Steve Jobs: "I'll just sue you" (2010)

http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/

by ootachi • 15 years ago

163 42 15 years ago

jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com

Interesting - Sun didn't fold when Apple threatened them but there wasn't a suit either.

The thing is, it seems there are examples of open source companies or developers folding when presented with the "whiff" of a patent suit. See: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-234073.htm...

Further, as I recall, it has been speculated that Nokia's Apple suit involved a demand by Nokia that Apple cross license its UI patents. http://www.businessinsider.com/did-nokia-sue-apple-to-access...

The thing is, if Nokia had previously been "coding around" Apple's UI, it's not surprising that their UI sucked.

It's easy to imagine that the more timid an organization, the more willing they are to be pushed around by an over broad claim.

Altogether, It would be a good thing to provoke Apple into actually suing someone for violating "their" UI controls: Threats people back away from put a bully in a more powerful position than threats carried through.

Samuel_Michon• 15 years ago

"It would be a good thing to provoke Apple into actually suing someone for violating "their" UI controls"

When HTC started selling Android smartphones, I think Apple considered that provocation. So they sued HTC. [0]

Apple has sued other cell phone manufacturers as well, but those are all countersuits [1] -- AFAIK, the HTC lawsuit is the first in which Apple went on the offensive.

[0] http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/06/apple-su...

[1] http://www.patentlyapple.com/.a/6a0120a5580826970c0134889b01...

jerf• 15 years ago

"The thing is, it seems there are examples of open source companies or developers folding when presented with the "whiff" of a patent suit."

Well, carry the logic out a bit further. $COMPANY threatens $TARGET vaguely with a patent lawsuit. There's two ways this can go: 1. $TARGET has patents important to $COMPANY 2. $TARGET does not. The post is about case 1. This has little relevance to case 2. The next step after threatening the open source developer is to file a suit, and even the slightest legal interaction will drain a disproportionate amount of time from an individual.

skymt• 15 years ago

The problem is, most open-source developers don't have their own patent arsenal.

joe_the_user2• 15 years ago

Well if the only allowing you to create software is a patent arsenal, there is trouble indeed...

Plus Red Hat did get sued eventually anyway by a troll claiming a patent on more or less any kind of GUI.

Sure, flinch against the patent mafia if you don't have a patent arsenal. Just don't be surprised if another troll walks through the door in five minutes asking for more money and/or more GUI crippling...

Edit: The most frustrating thing about all this is it difficult to determine if this is what has kept Linux GUIs lame or not; Information on the various decisions involved is spread in dribs and drabs around the web. You would think anti-patent organizers would at least keep a list of these actions.

gst• 15 years ago

That's the ugly part about the whole thing:

Apple takes quite a lot from the open-source community, starting at the kernel, continuing with the user-space utilities, up to the HTML rendering engine.

And at the same time they threaten open-source developers with lawsuites and/or leave patent situations deliberately unclarified (such as in the case of the patents against Freetype).

SeoxyS• 15 years ago

Sun was a large commercial company that owns quite a portfolio of patents. It had the resources to fight back and tell Apple to go fuck itself. Your average open-source project, on the other hand, might not.

pohl• 15 years ago

For comparison, here is a screenshot of Concurrence:

http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/Concurrence.gif

joblessjunkie• 15 years ago

Tip to bloggers: put your NAME on your blog somewhere.

X-Istence• 15 years ago

The URL isn't enough of a give-away?

endtime• 15 years ago

No, it is not.

dailo10• 15 years ago

Postscript: Oracle bought Sun and proceeded to sue Google with the Java patents it had acquired.

Ironic given the "egregious" Kodak suit he writes about.

ZeroGravitas2• 15 years ago

There were several reports of Jonathan actively shopping the patent portfolio for offensive use as part of the sale. Could just be idle gossip though.

cyrus_2• 15 years ago

This is an utter minefield for any startup. While the big companies find themselves in a state of mutually assured destruction, new companies can be attacked by a billion dollars worth of lawyers if they start to compete.

loewenskind• 15 years ago

I agree with PG: just ignore patents when you're small. If you ever get big enough for it to matter than things are looking really good and you'll have more bargaining options.

cyrus_2• 15 years ago

This is a copout. If you are in a competitive space with one of these major players you're basically going to be forced into a buyout on their terms or a lawsuit. That's not bargaining.

pmorici2• 15 years ago

This reminds me of a recent experience I had disputing some parking tickets in federal court. I did some research ahead of time and going in I was certain that if the case went to trial I would win based on the facts alone.

To avoid a trial the prosecutor first offered me 50% off my two tickets which I politely declined citing that I was certain I would win based on certain facts which I laid out.

30 minutes later while I was waiting for my trial to begin he came and offered to drop one ticket and give me 50% off on the other. I again politely declined stating that I was certain I would win based on the facts I had laid out earlier.

Then right before the trial was about to begin the prosecutor came in and dropped both tickets. I know many other people who got a ticket under the exact same circumstances and just paid it.

Point being whether a dispute is about millions of dollars of software patents or 160 dollars in parking tickets it pays to know the facts well and stand your ground convincingly and unemotionally.

rdouble• 15 years ago

disputing some parking tickets in federal court.

Were you double parked in front of the White House?

phlux• 15 years ago

You can get federal parking tickets in the Presidio, BTW.

pyre• 15 years ago

It also depends on the locality. I've found it a lot easier to get rid of tickets/citations in larger cities than in smaller towns. The smaller towns like the revenue, and maybe depend on it more.

pmorici2• 15 years ago

In my case it helped that I was in the right. My reasoning wouldn't have depended on leniency or mercy from the judge.

yardie• 15 years ago

This wouldn't happen to be a city in Connecticut? I called the bluff and drove 4 hours to fight the ticket instead of mailing it in. It cost me 2-days work plus gas, but I got off free and clear. And visited some friends who went to school in the area.

But if the prosecutor didn't drop the fines and took me to trial I would be screwed. Sometimes just putting up a fight, even a small one, can reap big rewards.

nika2• 15 years ago

I've been observing Apple and Steve Jobs since the late 1970s. I'm guessing that many of you were born well after that point, and have grown up your whole lives with this mythology about Jobs.

It's a load of bunk. Jobs is charismatic, but he found early on that due to his charisma, reporters liked to tell tall tales about him. Always looking for the "human interest" side of things, or something to spice up their reporting they'd exaggerate. So he stopped giving interviews, figuring that would give them less to work with, and in doing so he overestimated their integrity. Instead they quickly figured out he wouldn't give them the additional attention of debunking them, so they just started spreading whatever rumor or gossip or fabrications sounded good.

Jonathan Schwartz is not a reporter, but he can say whatever he wants, knowing that Jobs is not going to waste time disproving it. Doing so only brings more attention to the faux controversy.

And of course, Apple haters, who really don't need much prompting anyway, will simply take it as the gospel truth.

I'm sure Apple's right and attempting to point out this is just silly, because those who believe will believe anyway because they want to.

Look at Job's stanford commencement speech. That's the real guy. Always has been.

arethuza• 15 years ago

What is your view of books like "Infinite Loop" - which certainly portray Jobs in a somewhat unflattering light?

Clearly Jobs is a genius, but that doesn't mean he's a saint.

nlogn• 15 years ago

Are you saying that you believe Jonathan Schwartz is lying in this post? If so, what evidence do you have and if not, why the effort to undermine him by attributing attention-seeking motives to him?

Steve Jobs: "I'll just sue you" (2010)

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