Apple Gears Up the Lawyers

It's been a while since Apple launched a new iOS.  That in itself shouldn't be a headline, after all, most of us want some kind of stability with our new operating systems,  Unfortunately Apple recently went through a period of updating the iOS practically every other day.  To be fair, some of the updates were better called downdates as they reversed to some degree the changes the previous update had made.

It isn't a period when Apple was covered in glory.  What they were marginally better at during this period was taking on who they regarded as the bad guys in court, principally Samsung although Apple showed they were relatively prepared to take on anyone who they thought had infringed their ideas.  Mind you, recent news from the US puts their legal team into dispute, with early models of iPhone now likely to be prevented from being sold due to alleged patent infringements against Samsung.  Such is the see-saw world in Apple towers.

But Apple have moved on, they've sacked a few, let a few others leave of their own accord, and put hardware guru, Sir Jony Ives, in charge of the new iOS.  Now Sir Jony is famous for his minimalist approach to design and it seems that a lot of the Apple iOS was jarring him, particularly the cutesy detailed touches that have crept in over the last few years - you know, the grain on the bookshelves, the curl of the page when you turn one on an eBook.

I guess these things look great first time off, but to some the novelty wears off.  To be fair to Sir Jony, the simplicity of his iPod designs still keeps people coming back to pay a premium year after year so perhaps he knows a thing or two.

Mind you, some commentators aren't that interested in the sugar coating, or to be more precise, whether it survives or not.  Some think the problems that Apple have to address are deeper than that.  Part of the problem for Apple is that while iOS and the devices that run on it were ground-breaking when they arrived, the rest of the world hasn't stood still.  OK, Apple clearly know this to be true because they've spent a lot of money attempting to sue major manufacturers for what they believe is theft of their intellectual property, and I guess in many of the cases they have a point.  But I'll let the courts decide that bit, partly because it saves me running foul of Apple's lawyers but mainly because it's more fun to watch.  Like Apple ever read this blog!

However Android has improved by leaps and bounds in the last year or so and the tablet world has started to look a lot less than something Apple owns.  Even Microsoft have joined in the fun with their Windows 8 and Surface products.  It's fair to say Apple are relying more and more on their reputation.  After the Apple Maps debacle that's a tricky proposition.

But apart from some cryptic leaks and some strong denials, which of course mean they're not denials, from Apple over the last six months, they've been very quiet.  And that's what happens when clever people concentrate.  The word is that Apple are about to reveal information about iOS 7 and they're very excited.  Nobody is shouting about what the changes will be but rumour has it that the lawyers are lining up their cases ahead of the data release.  Apple want to make sure they keep the product launch information under wraps until they are ready, then they'll go for it.

The longer they leave it, though, the more likely that information will leak, and that will lead to ambiguity in the courts afterwards.  So for that reason and the fact that Apple have come up for air I think the announcement about iOS 7 will come within the next two weeks.  iPad owners and lawyers must be rubbing their hands together.

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Apple Award Cut in Half - For Now

Anyone reading this blog will be aware that there is a bit of an ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung.  In fact, anyone looking up and finding the 21st Century had started will be aware of the battle in some capacity.

There's been a lot of court cases in Korea, the UK and in the US.  Only in the US has anything like a definitive decision on the side of Apple been made - in Korea the courts were a bit ambivalent and the UK High Court which speaks for all of the EU was adamant that Apple were not wronged and forced them to publish statements to that effect.

But in the US the battle reached a high last year when a jury found Samsung guilty of breaching Apple's patents including the one that had apps bouncing back when the last page was reached and something about oblong shaped smart phones.  The jury were so convinced that Apple had lost a lot of money through these infringements that they allocated a fine exceeding $1 billion to Apple.

Now it appears that the jury didn't fully understand how to calculate the fine - whatever happened to just deciding on guilt? - and the judge involved has just lopped $450 million from the award.  It's not even certain that that's the end of the matter.  When the court reconvenes sometime this year there will be a re-examination of the award and  it could go up or down from the $550 million (give or take the value of the odd iPad) it currently stands at.

