Where were you when Apple declared war?

ComputerWorld ^ | July 12, 2011 | Jonny Evans

[Swordmaker]

"Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions." Sun Tzu, Art of War

It was January 2007 when Apple [AAPL] went to war. The original iPhone wasn't just the world's first thin client Mac, it was then the company began to define the future of mass market mobile computing. It was when it swore to fight tooth and claw to dominate the vision.

[ABOVE: No more Mr. Nice Guy.]

World iWar

Today, you have Apple involved in an increasingly bitter global dispute with Samsung, litigation against HTC and Motorola, Kodak, the lousy Lodsys lawsuit and more. Apple is also taking on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) over essential patents for apps.

Apple is prepared to litigate to defend its position. That's in addition to its other battlefronts, for example: user interface excellence, world-class design, simplicity and self-expression.

Apple is attempting to retain control over patents which handle how mobile applications request sensitive information, such as contact, diary or other personal data. In order to do this it has had to refuse to provide a royalty-free license for two patents which are core components to the W3C's Widget Access Request Policy, a specification closely tied to HTML5.

Cupertino's refusal to allow royalty-free licenses to its '007 and '77 patents has driven the W3C to seek out 'prior art' with which to invalidate Apple's patents. Or find another way in the event a case to invalidate cannot be found.

[Swordmaker]

Jonny Evans declares "It's WAR!" in ComputerWorld —PING!

Apple at War Ping!



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[nickcarraway]

Apple has great design and makes great product. Shouldn’t that be enough? No, they have to shut down innovation elsewhere?

[Erik Latranyi]

Send in the clowns......I mean lawyers.

[MrEdd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-bA9FYB8HY

[FredZarguna]

Once more history repeats itself: the once dominant closed computer platform watches its market share disintegrate in the face of an open platform and decides to sue everyone in sight.

It didn't save Apple in 1985 and it won't save Apple now. Even if there was merit to Apple's various cases (as before, there probably isn't) the legal system will render verdicts years after the marketplace does.

[Larry Lucido]

War? There’s a war?

Oh, yeah. I remember something about a “clone” war. Back in the 80’s or 90’s? How did that work out? :-)

[The Iceman Cometh]

Yep, thank goodness there are alternatives to Apple. Their closed nature always irks me.

[Moltke]

No, by forcing competitors to find alternative or even better solutions, they are actually stimulating innovation. Well, that’s another way to look at it. ;-)

[VanDeKoik]

They are arrogant and pompous beyond belief.

They will loose, like they did with their “look and feel” lawsuits against Microsoft in the 90s.

Hopefully when they go down this time they take their sycophant fanboys with them.

I seem to recall them using the phrase “if you cant innovate, litigate” when Apple gets sued. Now it all happy “they are trying to protect their IP” nonsense.

[the invisib1e hand]

idunno, but we’re all better off because they did.

[itsahoot]

I don't know why they care, no one will ever use the stupid things, they are not a computer, only an Apple zombie would care.</sarcasm>

[Above My Pay Grade]

Apple is trying to become the Righthaven, LLC of the tech world. They better watch out, Righthaven might sue them for copyright infringement for stealing its business model.

[Myrddin]

It’s the liberal way. Use the courts to shutdown your competition when you can’t dominate by having the best product. Some folks don’t want an Apple product. It may be price, features or objection to supporting a company that finances leftists causes.

[dangerdoc]

I know you are being sarcastic but I’ve had an iPad for about 6 months, it is pretty good as a ebook reader but I alway set it aside and used the laptop if I wanted to do more.

I bought an Asus Transformer last week. It is great. I can use the tab for reading then attach the keyboard when I want to type. 2 USB ports, SD and micro SD slots, 16 hour battery life, tabbed multitasking, Google Maps with a very good GPS, I actually use it instead of the laptop most of the time now.

[kevkrom]

Apple is trying to become the Righthaven, LLC of the tech world.

Whether or not you agree with the strategy, that's a ridiculous comparison. Apple is attempting to protect its own research and development, something that Righthaven couldn't even dream of ever doing. You know, producing something other than legal documents.

Now, we could have an interesting discussion on patents in general, but not if it's going to start with cheap, inaccurate, and irrelevant ad hominem attacks.

Besides, the so-called Righthaven model originated in the tech world in the first place, by SCO (note: not the original SCO, but a patent troll outfit using that name). They failed, just as Righthaven did.

[ctdonath2]

The “clone war” of the ‘80s or ‘90s worked out by IBM, creator and definer of the standard, being utterly crushed by the competition after giving them the keys to the kingdom. The kingdom is now dominated by a symbiotic competitor, who struggles to keep the squatting rabble under some semblance of control in a decades-stagnating ecosystem.

I bought an original IBM PC. It came with complete electronic schematics and complete BIOS source code listing. Small wonder IBM lost all control.

[TXnMA]

When the opposition has demonstrated their intention to fire lawsuits, the only sane defense is prophylactic patenting.

You knew that -- but just had to find something to bitch about.

Get back under your bridge...

[antiRepublicrat]

Use the courts to shutdown your competition when you can’t dominate by having the best product.

In case you haven't noticed, Apple is dominating by having the best product in its market. Nobody sells more high-end cell phones, nobody sells more tablets, nobody sells more high-end consumer computers. Although I do think Apple's lawyers tend to go overboard, Apple is about as far away from being a patent troll as you can get.

Now show me Dell suing someone, that would look like pure desperation.

to supporting a company that finances leftists causes.

Then you're left out of almost all tech purchases.

[tacticalogic]

Nobody's been shot yet. Are they really sure they want a war?