What a difference a week makes. Last we heard Samsung sounded like they had only just begun to fight, now they've signed an agreement to cross-license and pay Microsoft a fee for every Android device they've sold, but according to the Wall Street Journal, they've also offered an olive branch to Apple as well.
It wasn't clear what benefit Apple would gain from any agreement, as details of the proposed deal were not discussed in full in front of the court. But Apple's attorney, Stephen Burley, conceded there was some potential benefit from an agreement on the matter. "(Samsung's) inconvenience would be diminished and we would be comforted" by such a deal, he said.
Microsoft's benefit was easier: money.
“Microsoft and Samsung see the opportunity for dramatic growth in Windows Phone and we’re investing to make that a reality,” said Andy Lees, president, Windows Phone Division, Microsoft. “Microsoft believes in a model where all our partners can grow and profit based on our platform.”
“Through the cross-licensing of our respective patent portfolios, Samsung and Microsoft can continue to bring the latest innovations to the mobile industry,” said Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, executive vice president of global product strategy at Samsung’s mobile communication division. “We are pleased to build upon our long history of working together to open a new chapter of collaboration beginning with our Windows Phone “Mango” launch this fall.”
Apple doesn't want money from Android ODMs, however. They don't want to make Android more expensive. They want to stop Samsung from "copying" them in order to make it less usable -- they want what they consider to be Apple patented technology taken out.
Google called the Microsoft deal "extortion", if Samsung does come to terms agreeable to Apple, what would Google call that?
Hopefully "done". Overly violating and overly litigating patents are too extremes I for one have had about enough of. Restoring some respect and balance to the equation might just allow everyone involved to stop investing in lawyers and start re-investing on the innovation that brought us iOS, Gingerbread, and Mango.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, TechCrunch
Reader comments
Samsung settles with Microsoft, offers Apple a deal
Lulz. If Google sold more than commercials I might have sympathy for them. But I hate commercials so I don't.
Don't know what Samsung could give Apple.
Better deals for the parts they produce, priority in production, exclusive factories, transfer of tech production.
And that's just what I can imagine right off the bat.
I wouldn't give them shit, apple wasn't the first with a tablet , they wernt the first with a touch screen phone. You don't see anyone trying to sue them for that .I own a Ipad and a touch, but my next tablet is going to be a android . apple is always slow to the game , this year its the notification bar, and watch how all these people are gonna make a big deal out of something they've been saying apple don't need . Next year its gonna be widgets, and so on and so forth.
Don't y'all get tired of buying the same phone form 2007 ??? Don't get me confused as one of these people that's bashing apple , and don't know what ios consist of . I own them also, and there's a lot of short comings . Most people that own a iphone don't own a android devise (not talking about playing with a friends phone for ten minutes) to know what your really missing . If my touch was my phone , after owning my Droid Charge, I would be pretty pissed off.
When Apple's non-design suits are based on technical gems such as Method and Apparatus for Displaying and Accessing Control and Status Information in a Computer System (a system that can pop open a window in response to input), and List Scrolling and Document Translation, Scaling and Rotation on a Touch-Screen Display (yes, the visual bounce effect is patented technology), and Application programming interfaces for scrolling operations (the concept of responding to a second finger), it is pretty hard to see how any manufacturer could not be infringing.
There is no "overly violating" of these sorts of patents to be balanced here. These are overly broad patents that should never have been filed, which should have been laughed out of the patent office once Apple did, and which should have never been allowed to clog the court system. Period.
Instead, this behavior is strongly rewarded, and after today we can look forward to more lawsuits for using hardware already present in the phone for image stabilization. It is only a matter of time before Google/Samsung/MS/Nokia file some similarly broad BS patents and go after Apple with them. Under the rules of the game as Apple plays, it is the only logical response. Yay for the patent system!
Disgraceful.
Most of the patents that are used to sue Apple are just as generic and broad. These broad patents force additional broad patents for protectionism (defense) as much as suits (offense)
[citation needed] on a lawsuit by any of those players that was not a countersuit in response to a suit Apple initiated.
Agreed on the vicious circle nature of the patent system -- just that Apple moving aggressively on it is going to amplify the problem.
Life in the big city. The kiddie game is down the street...
A game that costs 83 billion dollars each year -- one quarter of the entire private sector R&D budget -- in bogus legal fees.
Yeah, that's a game to be proud of, and encourage.
Yes. Concept Patents should only be granted in truly exceptional situations. The visual bounce effect, is a nice little flourish, not a significant idea. A patent like that suggest that bribery or blindness was involved.
