SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the Henry-VI,-Part-2,-Act-IV,-Scene-2 dept.
The Apple v. Samsung saga continues:
The Apple v. Samsung lawsuit is getting a big "reset," thanks to last year's Supreme Court ruling on design patents. The long-running litigation rollercoaster has included so many turns it's hard to keep track. The case was filed in 2011 and went to a 2012 jury trial, which resulted in a blockbuster verdict of more than $1 billion. Post-trial damage motions whittled that down, and then there was a 2013 damages re-trial in front of a separate jury. An appeals court kicked out trademark-related damages altogether.
Meanwhile, a whole separate case moved forward in which Apple sued over a new generation of Samsung products. That lawsuit went to a jury trial in 2014 and resulted in a $120 million verdict, far less than the $2 billion Apple was seeking. That verdict was thrown out on appeal, then reinstated on a subsequent appeal. So that one appears to stand.
But back to that first case. After a lot of back and forth, Samsung agreed to make a payment of $548 million, but the Korean giant didn't give up its right to appeal. In a landmark case over design patents, the US Supreme Court said that the damages had been done all wrong—but the justices gave little guidance as to how they should be done. The high court threw out $399 million of the damages Apple had won.
New trial order (PDF).
Also at CNET.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @08:08PM (8 children)
Perhaps large corporations shouldn't have the same degree of protection.
If Apple buys up a small company's patents, then it should only get 5 years to monopolize those ideas, or something.
Of course, this will lead to all manner of convoluted patent structuring, but at least it's a start at reforming a patent system that has utterly failed at what it was meant to do: Improve innovation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Thursday October 26 2017, @08:48PM
I think that sometimes, it is better to let something fail completely to ensure that when it is fixed or rebuilt, it is done properly - or to simply speed the process of it getting fixed. Too often if something is propped up, band-aids stuck on and it still works that tiny little bit, people keep going with it. I guess it's like that old frog-in-hot-water analogy.
In other completely unrelated news, the Patent System just called to say "Hi!". Again, totally unrelated.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday October 26 2017, @08:57PM (3 children)
It is disturbing that a patent could ever be granted for Slide To Unlock or Bouncy Scrolling.
Let's say you are an engineer and are faced with this problem:
1. You need a way to unlock a mobile phone.
2. Unlike flip phones, this one has nothing that conceals the main keypad.
3. Unlike past phones, this one has no physical keypad.
4. There is a single "wake up" button, but that could be pressed while in your pocket / purse which is what we are trying to protect against.
5. The phone has a touch sensitive display, and that is used to operate the phone's applications.
Now given the above constraints, it seems like you are pretty much forced into some kind of finger gesture to unlock the phone after the "wake up" button has been pressed, or the phone alerts you to a call or message.
That finger gesture is a "swipe" just about any way you look at it. Now we can quibble about what visual graphic appears that prompts the user to "slide" their finger over the surface in a specific area, and in a specific direction. Slide To Unlock is pretty much the only functional answer to the actual problem.
Of course, more complex gestures are possible -- if the user wants them. Such as entering a password, PIN, or connecting the dots in a predetermined way. But those are options as an alternative to the basic no-security gesture to unlock the device.
But Apple is all about innovation. Especially in the court room. Back when I was really pissed at Apple over these lawsuits, in about 2010, Apple was suing everyone who made anything with Android. I think this one was in a German court, over a tablet. Apple was arguing that Samsung could have chosen to make their device less thin or not so lightweight. So now thin and lightweight are the exclusive property of Apple?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:51PM (2 children)
Umm not true. You can tap and hold to unlock. You can have physical button to unlock, much like the physical buttons on the side for the volume, power, camera, etc. You can have a combination of all those.
My old Sony Ericsson dumb phone used to unlock by pressing and holding on of the buttons. Don't see why we can't do that with the physical buttons on the side of the touch screen.
I've had my phone unlock in my pocket with swipe especially when I'm sweating a lot and the touch screen is facing my thigh. Slide to unlock isn't necessary the only or best way - is the only way if your reality warping turtleneck wearing boss with fiery eyes insist its the only way.
That said, I agree with your point that a patent shouldn't be granted for silly stuff like this.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @10:58PM
Go on...
—Harvey W.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday October 27 2017, @01:47PM
Let's talk about the combination of buttons as a way to unlock. Now there are two ways. What happens when a third company wants to make a smartphone? A problem with the touch and hold approach is that it is more likely to be triggered in your pocket or purse. The Slide To Unlock is pretty obvious as I stated it. It's an obvious answer to the constraints of the problem.
Slide To Unlock is like having a steering wheel in an automobile. I'm sure every car maker could invent some other bizarre way to steer the vehicle. But the steering wheel is a pretty basic functional design. So is Slide To Unlock.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @10:20PM (2 children)
Well, no, not really.
The supposed purpose of patents is to encourage publication of inventions. This is specifically to avoid the problem where a useful invention is kept secret until one day the inventor dies, leaving society without the future benefit of the invention. The deal of the patent system is that the inventor makes the details public, and for a limited time the rest of society will let you control the invention.
A patent system is thus a kind of exchange: society as a whole temporarily trades some liberty for the benefit of publication. This happens every time a patent is issued, so from time to time we need to evaluate whether such trades remain a good value proposition. Unfortunately such evaluation basically never happens, because when the narrative shifts to "patents are to help inventors invent and we like inventions" or worse: "we need to balance the interests of inventors with the interest of everyone else" -- almost as if patents are some god given right to inventors -- there is no value proposition left to consider.
If we were to evaluate the system today, it is likely that we will find certain classes of patents are not worth the paper they are printed on to society. This is bad, because it means we are trading freedom for nothing -- a raw deal for sure!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday October 27 2017, @04:02AM (1 child)
It was always a good value, when the term was 17 years, in early days, this was long enough to form a company and market the product, and still have may 10 years to run on the patent. It was still a good deal for society, because technology didn't move that fast. So something invented today would be useful in 17 years.
Now, when you can bring an invention to production AND to market in 6 months flat, the Patent is extended to 20 years, the value has shifted to the patent holder. But its still not a raw deal.
What is a raw deal these days is the number of patents filed with no intent to every produce ANYTHING, but simply to prevent others from inventing the same thing and putting it into production. The so called defensive patent.
We've been over this on SN a dozen times. And the proposed solution is usually the same. Use it or Lose it. Put it into production, get the product to market, if not by yourself then under license.
But give the world/country the benefit of the invention in exchange for the exclusive period of exploitation the country guaranteed to you. And do it within X years. (5? 7?)
I
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:39PM
Even this isn't the worst part, the worst part is that patents these days do not include the details of the design.
Basically, the whole reason we have patents (get the design so it isn't lost to history) is gone, replaced by claims as to what the invention does.