Discussion on:

Apple whines, court caves, Samsung stops sales

Yes. It appears Apple is scared and is attempting to influence the judge rather than run a fair race.
IMO Apple has slipped down the ladder of appeal, decency and respect.

NT

Not that proffit is a bad thing, but they seem to talk a different game. Apple tries to portray itself as being above such things, but I recently saw where they may be the most profitable company EVER (google it). Why? Well we've seen how they keep labor costs down. They tightly control all development access to their platforms. And they effectively prevent the device owners from even performing basic mantenance on their devices (change a battery?) They aren't just double-dipping - they have a captive customer base.

I recently tried to get an associate's MacBook video port replaced (the pins were bent) and Apple quoted over $1000 to replace the entire motherboard! Clearly they are motivated only by the most altruistic of intentions...

You all are obviously to young to remember in the Apple II days when a company called Franklin Computers tried to sell an Apple II clone and was sued out of existence for infringing on the Apple II computer patent. IBM originally sued other manufactures but gave up the clone wars and ended up pricing their personal computers out of existence. Apple has a history of suing hardware manufactures. It's their culture to control all hardware and software. As a long time user and was a support IT for PC's (switched to a Mac 2 years ago running VMware for Windows when needed) I have to admit it is nice to use a computer that doesn't get into a fight with the software that is running on it. Old enough now that I just want a computer that works.

Shame on you Apple, shame on you.

I was already leaning away from the brand but this has tipped me, I am about to replace my main laptop and had been looking at the mac book pro, I won't be doing that now.

Early adopters and gimmick hunters don't make for great sustained sales, brand loyalty does that, Apple have either forgotten this or they believe the brand is bulletproof, (I suspect a bit of both), they couldn't be more wrong.

I used to tell people that if Microsoft wanted their opinion, Microsoft would tell them what their opinion was, this is definitely more appropriate of Apple these days.

My two pence (cents for all you guys across the pond

Craig.

Can't wait for the makers of Star Trek to hold Apple to account for their blatant copying of the tablets used on the show. Rectangular with a touch screen.

For some reason now I'm more interested in the Galaxy Tab!

cbs owns paramont.cbs owns big chunk of apple. who also owns let me think oh thats right cnet

Documentation, please.

CBS shareholders equity - $10 billion
Apple - $100 billion

http://ycharts.com/companies/CBS/shareholders_equity#series=type:company,id:CBS,calc:shareholders_equity,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:shareholders_equity&zoom=5&startDate=&endDate=&format=real&recessions=false

CBS total assets - $25 billion
Apple - $150 billion

http://ycharts.com/companies/CBS/assets#series=type:company,id:CBS,calc:assets,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:assets&zoom=5&startDate=&endDate=&format=real&recessions=false

CBS may own some Apple stock, but not enough to 'own' it (be a majority shareholder). Apple could eat CBS for a light lunch.

One of these days Apple might patent "syncing devices". That is the day all other phones be it smart or not die a dog's death. So go on and support Apple, the Nazi of technology.

It is a wonder how these learned justices understand technology and how one can possibly accept something like this. One makes a lipstick red and another comes around and changes the color to alizarine or torquiose and this is accepted as a patent infringement on lipstick making. No wonder we are where we are with this petty siiliness, like its being said it was sometime past Microsoft and now Apple. These guys should be ashamed of themselves. There are better things to go after that shape and form in the tech world. i feel like throwing by Macbook out the window now.

So, has Apple Inc. paid royalty for zen patent ?

The position at the top inevitably comes with arrogance and hunger for even more power.
However, history proves that the one at the top is the next to tumble because the market refuses to accept that behaviour. The only question is when.

I just can't imagine how ridiculous this is..patent a design....makes me want to microwave the whole team...hell yeah i might as well patent my name then.!!

I think this is the begining of the end, and apple is trying to pull every string possible to delay the moment. Looking at the market (private consumer, business and administration), I believe apple without it's genius will slowly decay and slowly dissapear, and they are aware of that and of people's perception and understanding.
I think in longer terms it's not really that important what innovation they might bring, it is more important that apple's heart and major brain is, again, no longer there. This time, for good.

I am very happy to live in Europe where patentlaws have steered away the disaster they have become in the US. Watching patenting in the US becoming it's own industry where a company patent everything they do and can get a patent on, then turn around and sell the to the highest bidder is plain sickening.

Thinkl of it this way. If companies in US is successfull denying other companies to produce things on the background on a somewhat generic patent, other US copanies are denyed their living rights and will die.

Having Apple, a large company standing in front of thiss mess, just points out the magnitude of this disease.....

