l******a
发帖数: 3803 | 1 http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/08/mobile-phones
THE high-stakes court case between Apple and Samsung that got underway in a
federal court on July 30th has attracted more than the usual media fanfare.
The two technological titans have been trading barbs in court rooms across
the world. The present trial in San Jose, California—just down the road
from Apple's headquarters—is scheduled to last 40 days. The outcome is
expected to have a major influence on the way patent disputes are resolved
in future.
Apple has accused Samsung of copying not only its iPhone’s look and feel,
but also a feature known as “rubber-banding” that is a highlight of its
user-interface. For its part, Samsung says Apple violated two of its “
standards essential” patents covering the way mobile phones communicate, as
well as three other patents concerning they way they handle music and
pictures. Apparently, Apple refused to pay the licence fees, but used the
technology anyway.
Samsung has also charged that, far from being unique, the iPhone owes much
to earlier Sony and LG Electronics models. In other words, there is plenty
of prior art around. It is fairly clear, says Florian Mueller, an
intellectual-property consultant interviewed recently by the Wall Street
Journal, that Apple did not invent the iPod and iPhone out of thin air—but
relied, to some degree, on innovations that already existed. “This is the
way innovation typically works.”
Apple has much to lose. At stake is its reputation as the supplier of the
most desirable of mobile devices. When it launched the iPhone in 2007, it
had the smartphone market essentially to itself. But since Google began
offering its free Android operating system to mobile phone-makers everywhere
, the competition has become brutal—with Samsung leading the charge. Over
the past three months, for instance, Apple has seen its slice of the
smartphone business squeezed from 23% to under 17%. Meanwhile, Samsung’s
share has increased from 29% to over 32%.
Whether die-hard fans like to admit it or not, the iPhone has fallen behind
in appearance as well as technology. Samsung, Motorola Mobility (now part of
Google) plus all the other makers of Android phones have been delivering
faster and thinner models with bigger screens and ever slicker multi-tasking
software at a blinding pace. Once-loyal Apple customers have become less
impressed. The new iPhone, due in late September, will be thinner and have a
slightly larger screen. But by updating its devices just once a year means
Apple is now continually having to play catch-up.
With the magic wearing off, Apple’s global attack on Samsung is aimed
primarily at winning injunctions to drive the South Korean company (the most
successful of the Android makers by far) off the market. The current court
case in San Jose is one of more than a dozen that Apple has brought against
Samsung and other Android makers.
But the ploy remains a risky one. If the San Jose court rules in Apple’s
favour, Samsung could be forced to cough up $2.5 billion in damages alone.
But the ruling could just as easily go the other way. In that case, Apple
could be stuck with having to pay Samsung a $14 royalty on every iPhone ever
made.
Whatever the outcome, Judge Lucy Koh has made it clear that she will stand
no nonsense from either party. Before joining the bench, Judge Koh was an
experienced patent attorney and knows the issues intimately. Her
instructions to the nine-person jury will be aimed at setting precedents
that can be applied to other patent cases Apple has brought against Samsung
and other competitors.
The case cannot help but be influenced by a lawsuit brought by Apple against
Motorola in June. In that instance, Judge Richard Posner, one of the
sharpest minds on the federal bench and an outspoken critic of America’s
troubled patent system, dropped a bombshell by dismissing the case entirely.
He ridiculed Apple’s overly broad claims about patents covering its user-
interface, and summarily dismissed Motorola’s demand for a fat royalty for
its basic communications patents.
The 73-year-old Judge Posner, who also teaches at Chicago Law School, is one
of the founders of the legal school that interprets patent law in economic
terms. His argument last June for refusing to ban Motorola’s products from
the shelves, as Apple sought, was that “an injunction that imposes greater
costs on the defendant than it confers benefits on the plaintiff reduces net
social welfare”. That is the economic interpretation of patent law at work
.
If, as it seems, Apple has had to resort to the courts to stifle competition
and limit consumer choice, then it is a sad day for American innovation.
That the company can do so with such impunity is an even sadder reflection
of how dysfunctional the patent system in the United States has become.
