If Apple could not prove that Samsung copied them, it does not follow that Samsung didn't copy them, just as if California couldn't prove that OJ did it, it doesn't follow that he didn't do it.
This ruling, that Apple has to affirm something equally unproven, is bizarre.
You have your requirements analysis all mixed up here.
Legal logic isn't the same as mathematical logic. The goal isn't to "prove" a fact here, it's to "settle" the fact so that people can go on with their lives. The courts pick boolean logic as their basis. So yes, legally, it is proven that Samsung did not copy Apple, no matter how many fancy-pants math terms you throw at them.
Legally, 'not guilty' is not equivalent to 'innocent'.
That being said, the sales injunctions that Samsung occured were a clear case of damages as result of a case for which Samsung was not found guilty; thus, its fair for Samsung to receive compensation.
> Legally, 'not guilty' is not equivalent to 'innocent'.
hmmm... if "innocent until proven guilty" holds true, then you remain innocent until you have been found guilty. If at the end of trial you have been found "not guilty" then you have not been found guilty, therefore are innocent.
That may be a valid assumption, but it's also a dangerous one. A court cannot make the same one (and pronounce people innocent) as it would, I would expect, make it extremely hard to get the same person back in court given new evidence (they're innocent, the court said it).
So it's a bit like hypothesis testing, where you don't expect your hypothesis to be proven correct, you just expect it not to be disproved. Thus, further testing can continue.
In summary, someone who isn't found guilty isn't always innocent.
> A court cannot make the same one (and pronounce people innocent) as it would, I would expect, make it extremely hard to get the same person back in court given new evidence
The rules of Double Jeopardy already make it pretty damn hard to get a person back into court after being found "not guilty"... even with new evidence. (in the US anyway)
Plus, you don't need to be found innocent. You are innocent... right up until the point that you are found guilty.
Not really. If you really are innocent then no evidence can possibly change that. But if you're merely presumed innocent, then new evidence can prove your guilt.
And in the case of a civil suit there's no double jeopardy, so you can't even say it doesn't matter.
It's not 'not guilty' it's 'not /found/ guilty'. Maybe I /am/ guilty.
(Just making a point. I am getting a kick out of reading this thread. I own >15 apple devices and every one of them has duct tape over the apple logo because I think their legal b.s. is just that. B.S. In 2000 I was cool for being the Apple guy. Now I'm ashamed of it. I just honestly still believe they make superior products. Show me a non Apple laptop that I can pick up and will feel as solid and sleek as my 2011 MacBook Pro all the way down to the even weight distribution, that I can install Linux Mint on and have it Just Work an ill buy it tonight.)
I have a Sony Vaio VGN FZ-21S. Its almost three and a half years old. When I bought it, it was the price of a Mac book pro. It had more performance, speed, features than a Mac book pro back then, including a Blu-Ray drive. It has survived huge amounts of mis-handling. I've dropped it into places where no one would even imagine - Sea (saline water), Rain water puddles, etc. and it still works fine.
I'm a film maker. I use it for heavy rendering, sometimes it is turned on without even a restart for several weeks or even months. It came with a defective GPU chipset and the entire motherboard was replaced free of cost even after its warranty period.
My friend has an Apple Mac book pro. I borrowed it once to do some comparisons. I will put up a blog post on this soon, but here's what you need to know:
1) ALL 2011 Apple Mac's have a shitty display contrast, compared to what this particular Sony Vaio gives you. The color and the contrast is beautiful on a Sony. Period. FYI - I'm a graphic/Web designer too, and this is really important for my work.
2) Apple charges you for anything that is not under warranty. But in my case (and millions of other Sony owners') Sony didn't charge us a single penny.
3) I compose music too. My Sony has an inbuilt ASIO chipset. The sound quality from this chipset is nothing like what you've heard before (assuming you've owned only Apple products). Its amazing. I compared it with the MB pro. Shit it was. Just like their iPods (If you argue the iPod has a better sound quality, then please stop reading right here. I don't want to argue with you anymore)
4) The MB pro heats like hell. I can't render something for more than 6-7 hours. BS. I might as well use it to fry an omlet.
Its ok to like Apple and its not my problem if you like Apple or not. But don't manipulate facts to suit your argument.
Because, this statement:
>Show me a non Apple laptop that I can pick up and will feel as solid and sleek as my 2011 MacBook Pro
is not accurate, heavily manipulated and is utter bullshit. It clearly indicates how biased you are and how ignorant you are about the pace at which the rest of the non-apple gadgets improve, day-by-day, which is atleast thrice as fast as how Apple's gadgets improve.
