“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
MacDailyNews Note: HTC makes Google’s rebadged “Nexus One.”
Apple reinvented the mobile phone in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone, and did it again in 2008 with its pioneering App Store, which now offers more than 150,000 mobile applications in over 90 countries. Over 40 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.
Source: Apple Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: Boom! Here we go (finally)! We’ve been waiting for this day for what seems like forever.
A sickening chill just swept through the executive offices of many an iPhone wannabe. This time there’s no poorly-written contract signed by an unprepared sugared water salesbozo.
• We’ve been pushing the state-of-the-art in every facet of design… We’ve been innovating like crazy for the last few years on this and we’ve filed for over 200 patents for all of the inventions in iPhone. And we intend to protect them. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs when unveiling iPhone, January 9, 2007
• We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP, in which case we will go after them. We will not stand for having our IP ripped-off and we will use any weapons at our disposal [to stop it]. – Apple COO Tim Cook, January 21, 2009
See also: The specific Apple patents over which Apple is suing HTC
With regard to the $40 billion: It certainly could be used as a temporary cushion should the costs of litigation become high. However, don’t count on the $40 billion being actually ‘spent’ on litigation. The outcome of successful lawsuits against ripoff fake-competitors is multi-fold:
1) The winner gets the profits incurred by the ripoff.
2) Damage fees to the winner of the suit.
3) Diversion of the market back over to the source technology of the winner, resulting in legal profits.
4) What money was used for legal fees, such as money borrowed from the $40 billion, is restored.
Now, if Apple went all frivolous and lost a bunch of lawsuits, that would be a great way to kill off their reserves. That scenario is highly unlikely at this time.
Nokia sued Apple (and not Foxconn) because:
1. Foxconn doesn’t sell devices under their own brand to the consumers; Apple does, under Apple brand; and more importantly,
2. Nokia has no strategic partnership with Apple, and would very much like for Apple to fail in the mobile business (unlike Apple-Google relationship, which is for the most part mutually beneficial).
The lawsuit against the handset manufacturers is strategically brilliant. Even with Microsoft, there is still this low-level partnership (MS Office, the whole MacBU, Exchange APIs, etc), which Apple would risk to undermine, if they had a law suit against MS for patent infringement in WinMob. There are no partnerships with HTC (or Nokia, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson…), only direct competition. Simple, elegant, clean and effective in every way (neutralising the ascending threat of Android, and preempting any possible threat from WinMob 7).
Another reason to celebrate today, aside from Texas Independence Day.
…”I think that the “Apple uber alles” crowd also needs to grow up and accept that sometime Apple will fail to defend its own infractions on somebody else’s IP.”
The point here is fairly simple. In vast majority of “Rocket Docket” patent infringement lawsuits against Apple, we have a no-name company with a thick patent portfolio, whose sole business model is patent litigation, suing Apple for infringing on a patent that has never been implemented by the original registrant, nor the subsequent owner. In other words, technology that, for all intents and purposes, never existed anywhere outside of the USPTO archives. In vast majority of cases, Apple essentially invented the same technology on their own, unaware that someone else came up with the same idea before and patented it. This isn’t unusual in the rapidly evolving technology business (for two people/engineering teams to come up with the same or very similar ideas).
On the other hand, we have here companies that suddenly started building these multi-touch phones that awfully resemble iPhone in every meaningful way. They haven’t come up with this technology on their own, independently of Apple; they carefully examined the iPhone (possibly even reverse-engineering some of the software/hardware) and re-created the functionality, making cosmetic changes.
There is a fundamental difference, and that is why “MDN fanboi cheerleader editorial team” and the “libertarian/teabagger crowd” reacts the way it reacts.
@Slater = Moron
@ m159
Did you guys go off and make yourself a country?
My son lives down there; I need to know.
In other words, the “MDN fanboi cheerleader editorial team” and the “libertarian/teabagger crowd” is very consistent in calling for Apple to defend itself vigorously against patent violators, as well as against frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits.
@RicMac
“Did you guys go off and make yourself a country?”
Back in 1836. An iffy moment, for sure; four days later the Alamo fell. Texas was an independent nation for ten years before joining the U.S.A.
RicMac:
You may want to make sure your passport is valid before you go…
Regarding the patents = bad subject:
The primary complaint these days is that what was formerly considered a copyright issue has become a more vague umbrella patent issue with regard to computer code.
Submarine patent issues have been somewhat addressed in the USA, preventing remarkably vague patents (a problem caused by the Patent Office protocol) from destroying later, more specific patents. (Wikipedia has a better description). But the practice still continues every day.