This will soon be challenged, and then forgotten - except Samsung can claim, again and again, that its Galaxy/Android tablet IS real competition for Apple's IPAD. After all Apple is well able to recognise real competition when it sees it!

I have an IPAD (2) and it IS my last. Why? because I can develop for Android, whereas Apple wants some kind of limitation for developing for IOS. --- pah! Simply too much hassle.

Max

Pretty snazzy slogan.

How does this ban work? Is it illegal for US citizens to buy their Samsungs abroad, too?

With its ornamental patent infringement suit, the iMLame producer should be nicknamed the Big A$$h0l3.

Now, before the judgement is overturned, is a great opportunity to dump AAPL and buy SSNLF. If you look at the charts, since SSNLF's mid-May drop after the rumors of the suit started circulating, BOTH have been stagnant. Apple's stock will drop as investors realize that the company has run out of new ideas, and is turning to the the cigarette industry's "new package (same old non-beneficial-but-addictive) cr*p" marketing philosophy, and SSNLF will resume it's climb, along with the stocks of all non iSuck tablet competitors.

They come in a rectangular package(!), and have thrived in the competitive market for decades now with *no advertizing*....(the pharmacology of tobacco refutes your assertion that it/they are 'non-beneficial', btw, but that's for another discussion--maybe round the WC here).

we need it to shake the evil spirits out of the peyote for the vision ritual...

to increase short-term awareness and acuity (repeat as necessary)---in what's the only 'smoking section' on US air routes. Just like the Teachers' Lounge, you can't go there, either (but the crew can; that's where your stewardess is when you can't find her). 747s have an ashtray in the console, as did my OH-58A scout helicopter in the military. Society enjoys the benefit of the outrageous 'sin-taxes' levied against its purchasers (imagine what would happen to your property tax, state sales tax--use your imagination--if cigarettes were ever *illegal* and that revenue had to be made up somewhere else!). Some campers enjoy its bug-repellant benefit, using it to make chiggers, gnats, and mosquitos pick on somebody *else* instead....speaking of its 'repellant' benefit, it also helps keep sanctimonious pr*cks at a more discrete distance But this is all digression; when I saw a post titled "Jobs spinning in grave", I prepared to read about textile work for the dead (and a spam link)...my bad!

Most states have made school campuses non-smoking areas...for everybody.

Several years ago, I was parked in a school parking lot at a band competition and had a cop try to ticket me for smoking in my car.

I invoked the TL from my own school years (1960-70s) as simile for the "off-limits (to all but the priviligentsia) smoking area" of the *smoke-free skies*. When I was a kid---and blue smoke wafted under the door of the TL---I often tried to get a peek inside; I assumed they had pinball machines and strong drink, too, from the way they zealously guarded ingress (I knew they had coffee...).
I've been admonished by 'hospital police' here and there recently the same as you, for roasting one in my car in the parking lot w/o tinted windows (now, of course, I indulge my antisocial habit(s) in the curtained privacy of a 36' RV, and am left alone in 'smoke-free' parking lots!).
The intent of my post (I will confess here) was to mention a fact (or facts) that, while true, were outside of someone (ps.techrep@, as it turned out)'s own 'thought-collective', and see whether its members considered my presentation of a different view on the topic as 'trolling'. I did that as a follow-up experiment to another engaging discussion here (dcolbert's round-table on discussion-protocol/'nettiquite'). So far, I believe I'm collecting down-votes unable to disagree with the fact that it's tobacco's *beneficial pharmacology* that allows a pilot, responsible for the safety of hundreds (landing just above stall speed, in cross-wind gusts, on IFR), to light up and increase his/her short-term awareness and acuity, but needing to (via a gratuitous "-1") *stand up for their group-think* against unpopular facts. Reactionary anti-smoking zealots are not interested in facts---they prefer the angry-mob comfort of human nature's 'low road'; holding hands and shouting down truth that lies outside their paradigm's construct....These are the same people who stand in the middle of the City (where simply breathing in and out equals 15 cigarettes/day) at a bus stop reeking of diesel fumes, to boot, and lecture me that MY cigarette is *killing* them! I usually suggest that if they actually cared about their pulmonary health the way they're trying to claim, they would be far, far away from urban air in its entirety....or at least trying to do something about emissions, PCBs, the nerve-gas sprayers under their sink (Black Flag, Raid, et al), and so on....but, no; when they get sick, it's going to be because of *my* cigarette (their fall-guy for an entire toxic environment). Their health is subject to the vagaries of their bad diet, lack of exercise, and poor sleeping habits, but those are things *they* would have to work on; their thought-collective has it that they don't have a stake in their own well-being (and don't have to; when their lifetime of gluttony and physical laziness catches up with them, they have already decided who to blame: healthy people with cigarettes supposedly deadly to all but themselves!). This is the group most willing to use hyperbole, lies, and slander, and gleefully cite falsified, long-debunked 'studies' such as the one that purported to show that 'second-hand smoke' is *worse* than 'first-hand' (so as to attempt to explain why my cigarette's 'killing' you, but somehow, I--its actual smoker--am fine).
The 'sanctimonious pr*cks' to whom I referred in my light-hearted but apparantly poignant post (and social experiment) above, unable to engage against the facts presented, have begun anonymously(!) attempting to impugn them via their messenger with '-1's....despite all their pretense to egalitarianism around here, when their own sacred cow's gored with facts from outside their group-think, anon. "-1"s are the last stop on the low road. At least when the Apple/Google/MS zealots disagree, they---to their credit---have something to add to the 'discussion' along with their votes; these folks' proclivity to throw mud from cover and run when the 'other view' shows up says it all about their actual social agenda, and its 'tyrrany of the Majority' authoritarianism. They engage in stonings--but not discussions--on their 'sacred cow' topics. I had thought that the poster before me was *inviting* discussion on tobacco (beyond the product's 'rectangular' package) through their use, en passant, of inflammatory, inaccurate adjectives about the product itself....but, no: it was merely an appeal to one's own thought-collective to agree with a widely-held (but comically-exaggerated and factually-incorrect) 'unifying metaphor'.

