Supreme Court Rules For Samsung in Smartphone Fight With Apple (reuters.com) 100
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with Samsung in its high-profile patent dispute with Apple over design of the iPhone. The justices said Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features at issue are only a tiny part of the devices. From a report on Reuters: The justices in their 8-0 ruling sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings. The decision gives Samsung another chance to try to get back a big chunk of the money it paid Apple in December following a 2012 jury verdict that it infringed Apple's iPhone patents and mimicked its distinctive appearance in making the Galaxy and other competing devices. The court held that a patent violator does not always have to fork over its entire profits from the sales of products using stolen designs, if the designs covered only certain components and not the whole thing.
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You're mean! Apple is only a tiny underdog company fighting against the machine!
Re:Suck it Apple! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, a tiny underdog... one of the most cash-rich private entities in the history of the planet... Poor whittle Apple
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Yeah, it's pretty clear to anyone watching from the background, that Apple (and other US companies) get preferential treatment from lawmakers and the Justice Department.
US governments treatment of GM vs Toyota, anyone?
Has anyone at GM lost their jobs over kids dying, except that one "engineer" that had to take the fall? Compare to the downright hide-your-kids-eyes treatment of Toyota...
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Uhhhh...
Hey, wait just a minute
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too bad Apple won as well
now when it gets sued for vpn in facetime or some other feature they will just throw some change at whoever and make it go away. same with every big company. gives them license to steal any invention and write a small check that's not even a rounding error on their financials to make it go away
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so.... business as usual since the beginning of business...
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Let's hope this is the turning point in ditching those stupid look-and-feel patents. If you want to patent something, it has to be an actual innovation.
So it begs(?) the question (Score:1)
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
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It's also getting rather silly, because the phones involved are no longer for sale, Samsung no longer uses the version of TouchWiz that looks like the iPhone (c
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Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
It still seems to be a bad thing, or a less worse thing if you are Samsung.
This is the case where Samsung was found guilty of infringing on Apple's patents for look and feel. In my opinion, some of the rulings went beyond what a reasonable person with basic technology understanding would find infringing. In that sense, it's still a bad thing.
From Samsung's perspective it's a less bad thing. It means that they can argue that they should be paying fractions of what they were ordered to pay in the first pla
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Not really.
IANAL, but I think all this says is that Samsung doesn't need to pay the entire profits of their Galaxy line to Apple, since the patent infringement only pertains to a small part of the device. The whole "patent infringement" thing is still being fought in a lower instance, and the current score is: Samsung is in infringement, and owes Apple a big chunk of money.
And if I understand correctly, Samsung doesn't have much recourse left other than do some damage control and try reduce the amount of mo
The real beneficiaries (Score:5, Insightful)
from the ./ summary:
The justices in their 8-0 ruling sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.
Another way to put that is the Supreme Court unanimously decided that both sides need to keep paying their lawyers.
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"In all of this fighting, only the weapons have won." Battle for the Planet of the Apes
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If you had a magic wand that could magically uninvent one of them, which would you choose?
patent and copyright violation is not theft (Score:1)
From the intro: The court held that a patent violator does not always have to fork over its entire profits from the sales of products using STOLEN designs"
Patent law is NOT property law. Copyright violation is NOT theft. The designs were NOT stolen. Patent holders like to imply that there is a moral failing or ungodly evil committed when a patent is violated. The music industry told kids who downloaded songs from Napster that their actions were immoral. But ideas can't be owned. Music (as differentia
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Just for once maybe someone was capable of making a decision as a matter of law. Maybe not everyone in the entire world is corrupt 100% of the time.
I'm kinda fed up with all the mad Brexiteers screaming about how (openly gay!) judges are overruling the will of the people and it's all so unfair. No, you don't get to ignore the law or bypass the constitution just because you are throwing a temper-tantrum.
Same here, if the law says that the lower court made a mistake, they need to look again. Either side could
Terrible decision, regardless of patent feelings (Score:5, Interesting)
Specifically, up until 1885, the patent act had damages for infringement of a design patent that were "the actual damages sustained". In 1885, there was a design patent infringement case having to do with carpet designs. The lower court said the actual damages were the infringer's profits, in $ per yard of carpet sold. The Supreme Court reversed and said that since bland carpets have some intrinsic value, then the damages should be limited only to what part of the profits that were explicitly due to the design, as opposed to the carpet. I.e. if you can sell this carpet for $5/yard, or you could sell a beige carpet for $3/yard, then the profits due to the design are $2/yard.
