Samsung to Seek Block on iPhone in Europe | Hacker News Reader

Samsung to Seek Block on iPhone in Europe

nytimes.com

47 pointsdanso28 comments

If Samsung's IP was really that strong - if they really have patents "essential" to wireless communications - then my first question is why they allow any competitors.

Florian Mueller makes a reasonable case that Samsung is trying to assert a very different kind of patent in a highly unusual way - http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/10/samsungs-attempt-to-.... TLDR: these kind of patents fall under the FRAND (fair reasonable non-discriminatory framework) and Samsung is obligated to grant them to anyone ("non-discriminatory") that wants them for a "reasonable" fee. To press an injunction without any arbitration violates the basic spirit of FRAND. Agree with their case or not, Apple's patents in question do not have these restrictions.

This is just another example of Apple suffering from its own actions. It was all excited about how H.264 was a FRAND standard, ignoring it's own previous statements about how such standards could lead to dominant players abusing other parties. But it had a market lead and a business model that fitted with the status quo so it was full speed ahead. And now the shoe is on the other foot.

From Apple's previous statement on this matter: "While the current draft patent policy does state a “preference” for royalty-free standards, the ready availability of a RAND option presents too easy an alternative for owners of intellectual property who may seek to use the standardization process to control access to fundamental Web standards. A mandatory royalty-free requirement for all adopted standards will avoid this result."

>This is just another example of Apple suffering from it's own actions. It was all excited about how H.264 was a FRAND standard, ignoring it's own previous statements about how such standards could lead to dominant players abusing other parties.

If Samsung has granted a license(either with royalties or royalty-free) to everyone else besides Apple, they aren't following the FRAND standard. If they have, and this is a result of negotiations falling apart(which is highly unlikely, considering that these are "essential to the reliable functioning of telecom networks and devices", and the iPhone 1 presumably infringes on these), then Samsung has a case.

Otherwise, Samsung may be violating agreements that they have with the standards agencies. This will be pretty interesting how it plays out.

The iPhone 1 won't, it's to do with CDMA which is only the iPhone 4 had as I understand it. The iPhone 4 with CDMA was also only available in the US though and that area is already under litigation.

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/05/samsung-app... for more info.

The article states that the patents cover WCDMA, which is apparently one of the standards used by GSM, and the standard that Apple used with the 3GS(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunicat...).

CDMA is a superset of that, apparently, and can also apply with certain GSM providers.

WCDMA is basis for UMTS, which is also called 3G. Plain-old GSM (2G and EDGE) is TDMA-based.

Because basically everyone has patents "essential" to something their competitors do. So there's been a broad detente in the industry, where no one sues indiscriminately on patents as a way to block their competitors. Except that Apple broke the truce, so now out come the guns. Yawn. I find it hard to believe that either side is really going to impede the other's sales much; this is a play for better negotiating position by Samsung.

And yes, Apple was wrong to have shot first.

The parents post was specifically pointing out that Samsung's patents don't enable them to block their competitors period end of story. It comes down to Samsung saying it's reasonable for us to get the right to use your patents as compensation for using ours. And Apple saying, as long as we are willing to pay you money we get to use your patents and you don't have the option do say no as long as the amount of money is reasonable.

"So there's been a broad detente in the industry... Except that Apple broke the truce... Apple was wrong to have shot first"

Apple shot first in the mobile industry the same way Greedo did.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20073471-248/a-brief-histo...

Way, way out of scope. I was talking specifically about Apple and Samsung. That they got sued earlier by Nokia doesn't make it OK to go after other vendors, sorry. And yes, Nokia was wrong too.

"I was talking specifically about Apple and Samsung."

previously on HN:

"broad detente in the industry"

I call shenanigans.

Indeed. It looks pretty bad when you selectively quote and drop the stuff I said about Samsung. Please. This site should be better than that. Frankly I don't even see where you disagree with anything I said. Apple sued Samsung in a high stakes bit of asshattery, and Samsung did the same. You think either of those is a good thing?

"drop the stuff I said about Samsung."

Your stuff is right there, I parsed the quote I originally responded to that made it clear you were very clearly not originally talking about a specific case -- a "broad detente in the industry" that Apple was the first to violate. Saying after the fact that you were only talking about Samsung is moving the goalposts. Maybe we don't disagree there but I'm hardly wrong for pointing out what I did when I did.

"You think either of those is a good thing?"

I think Nokia had many innovations that Apple infringed on and Apple probably deserved to be sued by Nokia and they paid up. I certainly don't remember anyone crying about how Nokia started "high stakes asshattery" in that case. Apparently it's only when Android vendors are the target of lawsuits that people get up in arms.

I think Samsung comes very close to if not crossing the line of infringement and Apple has the right to test that in court. You call this "high stakes asshattery" but you can just as easily make the case that Samsung is the asshat for blatant copying.

I think Samsung (like Nokia) has many technologies that Apple may infringe on. Based on limited evidence we've seen it's not as compelling as Nokia's but they have the right to test this in court or leverage it for a settlement or whatever.

From what I'm reading, it seems like Samsung is trying to use FRAND patents in their injuction against Apple which I thought is a big no-no.

