Apple vs. Samsung verdict: It doesn't matter

The jury in Apple vs. Samsung, doubtlessly eager to be out by the weekend, rushed their way through the approximately 26 pages and 55 questions of their instructions and decided that Samsung did indeed violate some of Apple's patents just over a billion bucks.

This is not the end. This verdict doesn't even matter in the long run. This was just another clash.

This case was going to be appealed, no matter who won, the second it started. This is just one more encounter on the case's way to the Supreme Court. Samsung has lost this skirmish, but not the war.

Let me refresh your memory. Apple started this by suing Samsung around the world. Samsung has replied in kind. Antarctica may be the only continent where the two aren't locked in battle. The U.S. District Court is just a single battlefield in a much greater war.

In those other battles, Apple and Samsung have both won and lost. South Korea's Seoul Central District Court may have the most representative result. It found both companies guilty.

True, in this one arena, Apple has won big... for now. But, besides being just a single conflict, Samsung's Android buddy, Google is busy asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the import of iPhones, iPads, and Macs for patent violations . That too will end up in court after court after court.

"This case really shows only one thing. The patent system, especially when it comes to software, is utterly and totally broken. While I tend to side with Samsung—come on Apple you really believe that your patenting the rectangle makes sense in any sane world?--the whole fouled up patent system is doing nothing but blocking innovation, raising end-user prices, and enriching no one except law firms."

I agree. It is one thing to patent code to make a gesture work on a touch screen. It is something entirely different to patent a way a person moves their fingers to get a certain response on their device.

"Screw you, Apple! I patented this so called pinching gesture first and now I'm going to crush your head with it. Crush, crush crush."

.......I feel that way and I love all my Apple products.

I bought a PPC-6700 in 2005. It was manufactured by HTC. It was rectangular with rounded corners. It can function as a video camera, a camera phone, a portable media player, an Internet client with email and web browsing capabilities, and can send texts and receive visual voicemail, and has both Wi-Fi and cellular data (2G and 3G) connectivity. It also can be used to connect other devices to the Internet and has a touch screen. Unlike an iPhone it has a physical slide out QWERTY keyboard.

Around two years later the first iPhone came out. It had a better screen and improved operating system. At first the Windows Mobile Operating system had far more applications, but the iPhone eventually eclipsed it. The first iPhones did not have 3g connectivity. Still, the iPhone was an evolutionary improvement over the PPC-6700. They took what the PPC and other smart-phones did and made improvements and marketed them better.

This lawsuit is such a crock. The only thing that it proves is that the jury pool in the USA is made up of easily manipulated fools. The end result will be stifled innovation and higher prices. 12 idiots just stole a billion dollars from Samsung which is one of the most innovative companies in the world and gave it to Apple the largest corporation in the world.

It is one thing to patent code to make a gesture work on a touch screen.

You cannot patent code; that's for copyright. You can patent the logic flow, the process, and that's what's happened even if you don't realize it.

I don't understand where this communist idea is coming from. Why should the wealth of Apple's labor be redistributed to competitors?

What right do those who won't buy Apple's products have to the way it designed and built them? They have none. That'd be the Obama way, not the capitalist or conservative way.

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