Mmmkay, whatever, but that's not what Congress intended. So in 1887, Congress explicitly rewrote the statute to reverse the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that the damages for infringing a design patent were "the total profit made by the manufacture or sale of the article to which the design had been applied." This is how checks and balances work under our Constitution... The Supreme Court can interpret anything that's ambiguous in a statute, as a check on Congress; and Congress can draft statutes that explicitly overturn Court rulings and say "x is the proper interpretation, rather than y". Here, they said it was the total profits for the sale of the article, so that infringing carpet is back to $5/yard.
So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
But then here, the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article." So, for example, the design on those carpets may only apply to the top fibers and not the mat into which they're woven, so the profits are... well, no one sells just the top fibers, so no one knows. And the justification for this is based on the fact that you can get a utility patent that covers a component. But that's not really a good justification to overturn 140 years of precedent and completely disregard what Congress has said, twice.
And then if that weren't bad enough, the decision ends with "so how do we determine whether the 'article' for purposes of infringement is the entire device or just a component? That would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article... But that's hard, so we're not going to do it."
It's as bad as the Alice Corp. decision with Justice Thomas saying, "abstract ideas are unpatentable. What's an abstract idea? Eh, we don't need to define that." Both pro-patent and anti-patent ridiculed him for that, rightly. This decision is at least as bad, with it's "we need a test to identify the relevant article, but we're going to punt on that question and hope that someone else answers it."
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If the cases were so cut-and-dried, why was the decision 8-0? Usually, if there is such an obvious conflict with the law, at least ONE justice will dissent. But zero?
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If the cases were so cut-and-dried, why was the decision 8-0? Usually, if there is such an obvious conflict with the law, at least ONE justice will dissent. But zero?
The justices know as much about patents and technology - and are interested in knowing about patents and technology - exactly as much as you'd expect for a bunch of people in their 70s. This decision barely hit 9 pages, and half of that was on the procedural history of the trial and appeal. They had some clerk rush this off, and they don't really care - hence why they acknowledge there needs to be test, but simply remand to the Federal Circuit to come up with the test.
So why 8-0? Because 7 of them probably
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More likely 8-0 because the decision of the lower court is absurd.
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Having actually read the ruling, the answer is that it didn't change any precedent, and they actually ruled that the Federal Circuit had avoided existing precedent, and that their interpretation also conflicted directly with the statute.
Re:Terrible decision, regardless of patent feeling (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't give a shit what congress said 100+ years ago. Rationalizing that rounded corners is worth the entire profits of a phone is intuitively wrong.
And if so, Congress should change the law. The Supreme Court doesn't just get to rewrite things on their own for funsies. If it's not unconstitutional - and there's absolutely nothing about this that's unconstitutional, nor does the Court ever suggest there is - then they can't simply strike down a law because they dislike the outcome.
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Re:Terrible decision, regardless of patent feeling (Score:4, Interesting)
The really funny part is that 50 years ago Congress rewrote the law to say exactly what the Court said today, which was already the precedent under the old law. So 100+ years ago Congress wrote the law in an unclear way, the Court clarified, and then 50 years ago Congress fixed the law to say the same thing as the precedent. Then a couple years ago, the appeals court made up some nonsense that was exactly the same as what the Court had thrown out 100 years ago. Most slashdot readers are on one side or the other of this issue, and either way, they don't/won't/can't comprehend the basic facts in dispute.
The whole thing is only a few pages, and it was written by Sotomayor so it is easy to read. They upheld the exact wording of the statute here, which is in agreement with precedent. The only thing thrown out was the awful ruling.
The Federal Circuit would have us believe that the word "article" in "article of manufacture" means only things available for sale by themselves. As Justice Sotomayor explains, article actually means any item, it is a very broad word. So an "article of manufacture" is a thing you make; the definition has nothing to do with if it is sold to the end consumer in a single box or not. According to Apple and the Federal Circuit, even the toys in a Happy Meal wouldn't be articles of manufacture, since they're not sold by themselves! A toy in a crackerjack box? Not an article of manufacture. A car stereo? Oh, only if it is a brand available in the store. A brand only sold as an OEM unit would not be an article of manufacture! Complete absurdity.
