Apple case weakens

The rumbling court battle between Apple and, well anyone prepared to make a mobile phone or a tablet computer but mainly Samsung right now has hit a new stumbling block.

It's not the first stumbling block since Apple were awarded a paltry $1 billion in damages for alleged patent infringements  but it is a significant one.  You see, the basis of the argument is that Samsung infringed six specific patents.  Many hours of legal argument have been spent on this topic in three different countries with three different results, but the US result that awarded the eye watering fine is the most spectacular.

That result is being challenged at the moment because the Jury foreman at the trial is alleged to have failed to declare an incident that may have prejudiced his opinion about Samsung.  Apparently Seagate, a company Samsung bought into a year or so ago, dismissed the man about ten years earlier resulting in his bankruptcy.  From what I have read, the man wasn't asked a direct question that would have revealed the link, but that's one for the lawyers to work out for certain.

Then there are the two non-US court cases over the patents; the South Korean courts found that both Apple and Samsung had stolen ideas from each other and awarded each fairly trivial damages.  The UK high court, in a ruling that is applicable across the whole European Union, found no case to answer.  In fact, they forced Apple to make a statement on its UK website and in selected UK newspapers stating that no infringement had taken place, a statement Apple made eventually after some prodding from the court.

And now the US Patent Office have decided that at least one of the six patents Apple claim were infringed was not a unique patent, that is, there were earlier patents that covered the same ground.  Probably not identical, but close enough to demonstrate that it wasn't a unique idea.  The patent was for the  'pinch to zoom' feature that is popular in many smartphones and tablets, and increasingly used in crime dramas on oversized capacitance screens - like public law enforcement agencies can afford that level of technology in this current economy!

And the other patents?  Well, one appears to be around the concept of a rectangular shaped device with rounded corners.  I think Hershey or Cadbury could challenge that idea quite easily.  OK, they never used the shape on a mobile phone but they did make objects that shape that people wanted to put near their mouths and loved.  Certainly the UK courts weren't too supportive to Apple on this matter, stating that Apple's products were cooler than Samsung's, but not infringed.

And there was the App bounce-back that Apple use to show you've reached the last page of Apps.  Somewhere between Newton's Laws of Motion and Einstein's Theory of Relativity sits the model for a dimensionless, massless image travelling towards an implied theoretical wall.  Another failure to impress the UK courts, it seems.

This is probably a hiccup in this long running saga that doesn't give many clues to the ultimate outcome.  I suspect that by the time a final binding decision is made the technology being argued about will be as relevant as a Betamax recorder is today and $1 billion won't be enough to buy a round of coffees at Starbucks.  In fact, I suspect we're almost at that threshold right now.

At least, as far as the round at Starbucks is concerned.

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How Many Lawyers Does It Take to Design A Mobile Phone?

Plenty, if your company name is Apple. Or Samsung.  Probably also Google, judging by the current wind direction.  The list used to include HTC too, but that looks like water under the bridge for now.

There's been a lot of suing and counter-suing going on lately.  Most of it appears to be around who thought of flat, rectangular mobile phones with rounded corners first.  Gene Roddenberry, probably, but like Steve Jobs he's not with us any more so isn't in a position to counter-sue.  Steve left a legacy for that eventuality. In case you missed it, here's a potted round up.

Apple and HTC have been popping in and out of court for years, keeping the lawyers gainfully engaged in the process.  Apparently they have come to an agreement recently, although the suspicion on the street is that HTC have seen the eye watering judgement against Samsung earlier this year and decided to cooperate with Apple rather than face them down.  Apple have entered into the spirit of things and shelved their litigation for now.

Of course that Samsung case is still rolling.  A US court awarded over $1billion against Samsung for infringement of its designs.  A UK court didn't come to the same decision, but then again they didn't have a jury foreman who might have had a grudge against Samsung.  You see, the foreman in the US case had been sued by his former employer, Seagate, a company that Samsung now are a major shareholder in.  He ended up a bankrupt as a result of the litigation and Samsung are now suggesting that he may not have been unbiased in the Apple case.  Add that to the fact that Apple have chosen, under a certain amount of judicial duress, to state publicly that the Samsung design did not infringe its designs and you've got a case that will roll on for years - literally as the appeal isn't due to be heard until 2014.

But Google could be the big target of Apple's wrath.  Apple have already had a pot shot at the Android operating system, claiming that it stole a chunk of ideas from them.  Now Google own the Android system, have done for years - from before either they or Apple had launched a mobile phone operating system.  Now, of course, Google are venturing into the mobile phone market directly with the Nexus 4, the iPad mini market with the Nexus 7 and the iPad grown up market with the Nexus 10, so the dynamic is changing.

