[Discuss] The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android: Galaxy Nexus in Apple v. Samsung II

[Jerry Feldman]

I guess PJ is a bit bored this weekend :-)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120902120442355
The Next Step in Apple's Thermonuclear War Against Android: Galaxy Nexus
in Apple v. Samsung II

Sunday, September 02 2012 @ 05:27 PM EDT

I'm sure you have seen the headlines
<http://newyork.newsday.com/business/technology/galaxy-s-iii-added-to-apple-samsung-patent-suit-1.3946074>
about Apple filing an amended complaint
<http://www.groklaw.net/pdf4/ApplevSamsung2-261.pdf> [PDF] in the
*other* litigation it has going against Samsung in Northern California
before the same two judges, the Honorable Lucy Koh and the magistrate,
the Hon. Paul Grewal. This is the litigation designed to obliterate the
Galaxy Nexus from the US market, and it targets a long list of Samsung
Galaxy devices, including the latest added in the amended complaint, the
Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II.

While the case is now moving into the main tent of Apple's anti-Android
circus, the Samsung devices are flying off the shelves
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/261800/apple_targets_galaxy_s_iii_note_in_latest_legal_action.html>
in America. People want them. But Apple doesn't want us to want them, or
if we already do want them, they don't want us to be able to find them
to buy them. And if we can find them, because Samsung comes up with
workarounds, it wants to be sure Samsung's devices are uglier than
Apple's and can't do as much. Noble values, indeed.

Apple's weapons in this war are patents and design patents and trade
dress and whatever there is at hand that the law foolishly puts into the
hands of plaintiffs determined to use the courts against its competitors.

P.S. That's not what courts are supposed to be for. And companies could
try innovation instead of litigation.

Apple wants us all to buy only Apple products (or any nonAndroid
alternative), or that's what I get from all this. So if we keep buying
Android products, Apple's strategy is apparently to make it such a
dangerous hassle to sell Android that the vendors will either give up
and go back to whatever else they were doing before Android came along
-- explaining why Microsoft's reaction to the bizarre Apple verdict
<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120824175815101> in Apple v.
Samsung I
<http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=AppleSamsung> was to
crow
<http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Samsung+Release+Statements+Following+Court+Decision+Microsoft+Gloats/article25516.htm>
that the verdict was "good for Windows phone" -- or have to implement so
many workarounds, their products are hideous to look at and can't do the
typical things customers expect. That seems to be how Samsung views all
this litigation
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/02/samsung-consumer-choice_n_1850229.html?utm_hp_ref=technology>
too, as Apple trying to limit consumer choice. Incidentally, the foreman
in Apple v. Samsung I, as I now call it, is still talking
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19425051> about that verdict, and
talking and talking, but he never makes it better.

This other case between Apple and Samsung isn't about rectangles with
rounded corners or double rows of icons with graphics of phone receivers
or flowers. Same court, same judges, same parties, but different Apple
patents. These Four Horsemen of the Android Apocalypse are patents for
what Apple claims are “key” product features -- “Slide to Unlock,” “Text
Correction,” “Unified Search,” and “Special Text Detection.” In other
words, four toxic software patents. Yes, Apple claims to own that
functionality as its very own, because it's such a great innovator. Who
else could think up text correction? I mean, come on. They are Geniuses.

I jest. I've taken the time to read up on the case a bit, and I'd like
to show you the dirty tricks Google, a nonparty involved in the case due
to Apple's discovery demands, said back in April Apple was doing --
creating what Google called a "manufactured controversy". It'll give you
some insight into this thermonuclear war Apple is waging.



-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id:3BC1EB90 
PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90