Displaying items by tag: patents

Apple rested their case today in the Samsung V Apple trial currently underway. Apple’s last big hurrah was parade their licensing chief in front of the jury. From looking at the testimony it was an attempt to show how much Apple tries to cooperate with the competitors. We are not sure that their effort was successful though. The primary focus was to put in a value on the “infringement” that Apple claims Samsung is guilty of.

In following a trial as big as the Samsung V Apple trial there are small things that popup over the course of a case this large and this public. We have already found out that both Samsung and Apple tend to release the number of units “shipped” to investors rather than the number of units actually sold. This is not an uncommon item as when product is shipped to a company like Best Buy or Target they are still listed as a unit “sold” for many companies. But there are other items that come out as well; one of these is only visible if you look closely. This is the strength of the actual claim(s) involved. Although both sides often object just to make things annoying for the other what we have noticed is that Apple appears to want considerably more real data and evidence blocked than Samsung.

We heard a great story this morning surrounding the Samsung V Apple case. So far we have counted four sites that have repeated the analysis that takes massive liberties with data and also blurs the lines between the words “shipped” and sold. As we all know every quarter companies like IDC and Gartner release their estimates based on the number of units shipped to through the channel. They do this for most devices and are used to help predict growth and also to help investors. These reports us classify shipments in the following way “Shipments include shipments to distribution channels or end users. OEM sales are counted under the vendor/brand under which they are sold” this makes them somewhat unreliable to say the least.

Well it looks like CISPA has been shot down in the US for now. This was thanks to a fairly big internet campaign to let people know that the vote was happening (it was voted on yesterday) and while most of the world was watching the antics of Samsung and Apple the Senate tried to vote the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act into law.  But to be honest with you toward the end (and as we get closer to the elections) we had a feeling this one would be scrapped. It was too much for many voters who already feel their privacy is being abused. The Senators knew that passing this would be a quick ticket back home as the popular opinion was against them.

Yesterday Apple reported their earnings for Q3 2012, asked an Australian court for $2.5 Billion in damages, and were granted a patent for technology that has (again) been on the market for a few years. Although each of these could probably fill an entire article we decided to lump them into one today so we can get to some real news after we wrap things up here. So let’s kick things off with the Q3 earnings call which fell short of expectations almost across the board.

Apple is in an interesting position right now and it is one that we are not sure will work out to their benefit. Although Apple is following other smart phone manufacturers and catching up to where they were 2 years ago they are also working very hard to patent items that should NEVER be allowed. Because of this we have a feeling that Apple will be pushing their legal battle on the smartphone and tablet front even harder than before. The problem is that they will only come out looking bad in the end especially overseas where some of the courts are starting to wake up to Apple’s pattern of broad “attack” patents meant for use against competitors.

We have been following Apple’s free run through the patent office for quite a while now (and I covered it long before starting this site). In the beginning Apple would patent advancements or refinements on technology they “borrowed” from others. Often these improvements were so noticeable that they were close to being a new technology. Even Steve Jobs once admitted to shamelessly stealing the ideas of others. What they were not doing at the time was using the patent system as a tool to stifle competition and they had not built the mythology that they invent everything just yet.

There is an interesting item that has popped up on the internet. It seems that Nokia is concerned about Asus and Google’s new tablet, the Nexus 7. What makes this very interesting is the timing for Nokia coming forward and bringing this to light. According to a statement made by Nokia (and originally reported by The Inquirer) Nokia is not going so far as to file a law suit, but they do encourage both Asus and Google to get in touch… soon.

We have often written that the continuous stream of patent lawsuits and injunctions that are pushed around the globe are costly, dangerous and anti-consumer, but now someone has actually gone out and done the math to find out just how much damage they do per year. The study performed by James E. Bessen and Michael E Meurer both from the Boston University School of Law states that in 2011 more than $29 Billion (with a B) in direct costs were incurred all because of what are called Non-Practicing Entities (most call them patent trolls). This $29 Billion also came during a down economy and affected small to medium sized businesses the most.

You know there is nothing better than seeing a company mythology fall apart, especially if that mythology is one that has perpetuated a lie and became part of a much larger campaign intended to mislead consumers. Yes we are talking about Apple here, but you probably already knew that. The part of the mythology in question here is the falsehood that Apple has to invent everything and then the rest of the tech world copies them.