Apple have several beefs with Google, one being that for now they need the company.  Virtually every search on the web today starts with Google.  Sure there's Bing and a few others, but Google is the search engine of choice for most of the planet, which means Apple have to include it on their devices.  Which means they have to pay Google for that right.  Google maps is another predominant mapping technology and up to now Apple have had to pay Google a pretty penny for the privilege.   Apple have consequently invested vast sums of money in developing their own version, but screwed up big time by rushing it out - that's the reason for the recent iOS6 upgrade.  Unfortunately the mapping  didn't work and in fact, for the few who actually saw them in action, behaved terribly.  That's why they rushed out iOS6.01 which reverted to Google maps - most of us hadn't got around to upgrading the OS  by then hence we never saw the maps in action.  However people keep on mentioning them in their blogs, so it isn't going away.

If only those pesky bloggers would let it go.

My guess is that Apple will have fixed the problems by now, but they will have to be really certain before they re-release the mapping routine.  You can only make a first impression once and they squandered that with iOS6.  The re-launch needs to be perfect and probably will need to be wrapped around something really tasty to take everyone's eyes off the past.

All of this legal activity could have been better directed.  We all know about how Apple missed a vital detail when buying the iPad name from a failing Chinese company, not noticing that China wasn't included in the deal.  That cost them about $60M for the oversight.  Now they've paid a Swiss clock firm $21M for using their clockface in iOS 6 without permission - that could have been a lot cheaper, given a little foresight and some decent legal eye for detail.

But perhaps if they sat down with all the tech companies they are suing, with the lawyers out of the room, perhaps they could hammer out a deal that didn't involve suing everyone else stupid.  Then the lawyers could get back to what they do best - oh, I don't know.  Changing lightbulbs?

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
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Microsoft Scratch the Surface

What a week.  Launches from Apple for the much hyped iPad mini, Amazon with a Fire in its belly and Google next to Nexus with excitement.

And then there's the Microsoft Surface tablet.  It was described by Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky as the best tablet he's ever used, the best laptop he's ever used.  To be fair, given his share exposure to Microsoft he's hardly the least biased person to comment and anyway, what's he been doing using other tablets?  He also pointed out that this was a monumental launch for Microsoft, up there with the top three which included, apparently, Windows 95 and two others.  I was driving and I didn't want to hear him claim Windows ME as being up there too, in case the shock caused me to crash, so I missed the other two.  To his credit, Windows 95 was a game changer in its day.  ME was probably the worst days' work MS ever did - I assume they only spent a day on it!  I spent two years regretting it.

So, is the Surface going to change the game?  Well, it does have a number of strong selling points, most notably being that it features a compatible version of MS Office.  You can read Office documents on your iPad and Nexus tablets, but creating a Word document from scratch is a bit of a problem.  With a bit of luck MS will have also decided on how to get documents to print from the Surface as well - I don't know if they have but I've sure struggled for hours with the iPad.  And before you email links to the many Apps that claim to make it a print friendly device please include some testimony about your own personal experience as I feel I've bankrolled a whole industry and still have to email documents to my PC to print them off.

 The critical point about the Surface is probably the price - MS are coming in way late and are up against a lot of stiff competition.  According to the UK Microsoft Store the basic Tablet retails for just under £400, and when I say just under don't expect any folding change.  This does give you a 32GB tablet which, in most real worlds is a great starting point.  But we're talking Microsoft here and they do have the reputation of sucking all the system resources up in a blink of an eye.  I'll wait until someone has had a chance to really test it in the real world before I decide if 32 GB is usable or not.

If you want the much vaunted clip on keyboard then expect to fork out an extra £80.  To put that into context, you can get Bluetooth keyboards for the iPad for a quarter of that price - suer they're no brand products but I've used one and they seem pretty good to me.  If you buy your Surface without the keyboard (or touch cover as they insist of calling it) then the purchase price is £100 for the tacky white model or £110 for the sexier black variety.  So, if you are buying a Surface, buy the keyboard with it, I guess.

Looking at the spec sheet it does include some useful standard items, such as Bluetooth to drive mice etc.  Front and rear facing cameras are there to let you Skype (or video-conference if you're trying to get the boss to authorise one of these) and of course to take photos.  Apparently the rear camera is angled so that it points straight when the device is set on the built in stand - I'm not sure how that affects hand held photography.  Perhaps photos of feet will be a giveaway trait.  Or the ceiling, I'm trying to get my head around this one.

Will it succeed?  Don't know, but I reckon it's going to be an uphill struggle given the lead Apple and Google have.  The business machine angle is Microsoft's best chance, and only time will tell if that has worked.  I don't think they will get many bites at this - er - apple before they lose the race.  We need a tablet that uses Office documents without hoop jumping, that interfaces with our work intranets effortlessly and runs our legacy business applications.  If the Surface does this then it may, just, be a success.


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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare!

