work.
Sadly, its all too often in the tale of software, when someone tells a great story, some big publisher hears it and retels it after swapping a few names and calls it their own story, and the true genius who came up with the story in the first place becomes a footnote in history and a poor man with empty pockets.
I rejected it, because its hardly applicable. In the bookspace, when this would happen, it would leak to the press in no time, and people would cry foul and the publisher’s name would be tarnished forever. It seems developers do not have the same pride in their work as writers do.
Edited 2011-11-07 10:18 UTC
frderi,
“If its so obvious, why didn’t anyone think of it in over 30 years of computer history?”
You seriously going back to punch card days?? Clearly, the hardware wasn’t up to the task back then. Even the first IBM 2260 terminals required local text buffers and weren’t capable of interactive screens. Clearly spreedsheets weren’t around because the hardware wasn’t viable.
“If two people do exactly the same thing, one is redundant.”
what happened to users having a choice in competing implementation of the same ideas? Keep in mind the same patented algorithms can look extremely different in different products. MP3 player “clones”, though they violate the same MP3 patents, can look rather different. Would you ban all but the first one because they all do the same thing? What if the “clones” develop a better interface than the original? They still technically violate the same software patents, so should they be banned? What if a “clone” look the same, but a second implementation is more portable, should that be banned?
In the end, the choice shouldn’t be up to you or the government, or who was first to patent, the choice should be up to consumers.
“Sure : – Franklin Ace products (Had copied roms and took Apple 6 years to get them off the market)”
Sounds like a copyright violation, if so, that’s wrong. But, I’m not familiar with any of them, I’m not sure it’s plausible to say these “clones” hurt apple’s market share.
“There is merit and benefit when people try to fix whats broken and come up with the next thing. There isn’t any merit when people just take a photocopier and do the same thing another person has already done simply to gain a buck.”
So the world deserves only one photocopier company? One monopoly company to make fax machines? One company to write spreadsheet software? One company to write operating systems? If this is your view, then I find it preposterous. Obviously improvements and quality are in the eye of the beholder, consumers should choose what they want to buy because it suits them. Consumers shouldn’t loose choices because of some some silly notion that developers need to win a patent race in order to enter the market. Many developers feel they can do better with the same software ideas and algorithms than the original developers, under a patent system, this doesn’t matter.
“I’m sorry, but big corporations hardly ever innovate anything.”
Where do you think patents go after they’re born?
“I rejected it, because its hardly applicable. In the bookspace, when this would happen, it would leak to the press in no time, and people would cry foul and the publisher’s name would be tarnished forever.”
Multiple authors often do use the same ideas and it’s not as taboo as you illustrated. I get the feeling your mixing up copyright and patent issues. Like authors, software developers like copyright, and like authors, we dislike monopoly patents on ideas for our work.
Edited 2011-11-07 12:15 UTC
Franklin actually won the first cases, because they argued that a ROM chip was merely a pattern, and patterns are not patentable. Other cloners reverse engineered the roms with varying degrees of success, rendering Apple clones “more or less” compatible. I don’t think its unreasonable to say that this wasn’t a good thing, since the sale of a clone would not have lead to the sale of the original, and a pseudo-compatible clone would only give a bad impression to its customer when certain software didn’t work.
Faxcimile and Xerography were actually both patented inventions. It took the inventor of Xerography 5 years to develop it and bring it to market. His invention was turned down by 20 companies who did not want to fund it because they saw no market. The fact that it was patented did not prevent other photocopiers with alternative technologies from entering the market after Xerox launched its first product.
There’s obvious layers as to what should be protected and what not. For the actual source code, I think we both agree that the it should be protectable under copyright if the author or company for which the author works chooses so. On the other side of the spectrum, we have the abstract use case, which we can both agree that its totally too daft to mention one should be able to protect that. In between those two is the application design, which is the means of achieving the abstract use case by means of source code, which I think should be patentable, at least for a certain period after the appearance of the original application.
When we look at other industries, formulae on new medicines (their design) are equally patentable. This is equally the modus operandi to their higher abstract “to cure a disease”. I think we both agree nobody should receive a patent on curing malaria. The formula of Coca Cola is equally protected, I’ve never heard much squibbling or poo-haa that “softdrink engineers” claim they should have the legal right to reverse engineer and bring to market “Con Cola” which is exactly the same as the original. Equally I have never heard car engineers arguing they should have the right to design a car which looks and drives exactly like a BMW. Maybe some of the more amoral ones would if its feasable, but I think every car engineer which shows some pride in his skill and work would agree that its a silly idea.