Go Apple!!! I agree with Rene though. Let's put all this to bed! I honestly see good things in all three platforms. I think that Android will be great once the apps look better and they get it to let a battery live a little longer. WP Mango is beautiful! It's twitter and Facebook integration is what every OS should have IMHO. Now let's stop bitching and somebody make me a totally flat phone thats 100% see-through and all screen. At least 4 inches please!
I have to agree with Apple on the copying. There was a story on Cnet this morning about Samsung's first desktop launching in the US. Honestly; looking at the screen if you remove the Windows taskbar and some widgets on the left side it looks like an iOS screen complete with rounded icons in a grid; like an iPad if you strip away everything.
I also took a photo out of a consumer reports mag a few months back. They had a write up about smart phone cameras with a screen shot of the camera app for 8 of the top models. This included the iPhone 4 and then 3 Samsung models. I should put this photo up in the forums; all 3 camera apps on the Samsung models look just like the iPhone; the button is exactly the same. At least the others changed it a little.
Samsung really does appear to just copy/paste graphic elements from Apple products.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20113481-1/samsung-enters-u.s-deskto...
It's less that and more that Samsung wants to be able to meet the holiday sales season but this injunction and litigation are going to push out past the season which means huge lost revune for them.
What's ridiculous is that iOS 5 is using tons of Android features
Yawn...
Cough...
ideas "features" are not a copyrightable, but how it is done, interactions, technicals, how it appears, etc are.
In the widespread Samsung-v-Apple spat; I wonder if a clash of cultural sensitivities and deeply established corporate self images, are the real roots of the problems that divide them. A recent post elsewhere, suggested that Steve Jobs had tried to prevent things going down this path in (back in 2010) with the words "give Samsung a chance to do the right thing".
People have, rightly, seen this as a missed opportunity to resolve matters. But did key people at Samsung see it as a deeply insulting approach?
I think Apples beef with Samsung is all about politeness. They think Samsung are trying to steal a big chunk of a sector they created, by using a format and design they created. They consider it a threat (Samsung are a very capable company) but more than that, they think it is bloody rude - an insult.
Apple sees themselves as superior, because they have a conceptual and design rich heritage that has produced great products over three decades. They may even regard their lack of a manufacturing base as further proof of their conceptual purity and enduring originality (but that is just my guess). Because of all that, the people who run Apple could unwittingly insult others; yet think of it as being a conciliatory, even generous approach. Apple has been known to play "hard ball" and expect it all to be forgotten once the deal is done - which is the American way. But not everybody thinks or feels that way; and sometimes this kind of "cultural" difference has profound effects.
Samsung design and make products in several sectors. Like Apple, they have an inventive and original design team, which is an important part of their commercial success. They see themselves as a design rich technology company that can manufacture products they develop to a very high standard. Perhaps they even feel they are better than Apple because of that; but I doubt they would say so, even to Apple, even now (they would consider it, very rude). Culturally Samsung are polite, but possibly quite sensitive. They would deeply prefer polite and sensitive negotiation to a courtroom brawl - especially with a valued client (which Apple has been for some time).
Put yourself in Samsung's place back in 2010. Imagine those words from Steve Jobs being read or possibly just repeated, in a meeting or discussion. Now an American might have seen it as a playful punch on the shoulder; with an option to punch back yet be more light hearted and thrash out a deal. Perhaps in Korea these words looked like a deeply arrogant insult; an invitation to "make something of it" dude! That could explain why the last 12 month have been a steady cold escalation in tension that ended with Samsung saying they would “more robustly defend their position”.
I think Samsung are wondering how the hell things got this bad and why. Perhaps they are beginning to look at the world from Apple’s perspective in search of a solution. Key people at Apple need to look at the world from Samsung’s perspective and start looking for solutions, rather than “strategically” as a means of beating Samsung. It is just a cultural misunderstanding that has gone way out of control. I hope both parties realise that and start talking about a solution.
Dear Rene
I think these are very different cases. Samsung-v-Microsoft is a purely commercial dispute. But Samsung-v-Apple is both commercial and emotional, from both sides. Hence the problems.
Perhaps Apple needs to stop being so "American" and Samsung needs to stop being so "Korean"; they need a common language to insult one another in. To get all the emotional S__T out of their systems and resolve matters like grown ups.
Apple probably won't take the deal, they're more for eliminating the competition. Remember when they tried suing Microsoft back in he 80s?
Licensing is what Microsoft does best. That's how they got to where they are now. By licensing DOS to IBM, then Windows to PC makers (and forcing them all to pay Microsoft for every PC they sold even if it didn't ship with Windows installed), and now by licensing their patented technologies to the Android handset makers.
I hear Oracle's legal team is pretty tough too. Google will be lucky to get out of their incompatible Java-clone suit with just a (presumably very expensive) licensing deal with Oracle. Yet more gasoline hosed into the Android dumpster fire of hurt.