The only reason why governments grant patents (and the monopoly rights they
entail) is to promote innovation—in the hope of generating jobs and
additional sources of revenue. Patents seek to do this by requiring the
inventor to make prompt and full disclosure of the idea, so others may seek
a licence to use it, or find ways to work around it. In exchange, the
inventor is granted the right to exclude competitors for 20 years or so.
The cost to society of allowing a monopoly to flourish has long been assumed
to be outweighed by the benefits that accrue from encouraging individuals
to spend their own resources inventing useful things that did not exist
before. In short, patents have been seen as a necessary evil for fostering
innovation.
That assumption is now being challenged. Indeed, a debate has been raging in
the United States over whether patents—especially those granted for
protecting software ideas and business processes—help or hinder innovation.
Mostly, it is thought they do the latter. All the evidence suggests that
after patent protection is obtained, it tends to be used as a means for
hurting competitors and inhibiting progress. In other words, patents are, in
many instances, an unnecessary evil.
In recent times, the courts in America have contributed to this sorry state
of affairs. In particular, the Federal Circuit (the centralised appellate
court established in 1982 to hear patent disputes among various other things
) has been responsible for a number of bizarre rulings on software patents
in particular. The problem with the Federal Circuit is that, because of it
diverse responsibilities, it has never developed the kind of expertise in
patent law that its more specialised counterparts in Europe and Japan have
acquired.
Meanwhile, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has itself
played fast and loose with the rules of patentability. Admittedly, the sheer
size and complexity of modern software have made it difficult for patent
examiners to judge whether a program contains features that are genuinely
novel, non-obvious and useful—the three criteria for patentability. The
USPTO’s failure to apply the novelty and non-obviousness requirements
rigorously enough has led to a proliferation of shoddy, overly broad patents
. At best, these have often proved to be old and obvious; at worst, simply
embodiments of well-established practices. This plethora of poor-quality
patents is clogging American courts. They are what lie at the heart of the
current patent dispute between Apple and Samsung in Judge Koh’s court.
The America Invents Act, signed into law last September, did much to
encourage lone inventors with limited resources, but left intact some of the
more egregious patent practices that hobble innovation in America (see “
Programmed nonsense”, October 7th 2011). In particular, the overhaul did
nothing to rein in the overly broad software and business-process patents
that have given rise to the protection racket operated by “non-practising
entities”. These entities (commonly known as “trolls”) produce nothing
themselves, but amass patent portfolios solely to bully others into
settlements. The usual victims are small companies lacking the time and
money to challenge such litigation.
A recent study by James Bessen and Michael Meurer of Boston University
showed the median company sued by such entities had little more than $10m in
sales. All told, patent trolls sued over 5,800 companies in America last
year, accruing some $29 billion in settlements. That is money that small-to-
medium enterprises could ill afford and would have better spent on
innovation.
The good news is that where Congress has feared to tread, American courts
have lately shown themselves more determined. A growing chorus of judges is
bent on bringing a healthy dose of economic sensibility to patent law. Their
approach is to favour financial remedies over injunctions that constrain
competition. What Judge Koh will finally recommend is impossible to say. But
both Apple and Samsung could well find themselves ruled equal losers. And
if that gives industry some pause for thought, all to the good. | p**x
发帖数: 6614 | 2 苹果没有把白色和黑色手机注册了真是可惜，要不三爽们只能出红色粉色的手机给gay
用了
a
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【在 l******a 的大作中提到】
: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/08/mobile-phones
: THE high-stakes court case between Apple and Samsung that got underway in a
: federal court on July 30th has attracted more than the usual media fanfare.
: The two technological titans have been trading barbs in court rooms across
: the world. The present trial in San Jose, California—just down the road
: from Apple's headquarters—is scheduled to last 40 days. The outcome is
: expected to have a major influence on the way patent disputes are resolved
: in future.
: Apple has accused Samsung of copying not only its iPhone’s look and feel,
: but also a feature known as “rubber-banding” that is a highlight of its
| c******4
发帖数: 2207 | 3 真的假的? 这也太无聊了吧, 难道颜色都成苹果家发明的??
大哥大就是黑色手机, sony也是白色手机, 出这些东西的时候, 教主都还没构思爱疯呢
我都无力吐槽了 |
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