Good job Apple. You fucked the world...

http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/good-job-apple-you-fucked-the-world/

by manuw • 14 years ago

35 32 14 years ago

threepipeproblm• 14 years ago

This is why I don't buy Apple products in the first place... their ethics as a company are not exactly news. Don't be surprised at what happens when you give money to a tyrant.

Since I'm probably about to be downvoted out of existence by Apple fans, it was nice knowing you HN.

thedrbrian• 14 years ago

So it's ethical to copy and deceive but not to defend your own ideas?

thirsteh2• 14 years ago

"Patents are okay when it's Apple getting them."

scoith• 14 years ago

Yeah, tell me about those genius ideas invented by Apple that only 10 Einsteins could have come up with. Rounded corners? It's too fortunate for that that nobody patented their "innovative" stuff 50 years ago because it is totally ridiculous. Want some respect as a company? Do something like research.google.com instead of trying to screw people over with overpriced candies and screwing other companies when they put their hands in your honey jar.

batista4• 14 years ago

>This is why I don't buy Apple products in the first place...

So what other company you give money to? Because as far as I know, Google, MS, Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Oracle et al have all sued for patents.

dazzawazza2• 14 years ago

All this energy complaining about Apple in the law courts is ridiculous. Of course Apple shouldn't own the market using the law courts. But it is a legitimate business practice to protect yourself in the courts because if they don't they tacitly approve of every other company 'copying them'.

Everyone does it, (google bought motorola for their patents). If you don't like it talk to the WTO, congress, parliament, UN and lobby to get it changed.

Every company, I am sure, would rather spend their time and efforts creating great things, no one more than Apple spends their time creating things of beauty. CEOs don't get in to CEO-ing so they can pay hoards of patent lawyers to sit in court all day.

pytrin3• 14 years ago

Apple builds beautiful products on one hand, but on the other tries to stifle competition using patent laws instead of with their products.

The problem is with the system that allows patenting obvious solutions such as rounded corners or click-to-call and not with Apple itself. Heck, even my Game Gear from 20 years ago had rounded corners. Luckily for Apple, Sega didn't think about that patent then. Apple is just the symptom, patent laws need to be completely overhauled (or at least the system for examining existing patents and new patent requests).

dazzawazza2• 14 years ago

Why didn't Samsung use the game gear as prior art and undermine the patent?

taligent2• 14 years ago

No the real problem here is the sheer ignorance of people such as yourself commenting on this issue.

Apple never patented rounded corners or click to call. It's as simple as that. What was patented is a very specific design that would take Samsung all of 10 mins to work around (e.g. like they did with the Galaxy 10.1n).

And how about the two elephants in the room: Microsoft and Nokia who have built something unique, innovative and just don't seem to get nearly enough respect or credit for their efforts.

taligent2• 14 years ago

This idea that Apple is going to own the market using the law is frankly ridiculous.

Coke has a design patent on the particular shape of their bottle which surely is a product that is even harder to innovate with. But yet do we see competitors to Coke appearing all the time. Of course. There is rarely one way to do something.

I think people in time are going to realise this will all end up being a good thing for the industry.

shimsham• 14 years ago

Whoa, cowboy! It's all just swings and roundabouts. Stop, count to 10 and breathe. Then remember what's really important; family and friends.

EliRivers• 14 years ago

This ruling is going to harm family and friends.

derekerdmann• 14 years ago

Every invention solves a problem, or else it has no reason to exist. Patents are supposed to protect the person who found a particular solution first; this isn't new.

I'm sure it was wrong of Eli Whitney to patent the cotton gin, too, since that's clearly the only way to quickly separate cotton seeds and fibers.

tluyben22• 14 years ago

It's 'just business'. Agreeing or not doesn't really matter and the 3 people here not buying Apple products because of it also doesn't matter. Apple makes (in my opinion) great hardware: I haven't found a better iPad-like or Air-like or even Macbook-like. I like the Lenovo t420 but I like my Macbook more; I really don't care at all about looks or brand; it's just nice to work with IMHO.

This kind of 'practice' has been going on for a looooong time. All 'younger' people should read about MS in the 80s & 90s. You didn't see it and maybe you think they are great now and Windows 7/8 is so much better than mac/lin etc; read up on the history. They used to be hardcore evil. If HN was around in those times, there would be stories of disgust and misery on the frontpage every single day. It's nothing new.

Companies defend their backyard in any way possible and they just add power-points to their company by taking this kind of action. If they didn't take this action or they would've lost, maybe Samsung could just 1 to 1 copy their products and get away with that. Would that be good for consumers? I don't think so. I am against patents and i'm actually against all patents; I don't believe they are for the greater good of humanity. If you cannot get your 'invested research money/time' (which is bullshit for most patents) back by execution, maybe you should just sell the entire research to a company that can and not try to peddle it yourself.