In the meantime Apple and Samsung are doing rather nicely in the smartphone market, with the pair of them carving up over 50% of all new sales between them, however Samsung are currently leading the pair by a significant margin.  Apple think that Samsung's new products also violate its patents, and are lining up a raft of lawyers to sue with, however the Judge in the current case thinks the timetable suggested - in 2014 - is too soon given the work needed to resolve this case.  Well, the elementary maths training for jurors isn't going to happen overnight.  My maths degree is probably up to working out addition, subtraction and calculating percentages so me and eleven others might short cut the timetable to manageable levels and save both companies a whole lot of lawyer fees, however as I'm a Brit I probably couldn't sit on a US jury.

And us Brits haven't been too receptive to Apple in court this side of the pond.

I guess I'll be posting more reports on this saga for a few more years.

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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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Apple Samsung Battle Recommences

Sometime today Apple and Samsung will reconvene in court to slug away at each other.  It's been a long running battle between the two technology giants.

Let's recap on where we are with this.  Both companies believes the other has been dipping its corporate hands into the other's intellectual pockets.  This is serious stuff, because one or the other has the original design rights to a rectangular shaped mobile phone. One, possibly the other, was the designer of App pages that, when reaching the last page, caused the Apps on that page to bounce back as if a virtual wall had been hit.

Probably someone at one of the two companies thinks the other company has stripped down their product and reverse engineered part of the design.  However I don't see much talk about that admittedly industry standard practise in the legal chatter.  Just the shape and the bounce back, really.  I did read somewhere that Apple were incensed that Samsung stole the bounce back design, allegedly, because it cost squillions of dollars to develop.

Really? I don't doubt the iPhone as a whole cost a lot to develop and software development doesn't come cheap in silicon valley.  But the bounce back?  I reckon it was a light bulb moment one evening while lazing in the jacuzzi, a reality twenty-four hours' medium-graft later.  About the same amount of effort that went into iOS6, then.

Samsung are going to try and get the original ruling that awarded Apple over $1billion quashed, based on a jury foreman they consider may not have been unbiased.  Something about how Seagate, a company Samsung bought into a year or so ago, screwed the said jury foreman (in his opinion) over ten years ago in an industrial dispute that saw him ending up bankrupt.  Some dispute, I wouldn't blame him for being a little sore.

Anyway, Samsung reckon there's a reasonable chance the jury foreman, a role that by definition carries some sway over the jury, may not have weighed the evidence evenly.

Apple are unphased.  At least, that's how it seems.  In fact, it appears they want the court to triple the damages.  If they are successful then it's possible that they won't need to waste their time developing iPads and iOS versions, they could make enough money just suing competitors.  There's no shortage of  potential other courtroom contestants, either.  They don't like Google, for one and I'm not sure they've finished moaning about Microsoft.  That one has been quiet for some time, but now that MS has had the audacity to release a tablet that is - let's be brutal here - rectangular it is probable they'll be in court soon, too.

If they do triple the damages, perhaps they could pour it all into the next version of iOS.  At least the Apple public will benefit from all this litigation.  What is certain is that the technology buying public won't be better off in the long term.  Whoever wins this battle will be able to treat the shareholders, sure, but ultimately the costs will filter into increased prices all round.

I don't know who stole off who,or indeed if anyone did at all.  The Korean courts believed both had stole off each other, the British courts ruled that neither had.  They did state that the Apple devices were cool,  and that relatively the Samsung devices weren't, and consequently they ruled that there had been no theft.  In fact they made Apple state that Samsung hadn't stolen their designs in several British newspapers and on their UK website.

It won't be an easy ride for either of the companies as the judge presiding, Judge Lucy Koh, has already taken them both to task.  She wanted a clear explanation of the arguments and limited Samsung to thirty pages of testimony to be submitted pre-trial and Apple a mere fifteen in response.  Both companies apparently disregarded her instruction and filed huge amounts of documentation in support of their case.  The judge has warned that anything over her limits will be culled.  So it seems that one of the largest technology lawsuits this century could be hampered by a limited file size.  Apt and nicely ironic, I think.

Let battle recommence.

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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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