Apple loses patent claim against Samsung in Tokyo court

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/apple-loses-to-samsung-in-japan-patent-case/287057-11.html

by factorialboy • 14 years ago

140 70 14 years ago

ibnlive.in.com

akent2• 14 years ago

Very light on details, anyone got more info?

gokhan• 14 years ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/technology/in-japan-a-setb...

alokm• 14 years ago

Interesting URL it says Sept 1 for a story dated 31 aug. I wonder is it a conservative estimate of the date to take all time zones in consideration.

akent2• 14 years ago

More text, yes, but not much more detail about the actual patents in question: "an Apple patent on technology that synchronizes music and videos between gadgets and servers."

factorialboy3• 14 years ago

Plenty of sources via Google News: https://news.google.co.in/news/story?q=reuters+japan+apple+s...

ekianjo2• 14 years ago

There's a serious lack of information in this post. No background, nothing. Is it the same kind of patent claim as the one that Samsung faced in the US?

factorialboy3• 14 years ago

Sorry about that. That is a popular Indian general news website, doesn't focus much on technology or legal news.

Here's the Reuters India link: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/apple-samsung-japan...

baq• 14 years ago

apple wins in america. samsung wins in asia. coincidence?

fchollet• 14 years ago

If anything it could be a sign that the US trial was flawed, because believe me, the Japanese don't particularly like (or benefit from the success of) Korean companies.

epo• 14 years ago

Really? Is this because the same things were being tried in both courts? Or because the Japanese are racist? Or perhaps because the Japanese don't particularly like (or benefit from the success of) Apple?

If anything, your comment is nonsense.

doe88• 14 years ago

Or maybe because different countries have different laws.

dagw• 14 years ago

"Asia" isn't an homogeneous mass. And historically Japan haven't been overly fond of the Koreans and really have no reason to want to see them succeed.

josteink3• 14 years ago

In Japanese TV, Koreans are often portrayed in the same way as a US tv-show would portray a Mexican in a parodical way, i.e. primitive and under-developed.

I doubt the Japanese courts would hand them any free favours.

lunarscape• 14 years ago

Not exactly the same. Samsung's loss against Apple in the US was devastating. It wasn't a clear cut loss for Apple in South Korea. The South Korean court also found against Samsung and banned some of their products.

jvm• 14 years ago

Just like how American courts always side with Mexican companies against European ones! Wait, I think something's wrong with this picture.

BitMastro• 14 years ago

Well Samsung won also in UK, with the 'Samsung did not copy iPad' advert

oemera• 14 years ago

It's a shame that a 'article' with so little information makes on the frontpage of HN. These days the headline needs just to name Apple and it is guaranteed to show up on the frontpage.

I wonder if someone could write a plugin to just ban all Apple news from HN.

Edit: typo.

ekianjo2• 14 years ago

Should be pretty easy to write a filter that removes all Apple-related news on HN. That would actually be a cool feature for a HN reader app.

factorialboy3• 14 years ago

Sorry for posting a link with very little details.

But I think this is a breaking story and needs to be covered.

Here are some more sources: https://news.google.co.in/news/story?q=reuters+japan+apple+s...

elvisds• 14 years ago

I use a chrome extension called HackerNew[1] that lets you do this. Look for 'filters' on the top right of the page, once you have installed it

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbp...

A1kmm• 14 years ago

If you have Greasemonkey: https://lanthaps.com/static/noapple.user.js

rimantas• 14 years ago

There will be interesting news related to Apple, but all those patent cases should disappear, no matter who is involved. There is very little possibility for a constructive discussion.

josteink3• 14 years ago

If nothing else, it reinforces that people who think they are being hip when they make Apple-only or iOS-only or iOS/Retina-tailored solutions are working for the dark side(tm). Heck, even if you make mobile apps, also for Android, but do iOS first, you are part of the problem.

I think these people need to hear it again and again and again until they actually get it and stop supporting one of the least ethical companies in the tech industry today. You are giving the wicked emperor more power. Stop doing that! It wont make him any nicer.

I say keep them coming. Filtering news to ease the conciousness of people assisting "evil" makes no sense.

We should be the ones driving Apple. Apple should not be the one driving us. We've seen the result of that already.

Edit: specific industry-niche qualifier was needed.

npguy• 14 years ago

that is not true. i have been trying to get attention to a comment thread with Fred Wilson (usv) reg. AAPL and AirBnB, but in vain.

xmmx• 14 years ago

Do you really still expect quality content on HN nowadays? Even after that week where 5 articles along the lines of "I woke up at 5am and ate a slice of cold ham to start my metabolism" made it to the front page?

veidr4• 14 years ago

It should be noted that in Japan, such cases aren't tried by lay juries. (Actually even for criminal cases, they are only just starting citizen jury trials.)

A judge, or panel of judges, decides such cases, and I believe that the ones who try patent cases are, generally speaking, reasonably competent (and thus much less likely to make the incontrovertible errors seen in the recent US Apple-Samsung case).

sillysaurus2• 14 years ago

Which errors?

veidr4• 14 years ago

E.g., finding a given Samsung product didn't infringe on Apple's patents, but nevertheless awarding damages for it.

Edit: I believe the judge fixed the most egregious errors, but post-verdict interviews with the jury make it seem like they were confused on various different fronts.

Here's one link describing some of those problems: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390

da_n2• 14 years ago

Superfluous much?

"lay juries" - A jurer is by definition a layman. If a jury was full of experts it would completely miss the point.

"incontrovertible errors" - I guess you are talking about the (relatively) tiny misappropriated damages? This was fixed at the time, and it was not denied or disputed. Wonder why you chose to qualify this as such and not provide any specifics?

Edit: clarity.

veidr4• 14 years ago

Whatever, bro; I have some iPads and iPhones (all 8 models, actually) to go along with my Android (and various other) devices, but I certainly don't have a 'team', whether it be Wal-Mart vs Target, Apple vs Sony, or broccoli vs cauliflower.

A juror is by definition a layman in America; however, other places do in fact exist, and there are and have been all sorts of qualifications for being on juries around the world.

Finally, you are right: it was indeed the impossible logic of the damage awards that makes it possible to just say it plain that the jury in that made a fast decision that was clearly (incontrovertibly) erroneous.

(I think that other aspects of the verdict also show incorrect understanding/thinking, but that discussion gets more nuanced.)

jussij• 14 years ago

> If a jury was full of experts it would completely miss the point.

The "lay jury" in the USA Apple vs Samsung case where obviously a bunch of idiots, so if the "jury was full of experts" I suspect then may well have done a better job.

How can any competent jury in a patent law suit some how decide to ignore "prior art"!

Read for yourself: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-appl...

Edit: From the link:

> After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art." "In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down."

KaoruAoiShiho• 14 years ago

Incontrovertible errors: Jury foreman says Apple patents valid due to different processor architecture

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4446102

bluedanieru• 14 years ago

They aren't juries, they're judges. Lay judges.

veidr4• 14 years ago

Yes, sorry, you are right. The new law here in Japan requires citizens to serve as "lay judges" and not "juries".

I don't know offhand all of the distinctions here (I think one difference is lay judges decide both guilt/innocence and the sentence, if guilty) but I think the Japanese system pretty similar to what Americans would think of as a "jury".

Precisely speaking, however, they are indeed "lay judges".

Apple loses patent claim against Samsung in Tokyo court

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