Also clear in the ruling is that if Samsung had had better SCOTUS lawyers, they could have got more of the issues decided; there were issues briefed by the government that would likely have gone Samsung's way, that are instead being sent back down to the Federal Circuit. But the Court did make clear that they're ready to do more work on this case when it comes back, and it likely will because Apple can't resist asking for the moon, and the Federal Circuit can't resist giving Apple whatever they ask for.
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So you're saying that if Samsung marketed their phone as "a case containing phone hardware and software" and itemized it, then the damages could be based off of a $0.50 case. But since they sold it as a combined product, they are liable for the full ~$400 phone. And you don't think this absurd?
Slashdot loves car example - let's think of GM or Ford. They sell a $40,000 car, and because there is some submarine patent on a copper relay somewhere deep inside the sat nav system, Gm or Ford is expected to turn
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It's not the Supreme Court's job to replace it. That's the Congress' role.
The OP's whole point was that it's no one's job to replace it, because it's a job that shouldn't exist in the first place. Effectively, the OP is asserting that the Supreme Court acted contrary to the law in their ruling. Unless they're declaring a law unconstitutional (which they didn't), they have no right to do so, which means that the need for a replacement is entirely invalid.
I don't know if the OP is making all of this up or not (nor do I care enough to investigate, if I'm being honest), but it's cert
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I'm finding it somewhat improbable that an 8-0 decision would be made on a deeply divided Supreme Court with justices having dramatically different views of the constitution if there's such a compelling case in opposition to the decision they made. Can you put forward a theory that explains why all eight justices rejected this argument?
This case doesn't involve constitutionality at all, so their deeply divided views there don't matter. Most patent decisions are unanimous or nearly unanimous. Generally, because they care about patents and technology exactly as much as you'd expect from a bunch of 70 year olds that don't even use email [nymag.com].
Why did they reject the argument? Because they didn't like the outcome.
What's the legal reasoning that supports that? There really isn't any. If there's no constitutional argument to be made, they don't get
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Nope, you're just wrong about what they did. I explained here [slashdot.org], but to summarize:
Your claim: they went back to 1885 and changed the profitability criteria to "incremental value added by patent."
I never said that, and responded to your other post explaining that I never said that. If you want to insist I did say it, please copy-paste from my post.
What they actually did: they said that the profits due to the infringed upon party need to be those applying to the component that was sold, rather than the whole of the smartphone.
What I said in my original post: "the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article."
I think you've misread what I was saying. Your attempt to correct me by saying the same thing I did is misguided, but I nonetheless appreciate the indirect confirmation of my analysis.
Your insults to the Supreme Court Justices are noted and hardly do your case credit: they may not know much about technology, but this case wasn't about technologies, it was about the criteria needed to measure compensation. You bet Scalia's fat dead ass they all know the law on that better than anyone else.
My
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... instead you wrote some enormous history of how SCOTUS totally misunderstood Congress's intent in 1885 and Congress stepped in and rewrote the law, even though that has nothing whatsoever to do with the case in hand.
If you read the ruling, it actually does matter, in that the Court looked at it and it made their decision easy here. Reading the ruling is really easy, it is only a few pages of plain English. What Congress did when they re-wrote the law was to make the law consistent with what was already the precedent, that's what the fanbois are getting a bit confused about. Sometimes, the Court smacks down a law, and Congress rewrites it trying to get their way. That is what some smucks would have you believe here. Bu
Re:Terrible decision, regardless of patent feeling (Score:5, Informative)
You're close, but it isn't the incremental profits as it is with other types of IP; here it is 100% of the profit directly attributable to the component. So it doesn't matter how much profit they made, or how much less they would have made had they not infringed.
What matters is the profit that they made from the physical component that infringed. It doesn't matter what the differential would be if they used something else. Unfortunately for Apple, the design patent covers primarily the plastic bezel, for which Samsung probably doesn't even have any profits, and the software screen layout, which is software, and likely don't have any profits from the software either.