To answer your original question -
>Show me a non Apple laptop that I can pick up and will feel as solid and sleek as my 2011 MacBook Pro
Please check out the Laptop sections of Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Asus, Fujitsu, Lenovo and HP from their corresponding websites.
I have heard that some areas have three-state legal systems, at least for certain types of cases, but that's not the case here. The ruling was "they do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design." Not "Apple has not proven that Samsung infringed."
You don't have to agree with the ruling, but the legal ruling was a "false," not a "null." A "not guilty" verdict may arise due to a lack of evidence or a badly tried case, but legally it means the same thing as a "not guilty" that came about because the accusation was obviously untrue.
> The ruling was "they do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design."
Essentially, that Samsung didn't copy them well. As I understand it, the judge also refused to stop Apple from saying Samsung did copy them, saying Apple was entitled to its opinion.
Since the actual ruling is that Apple should note that Samsung's tablet doesn't legally infringe on Apple's registered designs, to your point, Apple's UK home page should just quote the judge:
Home Page Headline: "They are not as cool" -- UK Judge
Home Page Body: "The UK Courts require us to point out that Samsung's tablet does not have the same understated simplicity of our designs."
But, appeals aside, the court's ruling makes it so. You go to court hoping the system sides with you. If it does then you take your win and you move on. If it doesn't side with you, you can't just say, "Oh well... your ruling doesn't count." You gotta take it for what it is. If in the process of making your claim you have damaged the name of your opponent then it seems fair to me that you should have to do something about that. It kind of falls into the same thinking that the loser in a case can be made to pay for the winner's legal fees and what not.
The UK has slander laws. Apple claimed that Samsung copied their design. Not just in a private trial, but in public.
You cant actually do that in the Uk, unless you can prove it. They could not, according to the judge, hence its slander.
The default assumption is innocent until proven guilty. If i call you a murderer, but i can not prove it, Uk laws would force me to make statement that you are not a murderer.
Again, you dont have to prove that you are not. I had to prove you were, before i opened my mouth.
These laws sound really cool though, and they are good for these kind of situations. But in general those laws often end up just limiting free speech of people with less legal funds.
> You cant actually do that in the Uk, unless you can prove it. They could not, according to the judge, hence its slander.
On the contrary, I understand Samsung requested that Apple be barred from making public statements claiming that the Galaxy Tab had infringed upon the iPad design, but the judge specifically ruled that Apple is within its rights to make such claims in line with the company's belief that the ruling is incorrect.
If you change "If Apple could not prove that Samsung copied them" to "If Samsung could prove that they did not copy Apple," all is right again (in terms of logic, anyway).
Wasn't the original ruling basically saying, "It's not a copy of the iPad because it's not as cool"? You know if Apple really does have to put this notice on their website, they'll probably find a way to work that into the announcement.
"Kind of like forcing a bully to stand up in class and say "Billy is not a poopy-face.""
The problem with this analogy is that no one serious for a second has ever doubted that Samsung copied the ipad, the court has simply ruled the iPad design is too generic to make it a protected design. That tablets are like refrigerators and car and airplane shapes - fair game for copying.
And the problem with your problem to my analogy is that if the court actually felt that way (that the tablets are fair game for copying because they are so generic) they would have simply invalidated with prejudice Apple's design patent(s) in the UK telling Apple to pay Samsung's court costs and legal fees and writing an opinion to that effect. Samsung could then take that (and the money they got back) and pursue similar sorts of decisions in other venues.
It's not a general patent on tablet shapes it's a registered design which covers the actual product itself. Which seems like a better system as outright product pirates will clearly run afoul wheras category copying the general shape etc. is allowed.
Well, they may not have had to do it, if Apple had not jumped at the chance (went the ruling was only tentative) to make a pro-active strike telling retailers they were not to sell the Tab. Why should they not then have to say otherwise?
This reminds of a kid who got totally destroyed in a fight: both eyes are swollen and black, his nose is broken and bleeding, he can barely talk through his swollen lip, and he has a chipped tooth. Then the teacher tells the other guy to apologize and shake your hand. You walk away thinking, "I showed him ..."
There is a sense of justice here. They had this coming ever since Apple blatantly doctored those photos to make it seem the Samsung product look more like the Apple product than it really was, as if implying that they thought tech market was so incompetent that such a strategy could work.
Can someone more versed with the British legal system explain the logic behind this? Coming from the perspective of an American it is a bit peculiar, but then again our own legal system isn't always rational. Just curious if this is common for a defendent to have to publish notices of case outcomes. I know there are a number of other consumer protection laws in the UK.
