Did Samsung Copy Apple and the iPhone? What's the view of this community?

[gwelmarten]

Hi All,

I've always being an Apple supporter in the case of Apple VS Samsung. I've posted my opinion before about this, expressing with image comparrisons how I think Samsung copied Apple, and I'm amazed at how some people are able to view a comparrison (such as between the Galaxy Packaging and the iPhone packaging) and say there's no similarity. I also opened a thread yesterday (here) discussing how Samsung were wasting processing power and not even trying to make good products - just throwing power at them in the hope it would solve problems and give them something to market.

However, all along I've being surprised at the discussions I have had with people - people who support Samsung and say Apple are being pernickety (to me that is like saying Apple should just lie down and let people make exact clones or rip off their innovations). Which is surprising to me - as this is MacRumors - a site where you'd expect the majority of people to be Apple fans (or at least interested in Apple).

So, here's my question. Do the community feel that Samsung copied Apple and that the verdict for $1.05Billion in Apple's favour is right? Or do they feel the other way?

Please show your opinion in the poll above.

Sam

 

[matttye]

Yes, they copied, and yes the verdict was right based on current laws.

However, I'm with Wozniak and think that all companies should just share their patents with each other. Imagine the best features from every smartphone rolled into one.

 

[thewitt]

Yes, they copied, and yes the verdict was right based on current laws.

However, I'm with Wozniak and think that all companies should just share their patents with each other. Imagine the best features from every smartphone rolled into one.

Without the protection of patent system, very few companies would invest as much as they do in R&D - something that even the Founders understood over two hundred years ago...

 

[Renzatic]

Without the protection of patent system, very few companies would invest as much as they do in R&D - something that even the Founders understood over two hundred years ago...

Thomas Jefferson would like to have a word with you.

To quote:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

About 3/4ths of the people on this board, along with 99% of the tech industry, should heed these words. Shamefully, doing so would mean they can't sue each other for extra spending cash, so I doubt the status quo will change anytime soon.

 

[KnightWRX]

Patent infringement is not about literal copying, direct copying or even indirect copying. The verdict really isn't about copying.

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Without the protection of patent system, very few companies would invest as much as they do in R&D - something that even the Founders understood over two hundred years ago...

That's a bold face lie. Companies would invest as much in R&D, except they'd do it to differentiate themselves. Taking an idea from a patent and getting a product to market is a long endeavour. Once a "patent" is released, companies would have quite some time on the market with their exclusive to get enough of a reward out of it while the "infringers" scramble to get something working through reverse engineering (since with no patents, there are no published claims to explain how it's done).