“Star designers are being pitted against tech titans in the latest episode of Apple’s legal battle with Samsung,” Tim Bradshaw reports for The Financial Times. “More than 100 design leaders, including Lord Norman Foster, Sir Paul Smith, Sir Terence Conran, Calvin Klein and Dieter Rams, have joined Apple’s side as the long-running patent case is considered by the US Supreme Court.
“Samsung’s appeal to the Supreme Court hinges on what portion of a copied product’s profits can be awarded in damages to a patent holder. It is the first time in decades that the top court in the US has considered an issue relating to design patents,” Bradshaw reports. “In an amicus brief filed on Thursday, 111 international design professionals and academics urged the court to uphold the 129-year-old ruling by the US Congress that ‘it is the design that sells the article’ and therefore patent infringement should incur damages equal to the whole of the profits generated by a copycat product.”
MacDailyNews Note: The amicus brief in full in here.
“The submission marks the first intervention by the design community in the high-profile case, after a jury in California handed what was originally more than $1bn in damages against Samsung to Apple four years ago,” Bradshaw reports. “‘It became very clear to leading designers in the US and design researchers globally that Samsung, should they prevail in their effort to remake the compensation methodology for infringement, would create an existential threat to design professionals who rely on intellectual property for value and protection,’ Charles Mauro, founder of New York design consultancy Mauro New Media and law firm Orrick, said in an interview.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Do the right thing, U.S. Supreme Court. Give Apple some modicum of justice finally.
The main reason why Samsung et al. were able to sell phones and tablets at all was because they made fake iPhones and fake iPads designed to fool the unwitting (who are now finally waking up in droves, by the way, and upgrading to iPhones in ever-increasing numbers) in much the same way as how Microsoft et al. profited wildly from upside-down and backwards fake Macs at the end of the 20th century. Google, Samsung, HTC, Xiaomi, et al. are the Microsofts, HPs, Dells, and eMachines of the new century.
Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
And, here’s what cellphones looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
People who buy Android phones and tablets reward thieves.
SEE ALSO:
Apple to U.S. Supreme Court: Samsung stole our patents, should end its appeals and finally pay up – August 1, 2016
U.S. Supreme Court to hear Samsung’s appeal of Apple design patent case on October 11th – July 14, 2016
U.S. DOJ asks Supreme Court to overturn ruling that favored Apple over Samsung’s iPhone copying – June 9, 2016
Apple suggests Federal Circuit panel violated U.S. Constitution in patent fight with Samsung – March 30, 2016
Supreme Court to hear Samsung appeal in Apple patent case – March 21, 2016
As a designer I hope they succeed.
Just took a look at the actual brief of Amici Curiae. At the end, there is the list of all 111 of the signatories, which is a virtual “Who is Who” of world’s design; about the only name that is missing on that list is Jonny Ive.
And the text is clear, easy to understand and extremely persuasive.
It will be quite interesting to now see the SCOTUS decision on this (and if it is split, who voted which way).
Knowing Clarence Thomas, he will rule against Apple because the Founding Fathers didn’t have iPhones, or mention them specifically in the Constitution.
No. Judge Thomas will call the RNC and ask them to make his ruling.
Fair judge, vs
Activist judge, vs
Political judge, vs
Ignorant judge, vs . . .
*tweak*
and triple the charge, it couldn’t have been a more willful theft.
And Then This Happened:
Recent Samsung Patent Filing Includes Images of Apple Watch
The South Korean company’s patent application for a “Wearable Device” features several design drawings of the Apple Watch that appear to be based on Apple Watch marketing materials and images, as was discovered by Patently Apple and Business Insider.
Stupid, lazy, anti-creative, ripoff ScamScum.
Now watch the USPTO not notice the prior art right there in the patent application, allowing the patent. (o_0)