Apple v Samsung: iJury

As most of you are aware Apple crushed Samsung in it's suit. Every patent of Apple's was upheld and Samsung owes Apple just a touch over $1Billion. This is going to do a great deal to chill innovation. Many other people are commenting that these patents and the idea of copying isn't new and that Apple has stolen a great deal themselves. In one discussion with an author at the Urban Times, he seemed to argue that the theft of these ideas is more honest than copying and that Apple was a better company for doing so. Well, there's a major flaw in that idea, the theft of an idea is essentially copying the idea, the only difference is you act as if it was always yours and that you didn't copy someone else.

One author thinks that one billion is a small price to pay to be the second largest mobile manufacturer in the world. While I understand the thinking behind this, sure they copied a great deal from Apple and it only cost them a portion of what it could have cost. However, this is a short sighted view. The manner in which Apple has attacked Samsung isn't going to stop and will likely intensify. The ruling in San Jose wasn't the only ruling that came in yesterday. In Korea a judge ruled that both companies were infringing each other and banned both products from being imported to the country. The judge also found that Samsung didn't copy and in the UK a judge also said that Samsung didn't copy and wasn't cool enough to be confused with an i Anything - ordering them to post it on their website.

The idea that Apple's design for the phone's desktop being unique is a bit absurd. They simply changed the way the buttons looked, but there had been interfaces that were extremely similar for years. I had a Sony Cliq PDA in 2001 and 2002 and some of the way that product looked was similar to the iPhone. Apple repackaged things extremely well. Judge Koh did not allow Samsung to present all the information to the jury related to prior art, which certainly didn't help Samsung's case (Samsung released it to the public though).

The other major issue with this case is the idea that laypeople can really understand the issues with patents. They are difficult to understand, written in legalese and intended to be so broad that they can be interpreted in many different ways. I've read through several patents and they quite frankly are confusing and in many cases don't convey the information they are required to convey (how to manufacture or build whatever is patented).

For a patent to be valid it only has three conditions to meet: Novel, which means that nothing like it has been done before; Non-Obvious, which means that (originally) that an expert in the field wouldn't see this as a natural extension of previous work; now it must be non-obvious to a layperson; the final one is the possibility of industrial application, this means that the technology must be useful in some way. Many of Apple's patents do not meet the threshold for the first two, novel or non-obvious. Now of course people that disagree will argue that in hindsight these patents are obvious because Apple did such a god job at inventing them. I disagree primarily because many of the patents are reapplication of ideas from the computer to the smart phone.

I'm extremely worried about the future of innovation in light of this ruling. I think that there will be serious repercussions and whatever comes out of this will be terrible for consumers.

Finally check out this video discussing what Apple has invented: