Samsung Galaxy Products Are No Apple Copies!

[Duindam]

The verdict is that the Samsung Galaxy line of Phones and Tabs are no copies of Apple products, this according to an European court in The Hague, the Netherlands. The verdict has major impact on several Apple patents claims, as the defense of Samsung showed the court that all patent claims and registered designs where not unique to Apple, matter of fact Samsung suggested that they were inspired by movies like 2001 Space Odyssey (movie from 1968) and several other SCIFI movies in which the court could easily see that a hand-held tab computer design was not something invented by Apple designers, also the way of moving objects over a touch screen to get a desired effect was shown in movies long before Apple patented the idea.

Also the Dutch court was not amused that Apple entered altered photographic evidence that was purely intended to mislead the court. (Apple had submitted scaled photos of both the iPad and Galaxy Tab 10.1 while changing the size and appearance of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 so it looked more like the Apple iPad.)

The court in the Netherlands ruled that the way the Samsung mobile phones are using the photo gallery is a violation of a Apple patent, and therefore banned the Samsung phones from sales after October this year. Samsung already said that they will not delay the sales of new phones and that a simple software update will "fix" the problem...

The ruling of the Netherlands court will have affect in the whole European union... and the findings will probably influence courts around the world...

[bkkjames]

Well the battery life of their fancy new 20k phone is like that of the original ipad.

[lomatopo]

Good news for consumers and Samsung, the double-whammy for AAPL id disturbing for shareholders. The "Gallery" issue should be easily resolved, I honestly don't think it's anything special on my SGS1. There are probably better photo managers in the Market?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576528291064210906.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-samsung-court-idUSTRE77O0OU20110825

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-25/samsung-gains-after-jobs-resigns-as-ceo-on-speculation-apple-may-end-fight.html

[moo9]

Being Apple minded before, I sold all stuff when realizing that they are getting to big and forcing competitors with their money out of the business. Anyway, it is kind of crazy to pay 25-28 k Bht. for a phone! Just the Macbooks I like, but all the other stuff is pure marketing hype.

[Phil Conners]

Good news for consumers and Samsung, the double-whammy for AAPL id disturbing for shareholders. The "Gallery" issue should be easily resolved, I honestly don't think it's anything special on my SGS1. There are probably better photo managers in the Market?

For picture gallery software I switched from the standard "Gallery" app to QuickPic. Really neat, check it out. Free of course.

[nikster]

Yes. Totally original products that have nothing at all to do with the iPhone / iPad... honest!

[janverbeem]

^ You mean Apple copied the idea of the others and put it in a new jacket?

[lomatopo]

I liked the reference to the tablet in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). There are some clips on Youtube and sure enough, there's just one genesis for today's tablets, and even smartphones. I'm assuming Steve Jobs saw this film when it was released and it made an impression.

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/28/arthur-c-clarkes-2001-newspad-finally-arrives-nine-years-late/

There are also countless other reference designs in comic books, science fiction novels, film and TV.

Finally, Roger Fidler has been working on tablets since 1981, with many documented prototypes, and even content and UI.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-monroe/apples-new-tablet-been-th_b_416960.html

The fact the most of today's tablets look similar is mostly a function of the display, of course Samsung is a leading designer and manufacturer of these touch-screen displays, much to Apple's chagrin I imagine.

[Crushdepth]

^ You mean Apple copied the idea of the others and put it in a new jacket?

Give the man a banana, that's exactly right. Improved, yes. Invented, no way.

[lomatopo]

I'm behind on reading The New Yorker, but this Malcom Gladwell article, "Creation Myth" (May 16, 2011) was fascinating.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_gladwell

some quotes:

In late 1979, a twenty-four-year-old entrepreneur paid a visit to a research center in Silicon Valley called Xerox parc. He was the co-founder of a small computer startup down the road, in Cupertino. His name was Steve Jobs.

So Jobs proposed a deal: he would allow Xerox to buy a hundred thousand shares of his company for a million dollars—its highly anticipated I.P.O. was just a year away—if parc would “open its kimono.”

Jobs, meanwhile, raced back to Apple, and demanded that the team working on the company’s next generation of personal computers change course. He wanted menus on the screen. He wanted windows. He wanted a mouse. The result was the Macintosh, perhaps the most famous product in the history of Silicon Valley.