“Officially, it’s Apple versus Samsung Electronics in another tech patent face-off in a San Jose courtroom this week,” Brian X. Chen reports for The New York Times. “But there is another company with a lot at stake in the case — Google.”
“In a lawsuit, Apple is seeking about $2 billion in damages from Samsung for selling phones and tablets that Apple says violate five of its mobile software patents,” Chen reports. “Some features in Samsung devices that Apple objects to are part of Google’s Android operating system… if Apple wins, Google could have to make changes to critical Android features, and Samsung and other Android phone makers might have to modify the software on their phones.”
“‘Google’s been lurking in the background of all these cases because of the Android system,’ said Mark P. McKenna, a professor who teaches intellectual property law at Notre Dame. ‘Several people have described the initial battle between Samsung and Apple as really one between Apple and Google,'” Chen reports. “this second fight has to be about more than money, said James Bessen, a law lecturer at Boston University. He said that if Apple just wanted money, it would have already agreed to settle.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want. – Steve Jobs to Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt, March 26, 2010
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Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
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Apple already has its first victory in new $2 billion Samsung patent infringement fight – March 31, 2014
Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial begins today (link to live blog) – March 31, 2014
Google is one of the most treasonous US companies in history giving away crown jewels of our inventions to foreign nations to profit instead of our own citizens. I avoid Google products as much as humanly possible on the internet and encourage others to consider the same.
twimoon1 – Nicely said!!!
We know Evil. It’s in our genes. Slime balls. Oh if only I hadn’t bought 3 nest thermostats and one Protect.
Burn your house down. That’ll learn ’em.
I don’t even have a Nest or Protect but i will burn my house down to spite them anyway !-)
BUT… First i will run up huge energy bills having my house at 95 degrees so i can charge them for that too when the system burns down my house because my heater did not respond to an email required for control when house was set to go to 500 degrees !-)
Easy money
Oh wait, not so easy, i would have to completely replace my font collection, better back up now!
wow, i almost sound like google?
That should read:
“Apple’s war on GOOGLE has SAMSUNG in crossfire”
=
Google Crime (nee Chrome)
I wish Apple would buy Yahoo, and then destroy Google in search technology.
Unfortunately it’s too late for such strict action. People are addicted to Google no matter how good others become. People wouldn’t change and if Apple forced their hand Google would pull in their lobbying power to bring in plenty of unwanted scrutiny.
Only solution is a slow detox. Bug some would say that’s already in motion, just takes time.
MDN, don’t forget the Newton!
But let’s be honest, most people don’t care about innovation. The market is often won by the biggest, not the best. Moreover, the first product may be the most innovative, but the second one usually is refined more than the first, with many more bugs worked out. In that regard, Apple is typically NOT the innovator, but rather the refiner. There were dozens of MP3 players before Apple got the iPod ecosystem going. Today there are dozens of “smart” watches and health/sports monitors of all kinds — all developed by people who don’t work in Cupertino. Don’t they deserve any credit for being innovators?
How about the companies that develop display technologies — you know, OLED screens and glorious 4K displays, stuff that Apple has never made. Is that not innovative?
Hands-free operation and controller-free gaming [Kinect]. Not innovative?
Sorry, MDN, but your recurring theme that nobody but Apple is innovative has worn mighty thin since Cook took the helm. Apple is now all about refinement, not true first-to-market innovation.
As much as I hate all the courtroom drama being enacted between Apple and Samsung (or Apple and whomever for that matter) I have never had the feeling that it was all about money (at least from Apple’s end).
Sure, they’re seeking monetary recompense, but it has always felt to me that the people who run Apple (Tim Cook and before him, Steve Jobws) as well as their design guru, Sir Jony Ive, were deeply insulted by the way their IP was being appropriated.
So sure that’s about money, but it’s a bit more complex
Nevertheless, I wish Apple attacked Google first for the Android interface, and then attack Google to farm out Samsung manufacturing plant out to design Google phones.
Ther. Mo. Nu. Cle. Ar.
I cannot say I am an expert in patent matters nor follow these patent cases in great detail. However, from what I read a lot of the cases are crazy. One company sues another for apparently copying something pretty generic that has been around for ages, then they themselves do the same and claim what they have done is different. It seems to me a lot of what is in the spotlight now was around before the iPhone anyway, so I cannot see why there is all this fuss, the only people who gain are the lawyers.