I have, as I said a post or two above, asthma. Cigarette smoke makes me stop breathing. So does Raid and all similar products, oil paints and any number of petrochemical based products (including cheap perfume). I avoid them all. I think being alive by avoiding you and your habit is as far from sanctimonious as can be.

The individual, who had been standing 50 feet away, walked over to let me know that my smoke was bothering her and would I please put out my cigarette. I advised her that a) I was standing in a designated smoking area; b) pointed to the sign, and; c) pointed out that another ten steps in the direction she had taken to reach me would put her upwind, at which point I would then have to suffer the effects of her extremely cloying perfume, which I already found offensive from five feet upwind!

I've never been able to see the second-hand smoke campaign as anything other than a religious manifestation of the anti-smoking furor. More than one study has found the correlation between living with a smoker and increases in respiratory illness (lung cancer, asthma, etc.) to be statistically insignificant; every one of these studies has been attacked because of its results, not on the data or interpretation, but on the funding source or the scientist who performed the study. I've noticed that many of the anti-smoking crowd are also religious about "man-caused global warming". The same people that practiced ad hominem on those scientists who dared to reach conclusions on the effects of smoking or smoke exposure with which they disagreed now decry similar actions by those who would deny the existence of climate change.

That's not to say that smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke don't cause or exacerbate respiratory illnesses; it's common sense that they do, and it's common courtesy to do what one can to limit the effects on others. But people on both sides quite often throw courtesy out the window.

@ramon, I don't have a problem at all with your attitude about smokers. My wife is asthmatic and feels the same way; I've been smoking outdoors for years. But (and you knew there would be one, didn't you?), many of those campaigning against smoking are motivated more by a need to control others; many of the same people are involved in many different anti-whate3ver campaigns. It's not a majority. It's not even a significant percentage, but it's enough, and they tend to be the offensive anti-smoking zealots.

I have asthma. Cigarette smoke stops my lungs from working. That makes me a pr*ck? Have you got a chip on your shoulder.

what he can do in his own home or car.

it made them something of hermits....Sorry to hear you suffer from asthma, a largely psychosomatic condition. Have you ever wondered why your inhaler works whether it contains its 'solution' or just water? That's placebo power, and indicates a deep sublimation of one's, well, sanctimony. Asthmatics actually start coughing (and make 'how dare you' faces) from *across the street* when they see someone merely pull out a pack of cigarettes! Nothing's irritated their bronchioles (nor likely will at their distance), but they're *already* hacking and coughing....that is psychosomatic anticipation, and it's relieved with a dirty look downwind(!) and across the street, and a belt off the inhaler. I suggest that the shoulder-chip is *yours*, therefore (but that you, like many, are not consciously aware that it's there). Did you notice that you even double-posted your comment?! As we've never met in person, I have no opinion on whether 'that makes you a pr*ck' or not. I'll say this, though: at least you posted a comment, which is a more thoughtful gesture than the drive-by down-votes....

It's not psychosomatic, her lung capacity is at 80% all the time, never having "attacks". She doesn't need an inhaler for attacks, but she needs to inhale cortisone to keep her life from being an up-hill battle.
"Nervous asthma" is not (at) all asthma.

