Charles Babcock:
What a patent and legal system should aim to prevent is theft by copying, such as stealing the technology of a competitor’s product, or creating such a conscious, copycat duplication that one product can be confused with another, thus letting the profits of an originator be taken by an imitator. Samsung did not do this.
Did Charles not see the same trial the rest of us saw? That is exactly what Samsung did. Documents from Samsung’s own executives proved that’s what they did and the jury said that’s what Samsung did.
I need to know who Charle’s dealer is, I’m looking for some stuff that makes me live in an imaginary world as well.
must be some rarefied fart-huffing in the dreamland Charles hails from.
Babcock demonstrates complete ignorance of not just the ruling, but the law as well as the context. In his first paragraph he suggests that Samsung may be guilty of too closely copying, and should be hung up by it’s thumbs, not its neck.
Which is exactly what the jury ruled, and exactly the punishment they ascribed.
He then goes on to completely mischaracterize the law, the jury’s ruling, and the severity of the punishment. All in the name of putting the patent system on mock trial in his public square.
It’s unfortunate. Because there are plenty of valid criticisms available without resorting to mistruths, and by resorting to lies, he does a disservice to himself, his readers, and the entire industry.
It’s the classic Samsung didn’t do it and instead of giving an explanation why they didn’t they try to explain why Apple’s patents should be invalid.
Samsung copied Apple period. Wether you think that that should be illegal and be protected by patents is another problem, and a much more valid point to make. Mixing the two just shows that you don’t understand the system.
The power of denial is strong with this one.
Who the fuck is Charles Babcock? And who gave him the opportunity to write bullshit into the internet?
To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you go to trial with the law that you have.
FTA: “I often see small, muscular-looking cars with lines similar to the BMW 300 series, but they have Swedish or Japanese nameplates on them.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Swedish or Japanese car that I couldn’t tell from a BMW 300 series at a short distance. There are several Samsung products that I can’t identify easily when they’re next to an iPhone or iPad.
Modeling your product after another successful one is one thing. Blatant copying is another. I have a feeling that BMW would have something to say about it if another manufacturer copied them as closely as Samsung did Apple.
“or creating such a conscious, copycat duplication that one product can be confused with another…”
I forget which one it was (iPhone? iPad?) but didn’t the judge hold up one from Apple and one from Samsung and ask the Samsung lawyer to identify which was which?
And the lawyer couldn’t, from 10 feet? As in, she confused one product with another?
Right. Let’s just work with the rules and show people that they are wrong with said rules.
Because patenting finger movements is what the world should be all about.
I am all for patenting or copyrighting how something looks and what things are made of, but the minute we started allowing programmers to patent code and biotech firms to patent DNA, the world was screwed.
I said this before – in Europe we are now in the process of extending copyright law to span 90 years – after the person who created something died. 90 years.
Samsung was just sentenced to hand over 8.5 billion dollars (1 bn in fines, 7.5 bn in profits made from the products that infringe). That’s 70% of the 2011 profits. From ONE trial. Samsung is the ONLY company that’s making any profits from Android smarthphones, all the other manufacturers are near a black zero. We are pretty close to Apple monopolizing ALL profits in the Smartphone market (excluding Microsoft, because, you know, they aren’t manufacturing anything, they are just licensing their patents).
Meaning that soon we only have ONE manufacturer actually making money and the Windows company that isn’t making anything making money.
If Apple were the oil industry we would all have carpal tunnel syndrome from all the finger-wagging we’d be doing.
Copyright and patent law is completely fucked up and you guys are celebrating wins. It’s as if Apple were A-Rod, hitting a 400 on a Yankee team that moved to Nova Scotia, all BALCOd up.
Let me quote Charlie Sheen: “Duh… winning!”