“Get ready for ‘rubber banding.’ That’s the way the screen on an iPad or iPhone seems to bounce when you scroll to the bottom of a file — and it’s among the terms jurors must understand as Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics Co. face off in a patent trial this week,” Peter Burrows reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple has become the most valuable company by creating products that stand out for design and ease of use, stemming from scores of smaller innovations, such as rubberbanding, rather than epic underlying technology breakthroughs,” Burrows reports. “In the trial in federal court in San Jose, California, Apple will try to prove to jurors that its brand of innovation is not only effective in the marketplace, but also defensible in a courtroom. ‘Everyone has a sense that Apple does something different,’ said Cheryl Milone, chief executive officer at Article One Partners, which makes software used to prove or disprove intellectual property claims. ‘Whether those differences can be protected in court is the question.'”
MacDailyNews Take: If it’s not, there is no impetus to innovate. And then, from whom will Google, Samsung, et al. copy? You either protect the innovator or consign the world to half-assed Microsoftian dreck.
Burrows reports, “As consumers move en masse from older, limited-feature handsets to computer-like smartphones, the trial could have a big impact on one of the largest, fastest-growing areas of technology, said Chris Jones, an analyst at Canalys. If Apple were to win, Samsung could be forced to scale back features in its handsets, making them less attractive to consumers. A victory could also help Apple hobble another important foe: Android, the operating system that Google Inc. gives away to manufacturers and Samsung uses on key products. Google’s approach threatens Apple’s pitch to consumers that its exclusive offerings are different and better.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s impossible to offer unique products that are different and better when derivative companies like Google, Samsung, and Microsoft before them to name just three, copy steal, and bastardize your intellectual property. EVen when it’s not the same, when the average schlub on the street can’t tell the difference, the cheating companies win and the innovator is harmed.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Inc. R&D for the world for over three decades and counting.
The raft of design concept under consideration at Apple prove that SomeDung had a wealth of options available in terms of how to implement a rectangle. Instead the choose to do it exactly the same way as Apple did.
Rubberbanding is a BIG DEAL! It’s something so seemingly small, and it isn’t touted as a feature (although Steve Jobs mentioned how impressed he was when he first saw it), yet it is a HUGE enhancement to the touch-screen UI!
It’s so intuitive that you don’t even really notice it, until you use an app that doesn’t incorporate it. The APMEX app doesn’t and when you get to the end, the screen just stops. Because there is no feedback to why it stopped, you find yourself swiping up 2-3 more times, until you realize that you just got to the end. With rubberbanding, you get immediate feedback, and know exactly how to interpret what you’re seeing.
It’s subtle, intuitive, but unless you’ve seen and experienced it, it is not necessarily an obvious solution. Now that Apple solved it, everyone wants it, and with good reason. But Apple SHOULD be able to claim it, and license it if they so choose. Or hoard it. It’s not “standards essential”, as the device is fully functional without it, but it is a tremendous enhancement.
As an option, if I remember correctly, I’ve seen an alternative solution where the bottom of the screen glows red or flashes a colored line when you reach the end of a page. They can have that one…
Have you seen the Windows 8 sleep screen with the granny? Click almost anywhere on the screen and it bounces uselessly. Even MS can steal rubber banding but per usual, they don’t even know how to execute it right!
It’s obvious to me that bringing all these lawsuits in various legal jurisdictions is a complete and utter waste of time, consuming large amounts of money and management time.
Apple should just call it a day and charge every Android handset manufacturer a licensing fee for every handset sold in the style of Microsoft.
By doing that they gain two things. Monetary compensation and increasing the selling price of each Android handset that tries to compete with the iPhone.
All these legal cases is just quixotic and tilting at windmills.
I somewhat agree…but it doesn’t avoid the necessity of lawsuits. Do you think Samsung will just willingly pay $5 or whatever it is for each of thier infringements? They’re denying any infringement at all.
Apple going after Samsung will be a waste of time. The courts have no interest in protecting Apple’s patents. It doesn’t mean anything to them because they’re more concerned about consumers’ rights of getting less expensive products and not allowing Apple to have a monopoly over the smartphone market. To the courts, Apple is nothing but a patent bully trying to protect vague or meaningless ideas. The courts will allow Apple getting some monetary compensation but that’s about it. Apple will likely have to settle for that and hope it will drive Android smartphone costs up. Unfortunately, Apple won’t be allowed to have exclusive use of any ideas. There will be no lock on unique Apple products.
The best Apple can do is stay ahead of the curve by using more expensive components than the rest of the competition. Anything Apple builds first will be quickly duplicated by the competition regardless of patent protection. In a good economy that should be more than enough to keep Apple leading in profitability if not in market share for a long time to come. Apple needs to pursue complex manufacturing techniques that only it can afford using its economies of scale to stop the low-priced copycats. Although I’m not sure most consumers actually care about build quality. Wall Street certainly doesn’t care about quality. Wall Street is only interested in the number of units sold even if the item is of merely acceptable quality. It’s going to be up to Apple to pursue high-quality while minimizing manufacturing costs in order to beat a company like Samsung. I think it’s doable with the right equipment. What can’t Apple do with a cash reserve of nearly $118 billion to keep it ahead. Aside from Samsung, most other companies are going to be forced to drop out of the smartphone race due to lack of cash.
An American company is being screwed by an Asian company in these troubled times.
An American Judge and an American jury of 9 people are going to hear and see a lot of evidence of Apple’s IP being stolen by a band of Asian thugs.
I like our strategy, I like it a lot.
Whoever writes some of these MDN takes is in dire need of professional help! The third one in particular is alarming as no human being should be so caught up in his or her own propaganda to the extent that it becomes apparent that this person is isolated to the real world.
I am certainly no MDN apologist but you cannot deny that Apple has revolutionized computing, PMPs, phones, digital music and tablets. Fine me another company that even comes close to that track record…I dare you.
I would rather see every idea mainstream so that everyone could use it because then people would build further on these ideas and innovation has its own fuel. I’m saddend by all the fuzz around I was first so I am the one who can use it! If our species would be like that we wouldnt be alive right now.
Steve Jobs: Good artists copy great artists steal! Nuff Said.