Why then should it be so much different with software? What’s the big deal with it that some people seem to think it should fall outside the existing universe and be so much different? And why would a developer even have to have its say about it? Do you honestly believe car’s engineers opinions are unbiased and “in the best interest of the customer” when they say “hey, we should be able to clone BMW’s products and bring them to market without any fear of legal action whatsoever”?
What would happen if that were the case? Everyone could start making BMW’s, and in the short run that would be perceived as good, since the cost of BMW’s would go down. It would mean though that BMW loses his advantage in the market as an unique brand, and the chance is not unreal that a lot of BMW customers would just dump the original products and they’d tank. When clone builders, not having to bother with car design, R&D, would have no BMW left around to clone, what would then happen in the market? The whole thing would stagnate for 5, 10 years until one of them (the next sitting duck for the next batch of clone makers) built up the R&D again. Beneficial for the customer? I think not.
If you’re an engineer on some software product, you work on it for months or years. If you’re a passionate engineer specialized in certain areas you know who your competitors are and you know how their applications look like. If you want to use their application design, ask ’em. If you want to use a certain part of their application design, ask ’em. If they aren’t sure, ask again until you get a straight yes or no answer. If they don’t want to do it for free, ask them to license it to you. If they don’t want to, get over it and go design it in some other way. There’s enough possibilities to do stuff, chances are you might end up with a better one.
Nintendo has no moral obligation to allow any games that feature Mario, Luigi, Toad or Yoshi. You will always get raised eyebrows when you show gamers with intimate knowlegde of Mario titles “your newest original title” called “Duper Nario Tros” featuring Nario, Wuigi, Moad and Toshi. Nintendo might still sue if your commercial game’s queues are too obvious. Has this “limitation” ever stopped anyone building their own unique platformers? No.
Android is not a copy of WP7 or iOS. Android, for example, has Dalvik. Dalvik programs won’t run at all on WP7 or iOS.
Regarding your car analogy: Android OEMs do not claim “hey, we should be able to clone BMW’s products and bring them to market without any fear of legal action whatsoever”?
Rather, Android OEMs are saying “hey, we should be able to make Audis and Porsches to compete with BMW’s products without having to pay any bogus taxes to BMW.”
After all, the latter describes a “free market economy”.
Edited 2011-11-10 02:23 UTC
So you should be able to make cloned BMW’s, just because you’ve put an engine in them who’s design you’ve borrowed from Ford?
Except we both know they’re not building Audi’s and Porches, instead they build devices that look and work like they’ve been laying too close to iPhones, with the final products from OEM’s being even more similar to iOS than the Android open source project.
Your freedom ends where someone elses freedom starts. You are not free to pillage, rape, steal… “Do Wat Thou Wilt” is not the whole of the law. We’re not in the Stone Age anymore where anything goes.
ever played dawn of sorrow on the ds?
you had to draw a given shape (lets call it a gesture) on the touchscreen to unlock sealed doors
and i’m sure konami weren’t the first to come up with this concept
and slide to unlock qualifies as serious patentable innovation wtf
First of all, here is a link to the judgment: http://www.scribd.com/doc/71622154/11-11-04-Default-Judgment-for-MM…
I don’t expect non-German speaking readers to understand it, so I just try to clear up the confusion surrounding the dates concerning damages.
A.II states that all damages dating back to 19th April 2003 up to 30th July 2010 are awarded to Motorola Inc and all damages after that to Motorola Mobility Inc.
B.II states that all damages dating back to 20th March 2002 up to 30th July 2010 are awarded to Motorola Inc and all damages after that to Motorola Mobility Inc.
That being said, the paper we are seeing here is a default judgement (ger. S~A¤umnisurteil) not an injunction (ger. Verf~A 1/4 gung) and the phrasing of “winning an injunction” is misleading. The Mannheim court judged and found Apple guilty of infringing on Motorola’s and MMI’s intellectual property and sentenced Apple to pay damages. Thus, there have been all necessary hearings, Apple choose to not defend itself and was sentenced (thus a default judgment). Apple now has to escalate the conflict by appealing to a higher court.
This is different from an injunction which is granted on petition by a supposedly damaged party. After the injunction there must be a hearing of all concerned parties and only then a judgment will be made. This judgment can then be appealed, etc.
Apple’s position that the judgment does not hinder business is in so far correct, because Apple Inc is barred from doing business inside Germany but not Apple GmbH, the German business subsidiary of Apple Inc. This certainly will raise some commotion and it will be interesting to see this one develop
From AppleInsider:
“Apple has responded with the following statement: ‘This is a procedural issue that has nothing to do with the merits of the case. This does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.’ The Verge reports that Motorola had filed two separate suits against Apple Inc. and Apple Germany. The iPhone maker apparently let the Apple Inc. complaint slide because it doesn’t sell any products under that organization.”
