Displaying items by tag: Patent

If Apple were a person they would need some serious psychological help. It seems that they have a personality that will not let them tell the truth at all. They dance around the truth and mix it up with spin and outright fantasy. You can see this trait by looking at any of their product launches or at any of the court cases they are involved in. Earlier this year we said that Apple insistence on pursuing a global legal campaign instead of innovating was going to hurt them and badly. Because they wanted to try and compete in the market with vague patents and outlandish copyrights Apple felt secure in being able to keep the market focus while blocking their competition through sales bans.

After the Swiss Federal Railways accused Apple of stealing their iconic clock design last month, the two companies have decided to establish a licensing agreement so Apple can use it in their new iOS. Shortly after the accusations were made by the SFR the two companies decided to arrange a meeting to settle this issue. Obviously Apple was aware that there is no way they could win if the Swiss company decided to sue them so they picked the gentleman’s way of sorting this out. The SFR even stated that they are proud their design is used so that was a huge sigh of relief for Apple.

Apple has filed a patent on motion based charging, that would be working on the principles of electromagnetic induction. In theory that would mean that users can simply charge their phones while walking or making any sort of movement that will cause the induction process to start making electricity and charge the battery. Theoretically is means you would never run out of battery as long as you continue moving. This could be serious competition to NFC that comes with new smartphones today; maybe it would even surpass it. However, this is not as simple as it sounds. To cause induction you need a copper coil and a magnet that will move inside of it. If you consider that you need to create this inside the iPhone you have to wonder where on earth will they put it?

The system of Copyright, Patents and Trademarks has a long history in the US and around the world. Originally the system was developed to protect the individual inventor or artists. It allows them to benefit from their work or inventions for a limited period of time as a form of compensation for bringing a new technology or art to the world. This system worked very well when it was individuals who were seeking the protection. Patent laws at the time also required that the inventor be able to demonstrate their inventions before the patents were granted.

The day following the Verdict from the 9 member jury we poured through the amended worksheet and noticed some very unusual things about it. We stated that it appeared that the jury had predetermined guilt and then spent the majority of their time figuring out how much they should make Samsung pay Apple. This was before any of the jurors had started to cash in on their “fame” and began the rounds with the tech press and TV. Now that at least one member of the jury and the jury foreman have come out and made public statements their intentions in producing the verdict are clear making Samsung’s bid to get it overturned a little easier… if Judge Koh at least attempts to play this one fairly.

By the end of 2012 HTC will try to place new device on the tablet market in cooperation with Chinese manufacturer Pegatron Technology. After they failed to make significant sales with their 7“ Flyer and 10.1“ Jetstream tablets there is a lot of suspicion about the potential success of this idea. Also HTC tablets were not included in the first wave of production partners for Microsoft's Windows RT tablets, making it even more risky. The main reason for bad sales was probably a price that was too much compared to performance.

Last night the verdict was handed down from the jury in the Samsung V Apple and in a staggering leap of logic the 9 person jury found for that Samsung was guilty of willful infringement on the majority of patents that Apple presented, but that Apple had not infringed at all on the Samsung patents. Then they found that Samsung was not-guilty of Anti-Trust behavior for those attempting to enforce those same patents.  Although our initial reaction was shock, after reading the details of the verdict and taking into account how the trial was handled by Judge Lucy Koh we were actually not surprised.

The fate of Samsung and Apple are in the hands of the jury now… not really. You see no matter the outcome of this particular part of the greater drama the losing side will appeal. This is both a good and a bad thing for both companies. In the case of Samsung losing verdict allows them to be able to bring more witnesses and to also find some of Apple’s patent invalid. For Apple a loss would be a little more damaging, but they are already working on improving their reputation with improvements in their partner Foxconn’s factories. This is the problem that we face right now with the US legal system. It is sort of backwards and in many cases does not understand the items that it is supposed to govern and rule on.

Apple unsurprisingly has launched another attempt at banning a product they see as a threat and so are trying to use the same tired old line that claims Phone X is a “copycat” This time they are going after the Galaxy Nexus. Now this is a phone that looks nothing like any of the iPhones in size, shape or anything else for that matter. Even the icons are different. Still Apple uses the claim that it is a copycat of the iPhone. We are not even sure how this is still being allowed in US courts. The simple fact of the matter here is that Apple has become an overzealous patent troll. What makes this even worse is that their patents in most cases are predated by significant prior art and patents owned by other people.

It seems that there is the potential for peace after all between Samsung and Apple. As we have told you over the past few weeks, the patent trial between Samsung and Apple has been a much more tactical event than the show we expected. Both sides have presented many witnesses to support their claims, but were hampered by a time limit imposed by Judge Lucy Koh. The time limit is not unheard of in cases like this as it prevents either side from trying to monopolize time and can help keep things to the facts. We would have to say that Judge Koh’s decision was at least partially successful.