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/10/samsungs-attempt-to-...

This blogs is anti-google and anti-android and he constantly paints the google side as the losing one even though he got proven wrong many times. No wonder he did it again today. Samsung isn't just using FRAND patents in this lawsuits. The majority of the patents Samsung claimed in their lawsuit weren't.

> Also, Samsung can sue Apple if Apple is unwilling to pay which they aren't. The correct route (going by what I've read) to license FRAND patents would be: negotiate on price; if negotiations fail go to court to determine a fair price; if still the infringer doesn't want to pay seek an injunction and forced payment. (from http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/l1jcu/samsung_seeks...)

Also, a few years ago, Nokia sued Apple based on wifi FRAND patents, how did it end up? With a settlement in favor of Nokia. If FRAND patents were impossible to enforce, do you think it would have ended with a settlement?

>Also, a few years ago, Nokia sued Apple based on wifi FRAND patents, how did it end up? With a settlement in favor of Nokia. If FRAND patents were impossible to enforce, do you think it would have ended with a settlement?

It's not that FRAND patents are impossible to enforce. Nokia sued Apple after neither side could get an agreement about the licensing terms. Apple held that the terms Nokia was demanding were not fair. That was the entire reasoning about the suits.

At the end of the day, it was not about whether or not Apple would pay Nokia. That was a foregone conclusion. The entire suit was over how much Apple would pay.

Seems that Apple decided to live by the sword so it might die by it, depressing to watch such waste

Good. Now every tech CEO will think twice before starting a patent war. Heck, this stuff might lead to more patent reforms, which are sorely needed. Apple has somehow went from this cool innovative California company, to yet another Chinese manufactured OEM with shitty policies and absurd patent litigation to keep competitors at bay. Their post-Jobs era will be cautionary tale for the industry. Launch patent nukes at your own risk. Sadly, the best we can expect from patents in this day and age is a MAD-like philosophy. First strikes are difficult to deal with, and will result in collateral damages.

This comment frames it in a way that makes it sound like Apple is going to suffer some negative consequences solely because it asserted its own patent rights.

Companies like Microsoft and Nokia collect royalties from companies like Apple and others by threat of patent litigation. By which I am suggesting that the “sword” falls on everyone, not just those who wield it themselves. Thus, it may be true that Apple wielded the sword and also true that Samsung is wielding it against Apple, but we cannot assert that companies who don’t wield the sword won’t find it wielded against them.

I suggest that the underlying problem with the patent situation in a field as complex as technology is that since every non-trivial product seems to infringe on a non-trivial number of patents owned by a wide range of practising and non-practising entities, everyone ends up dying by the sword.

Some pay by the month and die slowly, some resist and may face a more sudden demise.

Such a terrible waste of time and money, yet you start a fire and it may well burn you.

With Apple's bank I don't think this is just about money. Since the beginning of these lawsuits I felt Jobs was personally offended. This may be because he felt backstabbed by Google or that OEM's were copying his creations at a faster rate than he could innovate.

Regarding the article, I couldn't less what goes on between these companies. I only care about major court decisions. What I'm more interested in is the lawsuit regarding Motorola and Apple's multitouch patents.

I have severe difficulty with the idea that's actually what's happening here, the iphone was nothing new when it came out and the good parts of it were assimilated into pretty much everything after it, and the better phones that came out after that point continued to beat the iphone in the feature and performance war generally speaking, it seems to me that apple got annoyed that the usability improvements that they made ended up being so trivial in the grand scheme of things and were/are unable to compete with the pace of evolution in the marketplace so wanted to try and force a result in the courtroom.

For this, I think they deserve what they're getting here.

Samsung previously said they would try this the moment it was released so far from a surprise. Big waste in time and money.

Fight fire with fire.

Apple has no one to blame by themselves. Instead of focusing so much on lawsuits, they should've focused on launching the new iPhone on time, and also on launching a real successor to the iPhone 4.

This is like US starting a nuclear war with China because "they stole their jobs", and then when China sends some nukes back, they realize that maybe they shouldn't have done that. Plus, it ends up destroying its own economy financing a huge war, too, and focuses more and more on the war instead of economical growth.

> This is like US starting a nuclear war with China because "they stole their jobs"

This is more than a bit of a stretch. Apple has indeed launched a new iPhone 4 successor on time, so I'm not sure where you're trying to go with your argument.

What indicates to you that Apple is using ALL of their financial resources to go after Samsung?

> Instead of focusing so much on lawsuits, they should've focused on launching the new iPhone on time

There's no such thing as "not on time" when there is no timeline, no announcement and no preview.

And the longer-than-usual refresh delay was due to iCloud, it has nothing to do with iPhone itself.

"This is like US starting a nuclear war with China ..., and then when China sends some nukes back, they realize that maybe they shouldn't have done that."

It's nothing like that. It's like taking a test and the guy next to you is copying but instead of saying nothing you say "Stop copying off of me" really loud then that guy is embarrassed and might get in some serious trouble later and 10 min later he tells you to stop copying off of him(!) but no one is really going to take him seriously because everyone knows he's a copier.

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