Korea jury reaches split decision, Apple guilty of infringing 2 Samsung patents

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/08/24/samsung-scores-victory-south-korea-court-rules-apple-infringed-patents/

by zachh • 14 years ago

32 39 14 years ago

603techguy2• 14 years ago

The very idea that you can patent 'Bounce back' tells me that the patent system is broken.

taligent2• 14 years ago

Why ? It is distinctive, unique and definitely non-intuitive. We have had scrollable lists on the desktop for decades and not once has anyone designed the entire scrollview bounce back when you reached the top/bottom.

It's also not the only way to implement this concept as the newer Samsungs, LGs and HTCs all have their own version of it.

CamperBob22• 14 years ago

Why ?

Because it's obvious. No person skilled in the art would ever have to refer to the teachings of the patent in order to implement a bouncing scrollable list.

jmillikin2• 14 years ago

It's a patent on behavior, rather than on implementation. Patenting a particular steering mechanism is reasonable; patenting the concept of steering is not.

The original purpose of patents was to serve as an alternative to trade secrets for the benefit of society, not merely to reward whoever can think of the most "non-obvious" concepts. Behavior patents such as elastic-overscroll or one-click-purchase do not serve this purpose.

coryl• 14 years ago

I don't know how or where to draw the line, but it has to be drawn somewhere.

What if someone decided to patent text fields? Or dropdown menus? It gets so crazy if absolutely every design feature becomes patentable.

wtallis• 14 years ago

Desktops don't use direct manipulation, so they're not particularly relevant. It's far more likely that we haven't seen bounce-back scrolling on desktops because it's a bad idea - nothing more than superfluous animation. On a touch-screen, it actually serves a purpose.

jmitcheson• 14 years ago

1. The desktop isn't the same. Bouncing is helpful to combat overscrolling, which isn't a problem on the desktop. That's why you haven't seen it. (On a desktop you have to actually click the scrollbar, or use your finger on the mousewheel - both of which make it pretty obvious that you've reached the limit of the container).

2. Real world things bounce. Copying the way something works in the real world and emulating that in software and sticking an Apple logo on it is not inventing something. That's just... building things.

3. I don't mean to misrepresent the first part of your argument, but "it's a good idea" doesn't cut it for patenting consumer software / hardware. There are real criteria (mentioned by others) that this doesn't meet.

Changing topic slightly, how is a jury supposed to decide "non obvious to a person skilled in the art", anyway? Does the jury consist only of hardware engineers? Because that would be the only way it would be fair. I can no more wonder what would be obvious or not to a doctor, teacher, lawyer, fireman etc. as they could wonder what would be obvious to an engineer.

fleitz• 14 years ago

Wouldn't this mean that the South Korean patent system is broken?

I hear life is swell in North Korea where they do not have patents.

jaekwon2• 14 years ago

Information, design, ideas are abundant. Natural resources are often limited. So intuitively, shouldn't an ideal system have different ways of handling these things?

nirvana5• 14 years ago

You've been sold the idea that they patented "bounce back". I suggest if you go and read the actual patent itself, you'll see that it is something quite different.

Further, consider the case where there was no patent system. Apple invents a new type of touch hardware, but keeps it completely secret.

If this were the case, there would be no Android, and no Windows Phone 8 System either. Google would be spending years trying to reverse engineer how it all works (even with the advantage of patents they're still trying to make android work smoothly like the iPhone does) and Microsoft would be just stuck.

Because of the patent system, people can read Apple's patents and then extend them. And in the case of Microsoft a cross licensing agreement allows Microsoft to "infringe" on Apple's inventions without worry.

It even benefits Samsung-- as Apple offered them a license to these patents in 2010. Samsung could have used them and worried about other areas where they could extend the state of the art.

What's broken is that these companies think they can get away with violating the rights created in law-- they want the patents so they have access to the technology, but they don't want to pay for it.

What's broken is that you have this opinion about a system you don't seem to have any understanding of, because of an ideological position you've been told to have by a company who is profiting by stealing other people's work in order to try and dominate the phone industry the way microsoft dominated desktop operating systems.

What's broken is that HN is overrun with people who can't be bothered to learn about patents beyond the idea that "patents give you the right to an idea!!" and yet I suspect the vast majority of them get to vote in national elections!

jsnell• 14 years ago

Your post as a whole is perhaps the most absurd thing I've read on patents, and I'm left to wonder whether it's some kind of parody. I guess not based on your posting history, so I'll answer it seriously.

> If this were the case, there would be no Android, and no Windows Phone 8 System either. Google would be spending years trying to reverse engineer how it all works (even with the advantage of patents they're still trying to make android work smoothly like the iPhone does) and Microsoft would be just stuck.

I don't know where you get the idea that other people's software patents are somehow a major component of the development process for these kinds of systems. It's a laughable idea.

1. The information you get from a good software patent would save you maybe 1% of the implementation effort. And most software patents are not good.

2. It's theoretical anyway, since nobody working on the iPhone or WP8 or Android on a technical level is ever going to be reading patents by the competition. Even if they were useful, having read the patent would potentially aggravate any infringement.

3. If you desperately wanted to clone something, you still would not work from the patents. You'd have somebody just use the system you're trying to copy and write down notes. It'd be much more efficient than trying to somehow translate a patent into a useful design doc.

I am absolutely, 100% sure that your claim that without Apple patents "Google [would need] to spend years reverse engineering how it works" is wrong. Most likely the only reason these patents are for the exact opposite reason - you need to know exactly what's patented so that you can work around the patent.

The suggestion that these patents would somehow be a key to smoothness highlights exactly why. There is not going to be a magical smoothness patent that would somehow be applicable to other systems with completely different design decisions done all over the system.

taligent2• 14 years ago

It does appear that the patents that Apple is guilty of infringing are actually standards essential (FRAND) which does not bode well for anyone.

markmark• 14 years ago

Of course FRAND doesn't mean you can use patents without a license, it means that they have to be offered for licensing under FRAND terms. Presumably you are supposed to go to court if you believe you aren't being offered FRAND terms, Apple just went ahead with no licence at all.

sjwright• 14 years ago

The chips that used the patents were licensed.

WildUtah• 14 years ago

Should have ruled that each CEO gets to kick the other in the 'nards, alternating until they quit this nonsense.

Oh, well. There still hope the US jury found the 'nard kicking check box on page 256 of the jury verdit form.

waiwai933• 14 years ago

The article says a three-judge panel ruled on the decision, not a jury.

smegel2• 14 years ago

Looks like Apple's monopoly in Korea is coming to an end. Samsung will be thrilled.

v0cab• 14 years ago

What? Apple's monopoly in Korea? What on earth are you talking about?

smegel2• 14 years ago

sigh

Tichy2• 14 years ago

Curious that they decide this now, near the time of the verdict for the US thing. The way human psychology works, I think this will sway jurors against Samsung, because they don't like dictations by obscure remote countries.

terminus• 14 years ago

So South Korea is an "obscure remote country?" Wow.

nirvana5• 14 years ago

That wasn't an objective statement, that was more a characterization of the way americans see the rest of the world.

Imagine how north koreans have misconceptions about America. America is equally awash in propaganda and many americans have never spend significant time outside the country enough to realize it.

It sure surprised me once I did.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

As Nirvana says, this was meant as figurative for how I imagine our brains will pick this up. Basically "who are these people that they want to tell us the law?".

Korea jury reaches split decision, Apple guilty of infringing 2 Samsung patents

Related Stories