“As the Apple v. Samsung trial neared completion last week, I worried about how a jury of nine ordinary folks were going to make sense of hours of highly technical testimony, more than a hundred pages of jury instructions, and a 20 page verdict form,” Steve Wildstrom writes for TechPinons. “I needn’t have worried. Whatever happens on appeal, I think the jury did an admirable job making sense of the case they were given. They certainly did better than much of the tech media, which have made a complete mess of the verdict.”
Wildstrom writes, “Samsung contributed greatly to this with a post-trial statement that said: ““It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies.” It’s more unfortunate that the claim was a gross exaggeration that was swallowed whole by many writers.”
“The actual issues in the Samsung case involved several patents covering the overall design and “trade dress” of the iPhone and iPad and three Apple “utility” patents that cover specific software behaviors,” Wildstrom writes. “One covers the bounceback behavior of screen objects when you try to scroll beyond the edge of the display. A second concerns how the device differentiates between a one-finger scroll gesture and a two-finger move gesture. The third covers tap-to-zoom, which expands objects in the display centered on the point of the tap.”
Read more in the full article here.
Very good article.
And any commenters who insist on posting misleading or uninformed opinions, are corrected with concise civility.
Well done, Steve Wildstrom.
Samsung has no other recourse except to minimize and trivialize Apple’s claims, creating emotional arguments that conveniently fail to take in the whole picture. Then claim they are the true great innovators being done wrong. Talk about manipulation! And the lame and extremely techtarded tech press walks in lock step behind them without using anything resembling unbiased impartiality and fairness. However Shamstung (the real bad guys) can make Apple look like the bad guys.
The tech press is more FOS than I am. Journalism in the 21st century involves no journalism at all. It’s just whoever shouts the loudest that gets all the attention.
As said in one of the original article posts (I think), The misleading statements by Samsung, and even Apple, are not the issue. It’s the shallow, gullible, and lazy tech writers who do no research, and simply regurgitate what they hear. As the poster stated, “It’s the job of spinners to spin, and the job of reports not to get spun.”
Yep.
And even more surprising….. a trial, jury, internal memos and e-mails, witnesses, and all that, required to determine/figure whether water is wet.
When the copying and replica of Apple’s products by Samsung is very very evident.
What?…. Can Lucy or trade/commerce bodies not see it??
It’s the same as the plagiarism case in an undergraduate or graduate class; grab your college’s work change the words/wording and you are done.
Apple, on their next keynote,should really make a little comment when they’re comparing the iPhone sales with competitors. They’ll have pictures of windows phones and other phones up there on the screen with the iPhone and after commenting about how the iPhone 4S are incredible, Tim Cook makes a comment like: “Oh, and one thing you’ll notice is that all these phones are rectangular and have rounded corners.” With a wry smile he continues: “We’ve, obviously got no problem with that.”
Finally, a well thought out article that shows real investigative journalism. Give this writer a Pulitzer prize.
‘trade dress’ is a real issue.
Have you seen the latest TIvio box – for some reason it just happens to be the same shape as Apple TV – now for a phone you could argue that the form factor limits variation to some degree 0 but not a set top box !!
The problem is that other companies just don’t have design taste and excellence so the copy Apple. Just look at the Google spherical Q that got pulled almost as soon as it was released – the sphere was a wierd choice 0 especially when you added the cables – which completely ruined the spherical aesthetic !!
‘trade dress’ is a real issue.
Have you seen the latest TIvo stream box – for some reason it just happens to be the same shape as Apple TV – now for a phone you could argue that the form factor limits variation to some degree – but not a set top box !!
The problem is that other companies just don’t have design taste and excellence so they copy Apple. Just look at the Google spherical Q that got pulled almost as soon as it was released – the sphere was a weird choice – especially when you added the cables – which completely ruined the spherical aesthetic !!