That or pointing to something like popehat that has overall analysis would be nice too. Law stories tend to make me feel like I'm a fish out of water, especially when they are from other countries. Given that I know a contract lawyer and have finally gotten to a basic understanding of how some of that law works I have a bit more understanding of how common perception of the law differs from actual practice.
Basicly they have to make a public retraction for saying something that has been proven not to be true. Now Apple could do a public retraction along the lines of "Were so sorry Samsung for saying you copied the iPad, we know that is not so as yours is just not as cool as ours" or something like that. Probably wouldn;t be the best of moves but still viable.
I don't understand how anyone can root for Samsung given Korean chaebol's long history of blatantly ripping off everything. Any research into the history of Samsung, Daewoo, LG will reveal a long line if copied products. Of course most if these products were only sold within Korea specifically because they knew what try we're doing would never pass muster on the international stage. Samsung is a dirty company. Do a little research before just blindly assuming Apple did something wrong. Looking at the side-by-side images here: http://atomicsupersky.com/post/26275796849/on-the-samsung-ga... should erase any doubt that Samsung blatantly ripped off Apple.
I think part of the reason why many people are rooting for Samsung here, is that in this community, in the field of competitive practices, copying is not frowned upon as much as litigating. There's no doubt that Samsung copied from Apple but blocking a whole product due to some parts being copied (like a green phone icon according to the page you linked) is arguably worse than the copying itself.
After all, copying (or stealing as Jobs would say) is an inherent part of the creation process. Sure, Samsung was not very creative in the pieces they took from Apple, but in the end these elements are a small part of the product.
“copying (or stealing as Jobs would say) is an inherent part of the creation process.”
The original quote, to put in context what Jobs was referring to:
“One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.”
—Philip Massinger
NB: Jobs mistakenly attributed it to Picasso, who never said such a thing. Jobs probably read Richardson’s biography of Picasso, in which the text is misquoted and attributed to T.S. Eliot.
Jobs would say copying. Stealing is reserved for those who recognise the artistry behind the idea and integrating it into the very soul of the new work; copying is the duplication of an idea without more than superficial regard for its true meaning or purpose.
I don't think a business leader, no matter how charismatic, is the most well suited person to talk about copying, since his business probably holds a lot of patents, which may or may be justified. In this case, the level of absurdity we reached is quite astonishing - the judge pretty much said : yes, Apple owns the black rectangle, but Samsung failed to do a proper black rectangle so they are not infringing.
By any means, this obsessive scorn of copying is something that must be relativised : it only really exists in the western world after the 18th century. Most cultures that exist in other times/spaces tend to see no moral issue in copying, and even dignify it when done properly
Isn't there a difference between waiting 30-40 years and using a no longer available product as a design reference for something, and waiting a couple of months and making an extremely similar product that directly competes with the source of your inspiration?
The argument is intentionally silly to point out how it's a silly argument in the other direction as well.
Nothing gets designed in a vacuum. If you google around a bit you can find flatscreen tv's from 2002 that look like big ipads, well before apple started designing their tablets. Watt didn't invent the steam engine, he just had a really good idea how someone else's steam engine could be improved while repairing it. Bosch didn't invent electric ignition for cars, he just transplanted the idea from Volta's glass pistol, whose spark in turn was delivered by Volta's "pile" (battery), the idea of which was inspired by Volta's friend who noticed that when he dissected frogs sometimes the frog's legs would jump right off the plate by the generated currents from the scalpel interacting with the metal base. The iphone and ipad are brilliantly executed, but to pretend that they were invented in a vacuum does a disservice to designers and inventors everywhere.
But just as Apple are being silly by pretending they design in a vacuum, Samsung are silly for pretending they didn't rip off the iphone. I think they would have sold more phones if they hadn't actually (I know for me it was a reason not to get a samsung phone, even though I eventually did.) I think the silliness on both sides is why the courts are starting to hand down these silly rulings.
You specifically claimed Apple aped it's design, soemthing anything with a brain would find laughable. Please keep making these ridiculous declarations.
I don't care if Apple directly aped the LG Prada or not but do not come in here thinking you can fool people into believing that Apple just innovated the modern smartphone out of thin air. It didn't happen. The fact that similar looking phones to the iPhone hit the market first should give you a clue to that.
So, now we are just degenerating to ye olde "No True Scotsman" defense. Face it, dude. Apple imitated and you fell for it. You've been told now crawl away with some dignity.