The reality is that design patents aren't as useful as Apple claimed; on a decorative item, which is what they're intended for, they offer a lot of protection because the design actually is the value; a decorative plate is the typical example. Complex items that are mostly functional aren't well protected by design patents, because most of the device is functional and by definition isn't covered, and you're not going to get paid for the functional components just because the case copied your case. If a regular functional-but-ugly smarthphone cost $5, and the one with the fancy design code $500, as is the case with decorative plates, then it would make sense to protect it that way.
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It does involve constitutionality. The constitutionality of any law passed by Congress must be be weighed by the possibilities of that law. (McCollough vs Maryland and Brown v Maryland). If the monetary award is a penalty against Samsung, it can be argued as excessive in the light of only a component of their phone was infringing (and both parties agreed that the infringing design could be be considered a component). Article 8 of the Constitution prohibits excessive fines.
The monetary award is not a penalty, but compensatory damages, which are not fines. That's been ruled on repeatedly. And no part of this decision involved the 8th Amendment. Congress also has almost limitless rulemaking authority for patents and copyrights under Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, primarily subject only to the first amendment (where most conflicts would arise).
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So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
You're totally right, of course.
Samsung should give all of its smartphone profits to Apple since it infringed on some of Apple's patents.
And conversely, Apple should give all of its iPhone profits to Samsung, since the court had also found that the iPhone had infringed on some of Samsung's patents.
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So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
You're totally right, of course.
Samsung should give all of its smartphone profits to Apple since it infringed on some of Apple's patents.
And conversely, Apple should give all of its iPhone profits to Samsung, since the court had also found that the iPhone had infringed on some of Samsung's patents.
Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents. And Samsung never accused Apple of infringing any design patents, and Apple was never found to have done so. So, no, the damages wouldn't offset that way.
The better question is "why are design patents treated differently?"
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Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents.
And yet, just like the camera and folder organization patent and the cell phone video conferencing patent from Samsung, all the patents in question from Apple in this last particular case brought up by the Supreme Court were ALL utility patents, NOT design patents.
The '647 patent covers "quick links," which do things like automatically detect data in messages that can be clicked. The '959 patent covers universal search, such as what Apple uses in Siri. Patent No. '414 involves background syncing, such as syncing calendars, email, and contacts. The '721 patent covers slide-to-unlock, the motion used to unlock the home screen. And '172 covers predictive text.
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Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents.
And yet, just like the camera and folder organization patent and the cell phone video conferencing patent from Samsung, all the patents in question from Apple in this last particular case brought up by the Supreme Court were ALL utility patents, NOT design patents.
The '647 patent covers "quick links," which do things like automatically detect data in messages that can be clicked. The '959 patent covers universal search, such as what Apple uses in Siri. Patent No. '414 involves background syncing, such as syncing calendars, email, and contacts. The '721 patent covers slide-to-unlock, the motion used to unlock the home screen. And '172 covers predictive text.
Nope, you're wrong. From the opinion:
Apple secured many design patents in connection with the release. Among those patents were the D618,677 patent, covering a black rectangular front face with rounded corners, the D593,087 patent, covering a rectangular front face with rounded corners and a raised rim,and the D604,305 patent, covering a grid of 16 colorful icons on a black screen.
And, from the Wiki [wikipedia.org]:
In two separate lawsuits,[48][49] Apple accused Samsung of infringing on three utility patents (United States Patent Nos. 7,469,381, 7,844,915, and 7,864,163) and four design patents (United States Patent Nos. D504,889, D593,087, D618,677, and D604,305). Samsung accused Apple of infringing on United States Patent Nos. 7,675,941, 7,447,516, 7,698,711, 7,577,460, and 7,456,893.
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1) (3 marks) If the infringement payments were counted as profits would the money keep shuffling back and forth indefinitely?
20 (5 marks) Prove that where the diameter of the hole is negligible relative to the diameter of a planet of uniform density that the resultant motion is simple harmonic motion.
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The issue with your analogy with the carpet example, is that the driving value and preference shown for the carpet is the design itself. Without the pattern of which the infringement occurs the carpet would not have been purchased, and it does directly drive customers away from the competitor who owns said patent.
