06.28.18
Gemini version available ♊︎Apple Loses Its Patent War Against Android and by Extension Against Linux
“We’ve always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
Summary: The long battle that Steve Jobs embarked on nearly a decade ago (with his infamous term, going “thermonuclear”) reaches its end and Apple is nowhere near to what the now-deceased Jobs actually wanted because Android dominates the market and these lawsuits are profitable to nobody except law firms
BACK in 2010 we wrote a lot about Apple, particularly about its war on Android, which had begun with a ‘soft’ (vulnerable) target, HTC. Our interest in this case and subsequent cases (e.g. against Samsung) has since then dwindled, but we kept abreast of the more major developments.
“From a legal perspective this case isn’t as interesting as other cases, but the sums (so-called ‘damages’) are higher, so patent extremists were quick to boost it.”Apple and Samsung finally settle, but we weren’t sure if we should bother writing about this because it’s covered very widely already. Like everything “Apple”, when it comes to patents literally all the major papers cover it (while ignoring much more important patent news). That’s not exactly fine, but this is the world we live in and if some headline says “Apple”, then people are more likely to click on it (than a headline that says “§ 101″ or something equally vague to most people).
But really, how can we just ignore such news? The patent maximalists’ sites, e.g. Michael Loney’s, have begun covering it. “Apple and Samsung apparently just settled their patent dispute,” Mark Lemley wrote yesterday and soon thereafter came a lot of media coverage. Sites about patents wrote about it, albeit we can expect a lot more from them in days to come. From a legal perspective this case isn’t as interesting as other cases, but the sums (so-called ‘damages’) are higher, so patent extremists were quick to boost it. They wrote about it last night.
“Just remember that Apple started this dispute and was the bully all along.”So did technology news sites, Android sites, Apple sites, Android-centric news sites like this, corporate media and its “tech” branches (like CBS/CNET). They don’t say anything particularly special or insightful. In fact, the said truce is pretty secretive, so there’s not much that can be said with certainty. A blog post from someone who followed these battles closely for 8 years (Florian Müller) says/concludes with this: “Normally, those companies strike license deals, and when they wind up in court, they typically settle reasonably early. Somehow, it took them a lot longer in this case. And now either one of them has a dispute going that looks like it could become the next long-running one: Apple with Qualcomm, and Samsung with Huawei.”
“Only the lawyers gained from these cases (there was a string of them).”Just remember that Apple started this dispute and was the bully all along. Judge Koh made herself a name out of it. The media loves any case that says “Apple” on it. Müller added that “Judge Koh was quick and presumably overjoyous to grant the DISMISSAL sought by Apple and Samsung post-mediation: ORDER OF DISMISSAL. Signed by Judge Lucy H. Koh on 6/27/18.”
Koh has since then done other commendable things in her court.
For those wishing to read more details, try this article from Bloomberg:
The biggest patent battle of the modern technology world has finally come to an end after seven years.
Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. told a judge Wednesday they’d resolved the first filed but last remaining of the legal disputes that once spanned four continents. The string of lawsuits started in 2011 after Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder who died that year, threatened to go “thermonuclear” on rivals that used the Android operating system. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the accord.
Only the lawyers gained from these cases (there was a string of them). Why did Samsung and Apple bother? Apple started this! It was an awful and now-notorious strategy of Steve Jobs, who even used words like “thermonuclear”. The supposed brilliance of this ‘genius’ was bad judgment and arrogance. The courts proved it. █
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