Can Internet Piracy Be Stopped Using Laws?

The demonstration by Wikipedia earlier this month in protest at legislation being debated in the US has brought an issue to the forefront of public awareness. The legislation is, to a large extent, motivated by the film industry to reduce or, possibly, stop online piracy.  In the face of public objections, the SOPA and PIPA bills failed in Congress.

This can be a complex argument, one about moral rights, or perhaps the alternative view is like the Communist concept that all property is theft; or perhaps it’s what it seems – taking property from someone without their permission is theft; pure and simple.  There's no doubt that the Motion Film Industry loses a considerable amount of money to piracy, as do other parts of the media. and while many individuals may think they are gaining something for nothing, or near as damn it, there's also a lot of people making a lot of money out of this, with their sole contribution being to have stolen the media.

All of us will have a stance on the subject of theft, and I guess that many reading this blog will believe that they are honest. In reality, most people have a moral compass that points somewhere near the total honesty mark and most of the time it stays there, keeping them from personal shame and out of gaol. But pass by a strong enough incentive; say a million pounds, Euros or Dollars left unattended and without any clear ownership, a surfeit of CCTV and security personnel, a handy knapsack large enough to carry the money in and my guess is that many of us will find the needle bending away from the honesty marker. But although the money is sitting there without an obvious owner, it still belongs to someone else.  The same can be said of films, music and books.

Research has shown that even with our moral compass so strongly pulled  (perhaps by the convenient million mentioned above) , many of us would still do the right thing which, depending on your own definition, may be walking on by or phoning the police to report the cash. It may be your religion that stops you from pocketing the money, if you have one, although I don’t believe there’s any evidence to suggest that believers in a God are more or less susceptible to succumbing to temptation than non believers. Or you may just have a good old fashioned, and reasonable, fear of imprisonment.

But streaming a film, downloading a music track or copying an eBook off the Internet for free when the owner of the item hasn’t waived his or her rights to a royalty hardly feels like theft to many  people, the kind of people who wouldn't normally consider themselves as thieves.  But we all know of people who obtain such material over the Internet, either by directly streaming it from illegal sites or perhaps 'buying' the goods at ridiculously low prices.  I personally think that some people think that if they've paid for such goods, at prices that don't reflect the market, it must be legal.  I submit that they are willingly, if unwittingly, receiving stolen goods.

Then again, there's another side to this, though.  While reasonable, intelligent people can see that the receiving of manufactured media from suspect sources - be it Blu-rays, CDs, Books - is likely to be stolen goods, the same logic doesn't stack up with purely digital media - it's just ones and noughts, isn't it? 

However, if you check out eBay for eBooks and you will find compendiums of best sellers on there for peanuts, compiled from material 'in the public domain' and 'not infringing anyone's copyright, in line with eBay policy'.  My view is that these claims are poppycock.  Just because someone posted a copy of Dan Brown's latest book on the Internet, for free or for a payment, that doesn't mean it's a legal copy or that Mr Brown has waived his intellectual property rights.  And shame on eBay for failing to police such sales.

However, book companies, like record and film companies, aren't making it too easy for the moral compass to stay pointing at 'honest'.  Take a look at this screenshot from Amazon:

It doesn't take a genius to see where I'm going with this; I have a preference to promote electronic books and a real desire to read this particular book.  OK, the hardback version is being discounted because they printed too many - I've ranted on about the failure of the long established and well educated book marketers to predict book runs on several blogs previously.  I know that if I wait a couple of months I'll get this book in The Works for about a fiver and my hunch is that with all the manufacturing costs, shipping, storage etc, they'll still make a pound a book profit then, even after The Works have taken their slice off the top.  So where is the £12.99 for a stream of ones and noughts going to?  Will Walter Issacson get an enhanced royalty from those sales?  I doubt it.

I mention this because I know this book is one of the books available 'not infringing anybody's copyright in line with eBay policy' on eBay, on a CD with thousands of other such 'public domain' books, total bundle price: a couple of quid.  I won't buy them, I'm not a thief and I don't knowingly receive stolen goods.  But the industry - whether it is the film, music or print industry - could do more to make honest ownership easier, still make a profit and could avoid introducing laws in the US that somehow manage to affect law abiding people in countries they should have no right to legislate against.  (I would protest against UK legislation that affected legitimate rights of US residents in their own country, too)

If the various industries price their products fairly then there will be less incentive for people to steal their property.  It won't solve the temptation of thousands of books for a couple of pounds on eBay, so there will still need to be some improved sanctions (and I think that the likes of eBay could do a lot more than they do to manage this - just accepting a legal statement isn't diligent enough by any means), but laws don't stop crime, they only provide a mechanism to punish those who choose to break them.  Fairness, however, disincentivises broadly honest people from turning to crime.

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