If the US Patent Office were sufficiently tech-savvy, theoretically the clash-of-the-patents scenarios would not happen. But consider my description here to be simplistic and vague in and of itself.
Ideally, when a patent has been ripped off, the ripper licenses the technology from the patent owner after compensating them for the lawsuit, profits and damages. Or, when a company wants to use a particular technology, they are able to license it from the source at a reasonable cost. But patent owners are under no obligation to share or license their technology. That is one reason the terms for patents are incredibly shorter than those for copyrights.
Which is cheaper? To sue them over several year drawn out period?…or just go out and buy HTC with pocketchange and steal their smartest talent…er…copiers?
If you look at the infringements, it isn’t a case of companies copying Apple. Some of these patent infringements are just plain stupid.
If you look at the patent application for “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices”, it patents any gadget that has any sort of sensor that is used by said gadget.
“Object-Oriented Graphic System” covers almost any GUI, even the ones that were pre-iPhone. Anything device that has a gui button to open up an application is affected. This includes Blackberry’s that were out way before the iPhone.
“List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display” is ridiculous. In reading it, it means that no device should be able to scroll at all. Are you seriously going to try and tell me that Apple invented scrolling on mobile devices?
Some of these infringements to have legitimate arguments behind them. Most, however, do not protect Apples innovation, as they were already around beforehand.
I’m not a Texan, but admire their independancey! I do not know if this is true, but I understand they are the only State that can fly the State flag at the same height as the USA flag, and they have clause where they could become an indepent state by simple
majority vote. And I love their BBQ
Why always the sports analogies and military speak? Every new product is a “killer” and capitalism is a football game. Strange.
Quite simply, aren’t some of these companies embarrassed to keep ripping off Apple instead of innovating on their own? This is “good competition?” What’s good about it?
This suit is a year too late. Why did Apple wait? The best defense is always a non-stoppable offense.
@ Hotinplaya
“I understand they are the only State that can fly the State flag at the same height as the USA flag”
Sorry, urban legend. All state flags can fly at the same height as the US flag if on a separate pole. If on the same pole, the US flag is on top.
If Apple wins, it will put competitors behind a very difficult 8 ball. If Apple loses, it will open the flood gates to everyone copying anything they wish. It is good to get this clarified earlier rather than later when planning multi-year strategies.
In any advent, it will provide a chilling effect on the competition and some potential buyers in the near-term. I think the real target may be iPad copiers. They are going to have to really stop and think if they are planning simply to copy Apple’s design.
That’s why they call it a “war chest”
…”This suit is a year too late. Why did Apple wait?”
Because the suit would have little effect if there were only 20,000 devices sold with the infringing intellectual property. Now, with several million infringing devices, HTC will be severely damaged; they have heavily invested into this technology, and are only beginning to recoup the investment. Having to pay damages for each of the infringing devices (millions of them) could likely cripple them financially.
It will also be much of higher profile, which can much more effectively put Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson and others on notice.
As Steve Jobs said himself in regards to the iPad, “we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Except we’re benefiting from their innovation. But we’re patenting the hell out of our innovations. Suckers!
I understand what Ben Franklin wanted in the U.S. Patent system. But I’m sure he’d be sick if he saw what it has become today.
@onlooker: “”Object-Oriented Graphic System” covers almost any GUI, even the ones that were pre-iPhone. Anything device that has a gui button to open up an application is affected. This includes Blackberry’s that were out way before the iPhone.”
Ever heard of the Mac GUI introduced in 1984? Before that everything was command line. So yes, you are absolutely correct. Any device that has a gui button to open up an application is affected. This includes Blackberry’s that were out way before the iPhone, as well as EVERY Windows computer!
Apple & The Clone Wars!
Apple is running scared. The HTC Nexus is the first piece of hardware that actually competes.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning…
it smells like …. victory”
Zeek sez: “Ever heard of the Mac GUI introduced in 1984? Before that everything was command line.”
Much as I appreciate your sentiment, this is not the case. Wikipedia is your pal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
There had been GUIs around for several years. Xerox sold the first ‘modern’ GUI on the Alto and Star computers. The Alto project was started in 1972. Xerox licensed what Apple could visually take away from their GUI in order to create the Lisa computer, not the Mac. That came the next year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa
And just to give a preemptive BASH at the trolls: No, Apple stole nothing from Xerox as verified in court. But they did hire away Xerox engineers and did innovate well beyond the basic Alto GUI into what became the vastly superior Mac OS v1.0.
Conclusion: Read history. Quote history.