I'm not sure it's really turning into something terrible, we've just got some trolls running around this week. See tysonjennings remarkably racist, entirely undefended (and indefensible) post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262432
Or his post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4182402) where he rails against someone's anti-Google stance, while later taking on a similar (and perhaps more harsh) anti-Apple stance.
The ease of seeing a users comment history makes finding trolls so much faster. Now I just need a killfile...
Because warmed-over bro-backslapping Sailerisms sure don't stink of herd mentality, right? Aren't you late for your mutual-reinforcement MRA support meeting?
You disagree with my statements now you're my own personal stalker? Resorting to some kind of mob mentality group think to rally support when rhetorical skills fail you is...weak. I can't help but notice that at least at this moment this is your only comment on this story so you don't even care about the subject at hand you just wanted to get a jibe in against me. You don't need a "killfile", you need help.
Your commentary is factious. No matter how you enunciate ponctuation to try and establish reason. That simply makes it look desperately void. And stop asking other users to downvote people you don't agree with, that is just silly.
What are the other elements? That it's dominated by a screen? We know it isn't thickness or aspect ratio, or logos on the back, or home screen appearance.
The patent in question is literally a rounded corner rectangle.
I'm not sure that proves anything; the CrunchPad appears to be derivative of the iPhone which had been out for a year at that point. I consider scaling up the iPhone design to a larger size to be obvious. For clarity:
Start with your assumption that drawing on something you saw to make something better of your own is inherently wrong. Many people just don't share this assumption of yours. In fact, if many people did, Hacker News and ycombinator would be a very empty and lonely place - just look at all the startups: 99% are "some existing idea where we have made a small and novel tweak that makes it better" - PG even openly encourages startups to pitch their ideas that way (we've made X for Y). The top link right now is gist.io and the entire page explaining it is about how similar it is to a bunch of other services but they've made it slightly better for one special case. And the comments there are all favorable, nobody is shaming them for ripping off somebody else.
No one is confused. It says 'Samsung Galaxy Tab', right on the box, along with a Samsung logo on the tablet. The only way it could be confusing is with a salesperson using phrases such as 'basically the same', which could lead people to purchasing the wrong one.
It's not like the Chinese iPad clones which come with the same box design, the same style logo and a big apple on the back of them, it's Samsung selling a product, which out of necessity, has similar design features.
Maybe Samsung is a dirty company but in this instance they were in the right. I've used the iPad and the Galaxy Tab. The Galaxy Tab certainly takes its inspiration from the iPad, but come on, so does everyone else! And there's only so many way you can design a rectangular slab of plastic and glass.
At least 50, by my reckoning. I'm thinking of doors, televisions, cups, windows, chairs, eyeglasses, automobiles, all sorts of things with coy simplistic descriptions that exist in innumerable variety of physical appearance.
None of those things (with the arguable exception of eyeglasses) have practical benefits from being as small and light as possible while doing their job, so it isn't the same.
Allow me to propose an alternative argument to those I've seen thus far: Apple is regarded by hackers with disfavor because they compete in ways that are incompatible with the hacker essence.
First, hackers value independence and the freedom of creation above most else. Apple's use of the legal system amounts to denying the right of others to create, due to arguably trivial similarities with Apple's own derivative creations.
Second (and this is the new point I want to raise), Apple's marketing centers on creating a "magical" ethos around their products. Hackers, as die-hard rationalists, regard appeals to magical thinking as manipulative and morally reprehensible. Thus, even when Apple isn't litigating, they're still "cheating" by using something other than pure reason to win.
People cheer for Samsung because they like the design that Apple championed but they want it from a company other than Apple. And I see nothing wrong with that kind of cheering/rooting.
Besides, being inspired by how the end-product should look like should hardly be considered "stealing" in technological terms. Unless Samsung really engaged in corporate espionage and stole engineering/manufacturing insights and ideas from Apple, I wouldn't be liberally throwing around the term "rip off". If Samsung products suck internally and/or have sloppy build quality, then the market should punish them. Bringing in courts is just a short-cut.
Lots of people "cheer for Samsung" because of the abject horror of watching a company try to shut down competition like this based on near-nonsense intellectual properties. We look at Apple's behavior and picture our products in the firing line.
Frankly I don't care much at all about Samsung. But I'm glad as hell they won.
And Apple just dreamed up the idea of a smartphone out of thin air? What about the touch screen? Multi-touch? Gridded icons? Rectangles? Apple is an imitator, a marketer, and a polisher of other people's ideas. Little more. Your blind worship is shamefully ignorant.
