Michael Koby

So by now you’ve all heard that the jury awarded Apple a billion dollar win in their patent suit against Samsung. This is big news in the technology world, with all sides weighing in with their opinions, thoughts, and accusations. I figured I might as well join the party.

What upsets me most about the verdict isn’t that Samsung was punished for copying, but rather that this verdict validates that Apple solved common problems. For example, one of the patents was for the ability to recognize phone numbers in text and be able to click on them to call the number. Sorry Apple, but Skype was doing that with their browser plugin, for years before your iPhone came out. This is just one example of several of the patents Apple used in their lawsuit against Samsung. In another patent, they actually claimed to have invented the idea of showing information at the top of the screen of a device (like battery levels or incoming text/email). Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t cell phones doing that well before the iPhone? I remember my Razr doing that well before the iPhone. Or what about their search patents? Samsung had to release updates to “fix” their phones because Apple has a patent on searching across databases found on a device (like search history, contacts, notes, and so on), you’re gonna tell me that searching across different data silos on a device wasn’t obvious or that there wasn’t already prior art for that (Google Desktop Search anyone)?

So while some of what Apple “invented” they have legitimate claims to, some of the things they have patents for are either obvious, or there’s plenty of prior art that the patent shouldn’t even be remotely valid. But, this verdict gives credence to not only these patents but to the broken patent system as a whole, and this is where I have problems with the verdict. And lets not even touch the whole “rectangle with rounded corners” thing that’s suppose to be “trade dress.”

What I want to call every pro-Apple person who’s claiming victory to do is to go and actually look at the patents involved. If you’ve spent anytime in technology for the last 10-15 years, you’ll see that there is, in fact, a lot of patents granted to Apple that have plenty of prior art. Apple is a great integrator. They managed to make a device that does multiple things well, something other companies have failed at for decades. I don’t want people to feel that I’m trying to discredit Apple’s contributions. They did, in fact, completely change mobile computing, can’t deny that. I’m discrediting the patent system which granted them patents where plenty of prior art existed to make some of these things either “already done” or “obvious next steps.”

The verdict is a big win for Apple, but it is a loss to innovation, not because Samsung should have been allowed to so blatantly copy Apple, but because the patents Apple has been awarded means other companies can’t do things that are pretty obvious or have plenty of prior art because Apple’s has patents on it. The verdict has validated a broken patent system, and that, I have problems with.

If you haven’t heard, Apple managed to get an injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Google’s current Nexus phone.

This makes angry. Sure, I can’t do nothing about it and I’m mostly over the initial anger from reading that this happened. But I think that’s it’s a pretty bad move by Apple and here’s why.

First off, if you read the linked stories, you’ll see that the main reason the judge gave Apple the injunction it was seeking was because of a search related patent. Specifically it’s a patent for unified search. Type in your search in one place and it will search through several various databases for results. A more specific example is if I type in a name on my phone, it might bring me back a contact card, a few search results, a facebook link, maybe even songs stored on my device that contain those names, and so on.

The problem with this patent is that if you read it, it’s exceptionally vague, and it could describe just about any kind of unified search. In other words, it’s not specific enough to Apple’s unified search found in iOS. Also, unified search has been around long before the patent was granted to Apple (filed in 2000, granted in 2011), so there’s plenty of prior art and thus this patent shouldn’t have even been granted. Heck, there was similar searches on desktop computers for years by that point. So this issue is specifically with the patent system, and not Apple itself.

Why I’m having issues with Apple over this is because they continually claim or at least allude to Android (and thus Android devices) being an inferior product to it’s own mobile OS, iOS. So Apple, got a judge to grant an injunction that prevents the sale of the Galaxy Nexus (a product Apple feels is inferior), and thus while it’s off the market it no longer has to compete with that device. Here’s where the problem comes in. If Apple truly believes that Android is an inferior product, then it should have no issues competing with it in the consumer market, correct? Yet, it’s gone and gotten the device removed, thus removing that bit of competition.

Thing is most people buying a Galaxy Nexus either aren’t interested in buying an iPhone, or they’re gadget nerds and they already have an iPhone, so either way, Apple’s not really losing a sale here.