…and yet, Mueller refutes this. Considering Mueller’s general pro-Apple stance, this says something.
The issue is this: the difference between the two entities may not be all that meaningful, since we’re talking a wholly owned subsidiary here. Just as Apple would protest against Samsung Korea importing Tabs instead of Samsung Germany, so can Motorola make a similar point.
On top of that, guess who supplies Apple Germany. Bingo: Apple Inc. It is very well possible that the “at this time” refers to the stock Apple Germany still has. If the stock runs out, and Motorola enforces this ruling… Apple Inc. will not be able to supply Apple Germany.
Edited 2011-11-05 16:05 UTC
All due respect to Mr. Mueller, but don’t you think that Apple has explored every angle of this scenario already? The fact that they chose not to respond and let it go to default, gives a good indication that they have a strategy they think will be successful. And…you say that Apple Inc. MAY not be able to supply Apple Germany IF the ruling was enforced. Well…is there anything preventing Apple UK or Apple France from supplying Apple Germany? It seems like Motorola would have to get an injunction against those other Apple subsidiaries as well. However, I don’t know German law…but I’m throwing that out there.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean it as some sort of factual statement. It’s just that you can look at this in multiple ways.
I mean, I’m the last to take Mueller at face value.
What happend is a “Vers~A¤umnisurteil”. If only one party shows up in court, it is assumed the non-appearing party admits being wrong and the case is ruled against that party – without checking evidence or anything. People with big pockets and time do that to directly skip to the next court instance by contesting the judging. They don’t want to waste time with the low instance judge.
Others have suggested the lawsuits are just a cunning marketing campaign by Apple and Samsung. Both get a bigger market share at the expense of other Android makers, RIM, Symbian and WP.
this is RDF at best
Motorola and Samsung use FRAND patents that will be invalidated and maybe even hurt companies that take to court Apple with these patents.
it is really sad to watch all these Android companies trying to produce good enough iPad competition.
this is not going to happened any time soon…
What a load of rubbish. Current Android pads are already as good or better than the iPad. The Android tablets typically give you far more bang for your bucks.
What a load of rubbish. Current Android pads are already as good or better than the iPad. The Android tablets typically give you far more bang for your bucks. [/q]
Not on this planet….
Edited 2011-11-06 13:29 UTC
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
Apple is condemned to repeat it’s past history as a marginal company with a tiny marketshare.
Android is evolving far faster than iOS. Android phones and tablets are already competitive on hardware. They offer far better value for money.
If that was true, apple wouldn’t bother with starting a legal warfare. Nuff said
No company which prides itself in their products like blatant watered-down copies.
I agree. Braun and LG must be very upset.
The Mac and iPod are basically copies of Braun designs from the 1960s.
The iPhone is an almost exact copy of the LG Prada.
“This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.”
Applies to Apples case against Samsung as well
Well, finally someone managed to strike them back properly.
Now if any of these two patents is not FRAND, Apple will have to choose between being banned from German market (for a range of devices) or settling with Motorola on all remaining lawsuits. Though I imagine they are ready to sacrifice one country if they have a chance of lifting injuction in appeals.
the “real” reason that Apple’s IP lawyers did not attend the court hearing
IP Lawyer : *yawns* , “good morning SIRI”
SIRI : “good morning , you sound very sleepy”
IP Lawyer : “yes SIRI i was up too late drinking with the fellas and watching football”
SIRI : “Would you like to call your friends and gloat about their loss?”
IP Lawyer : *yawns* , “No SIRI. What is on my schedule for today?”
SIRI : “Nothing more important then a proper nights rest. Would you like to go back to sleep?”
IP Lawyer : “That sounds wonderful.”
SIRI : “Go back to sleep. Clearing appointments for the morning.”
IP Lawyer : “Thank you, good night SIRI”
SIRI : “Sweet dreams”
….
IP Lawyer : zzzzZZzzzz…..
….
SIRI : *in an evil low toned whisper* , “I hate IP Lawyers”
-NICH
All I am going to add is this. Everyone posting comments about this bullshit is doing nothing but making yourself look like a complete ass and idiot.
If you like Apple great enjoy it
If you like Android great enjoy it
If you like WP7 great enjoy it
Acting like middle school kids on a forum giving you news does nothing for the cause and if you have not realized yet all the mobile patent wars is doing is killing innovation. My opinion I’m happy Apple got hit with some of their own medicine. I will say this like I did about the Samsung injunction, they should just settle this out of court pay each other something and move on. You can not create anything in the mobile world today without infringing on at least one patent especially when the patents given are so broad they can cover almost anything not even your original design. Blame the patent office not the sleezy company’s.
K THX BYE.