In the case of Samsung vs Apple, the infringing design/features present only a portion of the preference shown to the product, not the whole. Your over simplification by way of example is the short
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You're misrepresenting the opinion. The opinion is not "Oh, let's go back to the incremental value added by the patented technology as the yardstick for profitability"
I never said it was. I said they're disregarding the explicit language of a long-standing statute and previous Congress-slap of the court, and replacing it with "you want a test? Go make one up." And sadly that's not a misrepresentation. It's barely even a paraphrase.
In the carpet's case, 100% of the carpet violates the patent, regardless of whether you compare it to a beige carpet or not.
Flip over a carpet sometime. You'll see a standard mat that the fibers are woven into that is the same, regardless of design. That mat is a substantial part of the carpet, literally holding it together.
Reading the opinion [supremecourt.gov], they're not just making up that criterion. The "article of manufacture" concept is long standing in the patent world, and it would certainly mean a complete shake up of patents if patents ceased to apply to components, and only to the whole of a completed product. (Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave to the lawyers.)
Yes, but it's not necessary to redefine ar
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Absolutely untrue
Then please quote from the opinion where the test is laid out. I'll wait.
Nobody's arguing any different. If there's a practical way to separate the components of a carpet into articles of manufacture (and they must be items you'd make separately) in such a way that only one part violates the patent, then only that one part violates the patent, and the damages can be assessed. That's entirely within the keeping of the 1952 act, which explicitly codifies the "Article of manufacture" language.
Mats are made in advance of weaving the carpet fibers. Only the carpet fibers infringe the patent, not the mat. This new analysis that the damages would not be measured by the total profits per yard of carpet, however, is directly at odds with Congress' explicit 1887 refutation of that earlier case.
Sotomayor isn't redefining anything.
Yes, I know that. You were the one who said that "it would certainly mean a complete shake up of patents if patents ceased to apply to comp
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So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
But then here, the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article." So, for example, the design on those carpets may only apply to the top fibers and not the mat into which they're woven, so the profits are... well, no one sells just the top fibers, so no one knows. And the justification for this is based on the fact that you can get a utility patent that covers a component. But that's not really a good justification to overturn 140 years of precedent and completely disregard what Congress has said, twice.
And then if that weren't bad enough, the decision ends with "so how do we determine whether the 'article' for purposes of infringement is the entire device or just a component?
FTA:
The legal dispute centered on whether the term "article of manufacture," on which design patent damages are calculated in U.S. patent law, should be interpreted as a finished product in its entirety, or merely a component in a complex product.
In court papers, Samsung, Apple and the U.S. government all agreed that the term could mean a component.
So even Apple disagrees with you, it should only be the profits of the component.
And courts aren't computers who will happily execute buggy code. If a law leads
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Which is why they're throwing the decision back to lower courts, who will start proposing specific tests in different rulings and cases. Those cases will be appealed, different districts will develop different standards and those will need be be reconciled, and eventually over many different cases a robust test will emerge.
Asking the SCOTUS to develop a test right off the bat is a recipe for a bad precedent.
Although generally true, patent appeals all go to the federal circuit, not the other circuits, so it's not like SCOTUS will get a split to reconcile. As with the Bilski and Akami decisions, the Fed Circ. will propose a test; SCOTUS will say "eh, not that one"; the Fed will propose another; and rinse, and repeat.
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Where the Supreme Court differs from you is that it sees a phone as being more than just a single patented object. Here's the law itself:
"That hereafter, during the term of letters-patent for a design, it shall be unlawful for any person other than the owner of said letters-patent without the license of such owner, to apply the design secured by such letters-patent, or any colorable imitation thereof, to any article of manufacture for the purpose of sale, or to sell or expose for sale any article of manufacture to which such design or colorable imitation shall, without the license of the owner, have been applied, knowing that the same has been so applied. Any person violating the provisions, or either of them, of this section, shall be liable in the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars; and in case the total profit made by him from the manufacture or sale, as aforesaid, of the article or articles to which the design, or colorable imitation thereof, has been applied, exceeds the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars he shall be further liable for the excess of such profit over and above the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars; and the full amount of such liability may be recovered by the owner of the letters-patent to his own use, in any circuit court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, either by an action at law or upon a bill in equity for an injunction to restrain such infringement
I think we can both agree that if Samsung had sold a phone chassis that copied Apple's design then all profits for said chassis would go to Apple. However, this is only a component of another product -- their phone. If a car company copies some other companies' bumper design, and then uses these bumpers on their next line of cars, why would the profits for the entire car
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It is true that there are words of present grant in this law; but, in construing it, we are not to look at any single phrase in it, but to its whole scope, in order to arrive at the intention of the makers of it. "It is better always," says Judge Sharswood, "to adhere to a plain common-sense interpretation of the words of a statute, than to apply to them refined and technical rules of grammatical construction. Gyger's Estate, 65 Penn. St. 312.
and
This interpretation, although seemingly contrary to the letter of the statute, is really within its reason and spirit.