Now, I will also say that while I am not asthmatic at all, I told a guy four inches taller, and twenty pounds heavier than me, that if he wants to smoke, he can do it OUTSIDE THE FRIGGIN BUS SHELTER, and I'll have no problem with it. He could not understand what I said until I repeated it, staring up into his face from 4 inches away.

Consideration and tolerance are ENTIRELY codependent, and the ultimate fact is, smoking is a choice, and making choices which cause discomfort to others is a dick move, where it can be avoided.

as a smoker who does NOT seek to 'impose his choice on others not so inclined', I still endure the measured apoplexy of control-freaks who walk up to, and inside, the fumes of burnt foliage to pillory me about it....I've still never been thanked by one for filled-in potholes, teachers that get paid, or for keeping the complainant's property (et al) taxes affordable. I've been called a lot of things for smoking tobacco, but never a "tax-hero"....consideration and tolerance seem to be expected only from the smoker in these circumstances. They *could* be using some of that time and will to, say, collect petitions for electric buses (instead of the diesel amidst whose fumes they're happy to stand while they denounce my 'air pollution' 's effect on their health).
P.S. Ansu---I thought that was a hand-rolled cigarette in your latest avatar-pic(!); must be teeth...or one of those 'medical' smokes we hear about in 'dry states'!

but now that you said it, I can see how it looks kinda like a spliff.
Now that's an interesting spin.

I don't agree with hystericals, but I used to live in Denmark where there was an entirely back-ass-ward culture on smoking: there, it was more impolite to ask someone not to smoke inside than to smoke inside... getting to Copenhagen airport the first thing to meet me was a cloud of stale cigarette smoke... from inside, not from the a "designated smoking dog-house" or whatever other contraptions of contempt they dream up.

I can see both ways, but where I come from, there was way too much of the other side.

Now, perfume, that's the worst. Especially the stuff with ******* unholy white musk (an artificial substance that cannot be broken down by nature, more than artificial, unnatural, anti-natural).

I submit that there's a lot in common between spliffs and crooked grins (!).

dont talk about thing you have true info on.you are not a doctor.

Wow - this is a great content free article. What made you write it?

No, because all those companies didn't rip apple off.

a patent is a patent! apple does go thru a lot of work designing their products and that's 1 of the reasons people like them. i'm all for abiding by patents. Same goes for oracle vs. google. if google is infringing on an oracle patent, then they need to pay or stop using it.
as for IBM's past with pc's: they should have patented many of their designs because once they came out with the pc, everybody started copying them and left IBM in the dust. it takes many $$$$ to have an R&D unit within the companies like Apple and IBM. if all you do is copy a product, you can build and sell the product much cheaper than what it would cost to design it and go thru all the steps to test the functionality out.
as for your comment about a up and coming rival: any new tablet coming out will be a distant 2nd place that will pick up the scraps that apple doesn't get! the only reason android is gaining market share is because they are much cheaper (sometimes free) and apple isn't. if apple wanted to squash android, all they would have to do is lower their costs, which they don't have to do.
if the galaxy or any other tablet would surface, i would like the news to film the store opening the day the tablet or even the new android phone gets released to see the HUGE lines of people wanting to get 1. to this date, apple still has HUGE lines at all their apple stores when people can actually buy their new iphone or ipad.

royalty for doing so.

Maybe the Judge is an Apple fanboy?

Why didn't they go after the "prior art" angle? I mean, I'm not a patent lawyer, but from what I understand, all they have to do is find another tablet or tablets, (or actually, even a smartphone,) with the same features in aggregate, and say "We weren't copying apple, we were copying them!" Heck, if it's just the ornamental design, I would go after slate chalkboards as a design example... they were out in the 1950's at least. (And though Jobs was a visionary, I doubt he thought of patenting it back then...

1. The patents under discussion are US patents under the US law and will have NO effect outside of the US legal jurisdiction, thus they have a very limited effect in the first place.

2. The US patent system leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. As far as I know it's the only system in the world where you can patent naturally occurring material and items such as genes. I can understand a desire to patent a lab modified gene that is a great improvement on the original. But it should NOT be legal to patent a naturally occurring gene or a gene that is modified through natural actions such as cross breeding. Yet it's legal in the US patent system, well, until the time someone has the money and intent to fight it up through the expensive and convoluted US legal system to the point they may actual get someone with intelligence sitting on the full bench of the Supreme Court deciding it's not allowed.
.........

By the time you add these two points with the current US corporate trend to try and stop their competition via expensive court cases (in the hopes they'll go broke first) instead of by producing a better or cheaper product, you have the current mess of everyone suing everyone else over frivolous patent issues on patents that should never have been issued in the first placed. I'm just waiting for someone like Microsoft, Oracle, Google, or Apple to lodge a patent on using the English language to write software code, and then suing the others for doing it.