Apple Patent Case Ping!
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Posted on 08/27/2012 12:04:52 PM PDT by Swordmaker
To Steve Jobs, Android stirred unpleasant memories of Microsoft
Last week Apple made headlines twice. On Monday it broke the world record for shareholder value. Apple's $623.5 billion market cap beat Microsoft's record from tech's notorious bubble era. (Microsoft needed a price-to-earnings ratio of 72 in 1999 to set the record. Apple's ratio is a modest 16.) Then on Friday, Apple won a $1.05 billion patent-infringement judgment against Samsung, the Korean electronics giant and the maker of the Galaxy line of smartphones that stirred Apple's ire.
Congratulations, Apple—twice. But these two coinciding events should give us pause.
One, how badly has Apple been hurt by copycats if it has ...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Rich Karlgaard’s writing about the Apple’s lawsuit evokes sad memories for me. In 1979, Xerox Development Corporation (XDC), a wholly-owned Xerox subsidiary made an approximate $1.1 million investment in Apple as part of a venture capital round in the fledgling personal computer company. In the minds of XDC’s small entrepreneurial team (of which I was a part), this was the start of an exciting long-term relationship offering access to a major new business opportunity for Xerox, including potentially marketing Apple products worldwide via Xerox’ already extensive sales organization. On the basis of this envisioned relationship, Xerox Palo Alto Research facility (PARC) was opened up to Apple with the intent that Apple should use any available technology it wished in Apple’s products. Several years later, Xerox top management decided that Apple, “that small California start-up” was not going to succeed and was unlikely to ever produce a product worthy of being marketed by Xerox. Instead, Xerox management elected to fund an internal program to develop a personal computer (named the “Xerox 820”) worthy of the Xerox label. I was instructed to dispose of the Apple stock, now a public company, which I did by donating part to the Xerox Foundation and bleeding the rest into the market over several months. The result was a roughly 19-1 investment gain, but a huge missed opportunity for Xerox. Much of this happened before IBM had developed its initial PC. Today, the entire personal computer topology might be much different if Xerox had stuck with the initial commitment to Apple. As a well-known radio personality would say: “Now you know the rest of the story.”
As part of this investment agreement, which was for PRE-IPO common stock, Xerox allowed Steve Jobs and a team of design and software engineers two 8 hour visits to PARC and to USE anything they learned there... but they could not take notes, or take any software, or copy any hardware. They could use what they learned. This was a formal agreement for Xerox being allowed to buy the pre-IPO stock. i.e. Apple purchased the rights to what they saw and learned. Microsoft and Bill Gates were never there.
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The Xerox 820 was a VERY overpriced CPM box. All 8 bit, Z80.
It did provide the diskette format that I used in my MSX/CPM Z-80 Spectravideo SV-318, so that’s something.
Have you read these articles?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500273-37/apple-v-samsung-the-infringing-device-scorecard/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-apple-samsung-juror-speaks-out/
The huffingtonpost had an intereresting blurb on this (and I feel dirty giving credit to the paper - but the article was great). Jobs and another engineer were there, looking at the “mouse” and how you could do drop down menu’s.
Jobs was excited, and animated at the age of 24, who asked them “Why aren’t you doing anyting with this?”. The article went on to detail the number of pre-IPO Apple stock that was offered - but did not detail what Xerox did with the stock. Xerox had a fortune in their hands, not just in Apple stock, but in IP that they essentially just threw away.
But, the fact remains ... Apple PAID for the stuff they got from Xerox PARC. Nothing was stolen.
The huffingtonpost had an intereresting blurb on this (and I feel dirty giving credit to the paper - but the article was great). Jobs and another engineer were there, looking at the “mouse” and how you could do drop down menu’s.
Jobs was excited, and animated at the age of 24, who asked them “Why aren’t you doing anyting with this?”. The article went on to detail the number of pre-IPO Apple stock that was offered - but did not detail what Xerox did with the stock. Xerox had a fortune in their hands, not just in Apple stock, but in IP that they essentially just threw away.
But, the fact remains ... Apple PAID for the stuff they got from Xerox PARC. Nothing was stolen.
You could make an encyclopedia of Xerox’s missed opportunities.
They didn’t see any market for the FAX machine, when they were given first crack at licensing the technology.
You can say that again... oh, you did... grin.
Business history is replete with stories like this, of corporate imaginations going bust OR just being squeezed when new opportunities would make a difference. Western Union had little interest in the new fangled telephone, GE, Philco and other consumer electronic companies totally lost out to Japan in the home entertainment (just as Japan is losing to Korea and Taiwan now). Kodak had the FIRST Digital Camera in 1975 and helped Apple with its First Digital “QuikTake” in 1994.
It is highly likely, that at some point in the future, people will point to Apple as doing the same thing. Very few non-niche companies can reset themselves over and over again and IBM is the only one that I can think of that is not a financial or legal conglomerate. This is also a strong argument against GOVERNMENT operating in business. Socialism and Fascism stifles business self-interest, stifles competition, stifles new business entry and leads to bureaucratized emulations of government, large and stolid.
Apple sucks and the notion that you can patent rectangles with rounded edges is patently ridiculous.
>> Apple sucks and the notion that you can patent rectangles with rounded edges is patently ridiculous.
Absolutely correct.
Whatever this silly Apple-buttkissing article says, the samsung-apple fight is FAR from over.
Google “apple samsung verdict” and see for yourself.
I live for the day Apple gets their well-deserved smackdown from the US courts.
Next Apple patent?
Mobile devices that do not allow battery replacement.
Actually, it is the other way around... Apple helped Kodak. In 1991, Kodak released the first professional digital camera system (DCS), aimed at photojournalists. It was a Nikon F-3 camera equipped by Kodak with a 1.3 megapixel sensor. Apple provided the software for that camera because the majority of photographers were using Macs.
The first digital cameras for the consumer-level market that worked with a home computer via a serial cable were the Apple QuickTake 100 camera (February 17 , 1994), the Kodak DC40 camera (March 28, 1995), the Casio QV-11 (with LCD monitor, late 1995), and Sony's Cyber-Shot Digital Still Camera (1996). The Apple/Kodak partnership was already established.
Unfortunately for you, that is merely Samsung's talking point and is NOT what the design patent that was infringed is all about, it is merely ONE of dozens of specific design points in the patent... the patent covers much more. It is the totality of the design that was infringed. The law about design patents is quite specific. The law and case law specifically excludes logos and manufacturers names from consideration in determining infringement. The Samsung lawyers kept trying to point out the Samsung Logo and name on their products... the law says that is NOT ENOUGH to differentiate products. Nor is mere size differences.
“Apple sucks and the notion that you can patent rectangles with rounded edges is patently ridiculous.”
You view it as ridiculous. Yours is an opinion. The Patent Office viewed it as law.
Take a look at mobile phones before the iPhone vs. After the iPhone.
Which part didn’t you understand? Let me repeat, the patenting of shapes is ridiculous and patent bureaucrats who issue them are just as ridiculous. Their supporters as well. And yes that is my opinion.
The part about your refusal to acknowledge the fact of law.
"Let me repeat, the patenting of shapes is ridiculous and patent bureaucrats who issue them are just as ridiculous. Their supporters as well. And yes that is my opinion."
Now, you're making some progress. My utmost compliments to you.
The “Beleaguered computer maker” Apple strikes again!
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