But as long as this kind of shit exists, don't worry about it. It doesn't affect you nor 'the consumer', Samsung has to say that as 1000s and 1000s of companies did before them who lost. In reality Samsung just pays something per infringing product sold to Apple and that's it. Hopefully cases like this will have companies fighting harder against patents and make pacts to open up patents for the real greater good. Not sure if I'll see that in my lifetime though :)

Nerdfest3• 14 years ago

It's not just those of us who won't buy from them. It's about how many people we tell who come to us for hardware and software advice, and it adds up very quickly.

tluyben22• 14 years ago

True. But the thing with that is (i don't know how it works out for you of course); I don't want people to turn up on my doorstep expecting help because I advised that product. With Apple I had that 0 times. My Macbook with which i'm typing this right now, is on top of a Windows laptop and next to another Windows laptop which I (in a moment of craziness?) advised. I'm fixing them; reinstalling Windows 7 because they messed it up by installing a trillion illegal games/apps and now 'its so slow' 'its broken' etc. I know you can do this on Mac OS X easily as well, but people just, well, don't. I think it's the price point (cheap cars dent easily not because they dent easier, but because people don't care as the cars are cheap) and the OS which just doesn't have the quadrillion shit apps coming out for it. Limiting even the illegal installs.

batista4• 14 years ago

Yes, all 100 of you (combined) will make a very big dent in Apple sales...

thirsteh2• 14 years ago

The level of Apple fanboyism on Hacker News is really evident in comment threads like these.

batista4• 14 years ago

So, you preemptively assume that anyone defending Apple in this thread or others cannot be a rational individual with valid arguments but surely a "fanboy".

In other words, yours is the only stance that can ever be right in this issue.

Am I getting this right?

Sambdala• 14 years ago

"Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!" -Steve Jobs

norswap• 14 years ago

There has been a lot of things (and a lot of nonsense) written about patents recently.

To me, this piece was spot on. A simply expressed reminder of why patents (at least, some) are evil.

Nerdfest3• 14 years ago

The worst part against software patents specifically, is that it's a patent on the idea, not the solution. Even if you come up with a vastly superior implementation of the same idea, you're 'infringing'.

ggchappell• 14 years ago

Let's not blame Apple for a court's decision. Blame the court.

Nerdfest3• 14 years ago

The judge and jury were both very poor at their jobs, but Apple gets at least half the blame. Just because the system is broken doesn't mean it's meant to be abused. They started this 'patent war', and I hope in the end, someone else finished it. I'm hoping for a 'SeaWare/PkArc' sort of conclusion to it, but consumers of their products are far less informed that they were at the time of PkArc.

smallsharptools• 14 years ago

Apple did what they had to do and Samsung did not just try to solve a usability problem, they willfully copied Apple even when they knew there were patents on these features. The reason Microsoft is exempt is because they licensed rights to these patents and agreed to steer clear of the aesthetics of the iPhone which they did with Nokia's version of Windows Phone. And I think the Metro UI is creative and innovated while Android and what Samsung is actually devoid of creativity and innovation.

Given all the years that Samsung has been making phones they could have come up with these solutions but they didn't. If tap to zoom was so obvious why didn't they do it? Why was Apple the first to do it?

Apple has been screwed before. And mostly by Microsoft copying features and putting them into Windows while marginalizing Apple just enough to keep their market share small enough so they were not a threat, but big enough so they could survive and create new features which Microsoft could "borrow" time and again. Innovation is a process and Apple does a good job of doing it incrementally with each OS X update. The original OS X did not have gestures. They worked on the iPad and iPhone for 6 years before releasing it. They carefully worked out the gestures, which the Open Source community was experimenting with but was completely ignored by Microsoft. Now Apple's OS X relies on a solid trackpad with lots of gestures in Mountain Lion and Microsoft is jumping in with many similar features in Windows 8 to make it a tablet-friendly OS. Without the patent protects Apple would continue to be marginalized and since they are known as a strong innovator I think it is best for them to defend their work as much as possible.

Consider what The Oatmeal's review or Telsa's contributions and how Edison took advantage of him because Tesla did not protect his work with patents while Edison leveraged the system as much as possible for his personal benefit. Tesla felt his work should benefit the world. The result was that Edison won, for now.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Apple's second act under Steve Jobs has been to fight to protect the hard work done by it's employees and continue pushing the envelope.

This is not the end of creativity and innovation for other companies. It is insulting and disgusting to suggest that. Copying Apple is not innovation. The likely result here will be more unique offerings from the Android OEMs who will be forced to blaze their own trail just as Microsoft has done with Windows Phone.

JacksonGariety• 14 years ago

"The things that Apple has highlighted are not inventions. It's simply solutions to common problems."

Name a consumer innovation that isn't a solution to a common problem.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. And if you really don't like the game, go change the game.

DigitalSea• 14 years ago

No company should be able to patent a grid of icons, a pinch-to-zoom gesture or shape of a phone. Fair enough I do agree to an extent that Samsung infringed, but the incompetence of the jury in this case will make for a delicious appeal and halt the celebrations.

Some of the solutions like pinch-to-zoom, etc would have mostly been solutions another company would have eventually come up with anyway.

Terretta• 14 years ago

Good job Apple?

All your complaints are about the patent system. Good job Congress. Good job Representatives. Good job voters. Good job you.

Focus calls for change where the change is due.

kapuzineralex• 14 years ago

Good point, came here to say the same.