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Exactly! How the hell do you tease out what part of the profit was derived from the shape of the phone case and the arrangement of icons?!? Especially since the phone may not have sold, or sold as well, without those properties? Samsung's analogy about an 18-wheeler with an infringing cupholder is just absurd -- without A/B testing, there's no way to know whether buyers chose the 18-wheeler based on the cupholder or some other factor. But if the cupholder was the deciding factor (as, in actuality, it of [thetruthaboutcars.com]
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I don't think that you read the article. So, some quotes from the article that you might find helpful:
With all parties agreeing that the law could refer to a compo
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Regardless of whether you're pro-patent or anti-patent, pro-Apple or anti-Apple, pro-Samsung or anti-Samsung, this was a terrible decision.
I'm pretty sure that the anti-patent, anti-Apple, pro-Samsung people are going to vigorously disagree with you.
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The problem here is actually with the design patents and with how they are being used in this case. For things to work this way the product should only be allowed to be covered by one design patent, that details the design of the actual product. Then you can go after true knock-offs. But over those 140 years design patents have been allowed to cover minute details of the design (like the rounded corners), so that an entire family of products is covered by some "design aesthetic". Here Samsung is accused
More like a terrible law (Score:2)
I can see an argument for awarding slightly more of the profit than is attributable to the single component (having the infringing feature allowed you to make sales which you wouldn't have made). But awarding all the
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But awarding all the profit is insane. If that's the standard you're going to use, then Apple should just hand over all their profit from their iPhones 1 through 4 to Samsung, because they infringed one of Samsung's FRAND patents.
FRAND patents are utility patents, not design patents, and the "entire profits" rule only applies to design patents. Plus, FRAND patents are explicitly limited to a fair and reasonable royalty, or the patent can be effectively invalidated (not really invalid, but they can't enforce it, once found in breach of their FRAND requirements).
Apple escaped punishment for that only because Obama used executive privilege to nullify that ITC decision.
The ITC couldn't levy monetary damages, anyway. The only thing they can do is stop imports. And if they did stop imports under the ITC decision, then Samsung would have been i
rounded corners (Score:1)
Apple owns (or tried to own) a patent on rounded corners. Case closed. They have enough in the bank that they don't need to resort to patent trolling.
besides, David Akuda (Acuda?) should have sued apple for infringing on his PADD design for Star Trek TNG. The similarities are striking.
It's a computer. With a screen. And you can touch it.
PATENT
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Michael Okuda
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And Samsung has a patent on rounded corners too. So does Coca-Cola. And Toyota. And thousands of other companies. But design patents function differently than utility patents, are infringed upon differently than utility patents, and have very different sets of restrictions on them than utility patents. So while it's true that Apple has (had?) a patent for rounded corners, it was a design patent, not a utility patent, and basically everyone else with a rounded product has a design patent for rounded corners
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Rounded corners shouldn't be a design patent. It's not a decorative aspect, it's to stop the fucking thing chipping or damaging something else.
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That they were rounded was never a design patent, in and of itself. The degree to which they were rounded, the manner in which they were rounded, and where they were rounded in relation to other elements are what may make up a design patent.
Companies routinely avoid trampling on design patents of the sorts we're talking about by doing things like using elliptical curves for their corners instead of circular curves. Or chamfering them instead of rounding them. Or adding indentations/bumps/details that make t
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That's hilarious. Did you intend it to be?
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What the court actually said (Score:2)
The court actually said something to the effect of "289 doesn't require all the profits to be eligible for judgement, so go redetermine what's eligible for judgement."
It's not really a victory.
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The ruling doesn't mean that the lower courts can't say that "Apple gets all the profits."
The ruling says the answer to the question as to whether all the profits are in play is open.
It figures (Score:2)