No one serious would argue either of those points.
That is why Samsung is the defendant in all these design cases and Apple has never had this problem no matter how many times Engadget ditto heads want to bring up Steve Jobs "great artists steal" quote. When the judge holds up an LG Prada and an iPhone, Apple's lawyers wouldn't have trouble saying which phone is made by their company.
Bald assertions do not a non "Engadget dittohead" argument make. Apple has never produced a new product category. They take the innovations that came before and throw money and Steve Jobs/Jonny Ives taste at it. You are blind if you think that what Apple does is real innovation in the sense of what the actual producers of the cellphone did. Or the tablet for that matter. They haven't had a fresh idea since Woz built the Apple I out of a block of wood and a circuit board 40 years ago.
"Apple has never produced a new product category."
"You are blind if you think that what Apple does is real innovation in the sense of what the actual producers of the cellphone did. "
Please cite where I claimed they did? Straw man much?
I'm just pointing out the difference between Samsung and Apple to you. They aren't the same. Apple clearly differentiates their products. Samsung aims for as little differentiation from the market leading designs as possible. It's true with refrigerators, washers, tablets, phones, etc. That's why the comment you were originally responding to disparaged Samsung.
You drew a false equivalence between completely copying a product and making a smartphone that's very different from other smartphones but apparently is just as bad because it wasn't the very first smartphone Moses brought back down the mountain. Laughable.
As importantly, they retargeted the marketing. The iPhone was introduced as an entertainment and Web device. Prior to this, all the major players (Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Palm, as well as carriers) pretty much worked under the assumption that "consumers" weren't willing to pay for "premium" phones, so smartphones before the iPhone were designed for and marketed to "mobile professionals" with features like personal organizers and push email. At the same time, "premium" $250+ iPods were flying off the shelves.
But competing music players at similar price points were not, so I'd still tend to give more credit to Apple's execution than its "vision".
"
It was first announced on December 12, 2006
.[2] Images of the device appeared on websites such as Engadget Mobile on December 15, 2006.[3] An official press release showing an image of the device appeared on January 18, 2007.[1]
"
Because they are both white boxes with large pictures of the product on the front? Well color me outraged!
I think anyone with any eye for design would agree the two boxes are sufficiently different to rule out the possibility that Samsung was trying to pass of as an iPad. (Not to mention the two prominent uses of the Samsung brand on the Tab packaging's front - as opposed to a logo-less shiny black rectangle on the iPad's.)
I honestly don't understand where all these "Galaxy Tab is an iPad clone!" accusations are coming from. Is it a physically similar device? Yes, it is. But there's only so many ways you can design a minimal touch-based tablet. If you made a car that looked suspiciously like mine from the front I'd have a good reason to be pissed off. If you made a wood colored dinner table with 4 legs and a flat surface - probably not so much.
The default screen on Nexus 7 is not mistakable. TouchWiz or Sense are not mistakable. This box shows a tablet configured to look like iOS, which isn't what I or most Android owners do with our Android tablets.
Does this ruling actually mean anything? Every time I see something like this I'm just waiting for an appeal to pop up. Or can this judgement not be appealed?
> Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the condemned person
You don't really think that an HTML page inflicts any kind of suffering or pain on someone, do you? First, I don't even think this is 'punishment': it appears to be more focused on clarifying the issue to the public and ensuring Apple doesn't try to twist the story. Secondly, there's absolutely no way it's cruel. It may be unusual, though, and I'm curious about that too.
I'm sorry you took such offence at me using "cruel and unusual" as a turn of phrase, rather than to mean it's dictionary definition. I'll admit I'll happily use it in conversation - but perhaps I should have been more careful online where things are taken somewhat more literally.
I do feel that forcing Apple to link to a competitor, and advertise for them, is a form of punishment though.
It was quite genuine, I didn't mean to offend or upset. Lesson learnt!
You don't mention this, but I didn't to edit my original post, as i'm not a big fan of editing post content - but rather adding as part of the conversation.
He didn't "use the phrase wrong"; he communicated his meaning effectively. Dictionaries (of English; there is no acadamie anglaise) consist of observations, not rulings; if a dictionary disagrees with usage, it is the dictionary that is wrong.
The phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" is typically used when someone is trying to argue that a punishment should be illegal. A legalistic reply should be expected.
If Apple could not prove that Samsung copied them, it does not follow that Samsung didn't copy them, just as if California couldn't prove that OJ did it, it doesn't follow that he didn't do it.
This ruling, that Apple has to affirm something equally unproven, is bizarre.