U.S. Regulators Agree to Investigate Apple's Patent Claims Against Samsung

If apple loses the case they will be paying a huge premium and money to samsung. Part of the agreement since Samsung I believe agree to it as well is if Apple loses they will be paying Samsung for the money they loss.

Not really telling at all.

Apple is looking more and more like just someone running scared sueing anyone who is a threat to them.

Apple has to try and protect their IP. They wouldn't go this route if they didn't think they had a case...

Good. Competion is great but plain stealing form factors and tech just because you are one of the manufacturers of the competition's successful devices says a lot of how Samsung has no issues in ripping off its customers (corporate and retail).

Apple's confidence and their insistence on pursuing these parties should be an indication that Apple is onto something, and that this most certainly isn't any sort of frivolity.

This alone is quite telling:

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/190642/20110802/no-samsung-galaxy-tab-in-australia-until-legal-dispute-with-apple-is-resolved.htm

Apple is looking more and more like just someone running scared sueing anyone who is a threat to them.

Totally disagree. What are the points of copyrights, trademarks, patents, etc then? Does Apple just ignore that they feel these are being violated? How would you feel if you created something and then someone created something nearly identical?

Apple OBVIOUSLY feels they have a strong case. Are they doing this because Samsung is gaining ground with these new products? Yes. But they also feel that Samsung products are gaining ground because of the IP they stole from Apple, not something Samsung created on their own.

There is a reason Apple specifically chose to go after Samsung (a close partner of theirs for a long time) hard and with force. It's because Apple feels it's the most blatant rip-off of the bunch out there.

Good. Competion is great but plain stealing form factors and tech just because you are one of the manufacturers of the competition's successful devices says a lot of how Samsung has no issues in ripping off its customers (corporate and retail).

Is the Holy Inquisition of the Holy Church of Apple at work again...?

You probably don't even have the faintest idea of how many ideas Apple has stolen over the last three decades, beginning with the graphical user interface and mouse and lately the entire notification system in iOS. Touch screens were not Apple's invention either, and neither were tablet computers. The guys at Apple make great products and they make a lot of scattered ideas work for the masses, but they are not the only people with ideas on that planet and not everything that you folks BELIEVE comes from them actually came from them. Most of the time, they just improved concepts that others conceived long before them and make it work. That in itself already is a great achievement and deserves respect. But it won't hurt to look behind their marketing schemes and call BS when they brag about the many "innovations" that basically are just re-implementations of the products of other developers. Apple certainly has no issues with ripping off the ideas of the "Apple design award" winners or copying little Shareware and Freeware products and selling them as their own innovations. Heck, Apple even uses other companies' product names: iOS, iPhone, Mighty Mouse...

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." -- Picasso

http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/

Apple OBVIOUSLY feels they have a strong case. Are they doing this because Samsung is gaining ground with these new products? Yes.

There's no doubt that Apple feels threatened in the long term, athough I would submit that their plan of forcing others to improve their systems in new and clever ways differently from iOS, is probably not the best strategy to take :)

But they also feel that Samsung products are gaining ground because of the IP they stole from Apple, not something Samsung created on their own.

We have to differentiate between the types of IP we're talking about.

On the one hand, it could be quite valid to try to claim that someone is using your exact look and feel, and other visual innovations (e.g. bounceback at edges).

On the other, we should not use phrases like "stole" too easily in reference to most of the non-visual patent claims. It's extremely unlikely that anyone actually looked at Apple's patents and decided to implement them. On the contrary, many of the disputed patents are over fairly old internal code ideas that were independently created. In fact, some of these patents could be struck down.

For its part, Google has no interest in making the best mobile operating system. They just want a place to show their ads.

Not only does that not make sense, it doesn't reflect reality.

Of course Google wants to make a good OS, so people will use it.

As for ads, I'm not sure what/where you mean. The only place people see ads are in apps, and personally, I see more in iOS apps than Android apps. Both Google and Apple love to sell ads in apps.

uh yeah . . . it's pretty safe to say they do, given the kind of antics we've seen from Samsung over the past few months. They were already ordered by the courts to hand over their goods to Apple for inspection, and all of a sudden Samsung has declined to publish their smartphone figures (whereas they're published.)

No, the lawyers, not Apple, would have seen them.

Apple is looking more and more like just someone running scared sueing anyone who is a threat to them.

Apple looks like somebody that is tired of taking the IP infringement lying down. I recognize that all companies (including Apple) are guilty of copying each other's features, but when you have patents, and trademarks, and you have folks creating "knock-offs" of your product with their own brand name on it you have to do something about it.

Google Android copied tons of Apple's features and then tried to give them away for free to the likes of Samsung, HTC, Motorola and others. They are trying to commoditize Apple's innovations and devalue them. Its brilliant play on Google's part, but others like Microsoft have struck back at the manufacturers by placing licensing fees on Android usage -- making it "not so free". Apple is trying to do the same now with some of their patents. It seems to me to be the proper response. Google is arming the enemy with weapons, and Apple is trying to render those weapons less useful or unusable.

For its part, Google has no interest in making the best mobile operating system. They just want a place to show their ads. They want every piece of media content, every mobile platform, and every website to be free -- free for the display of Google ads. Android was an awesome means to that end on the mobile OS front, but for every move there is a countermove. If Apple sought to stop Google only by trying to innovate faster than Google could copy they would definitely lose. Once an innovation is in place, it takes very little effort to copy it. Choosing to fight in the courts makes far more sense for Apple -- they need to undo the commoditization of the mobile OS market, and it makes sense to strike on multiple fronts -- slow down the competition while implementing as many innovations as you can.

I fully expect Apple's competition to do the same to them. Hit Apple with lawsuits (which they have) and try to innovate on their own (only some have tried that -- most just wait for the next Android release and throw some crap on top of it).

That's the problem with folks like that Rodimus Prime fella. They are not creators. They are merely content users. And as such cannot fathom what it is like to invest vast amounts of time and effort into the design and creation of a tangible product that is meant to earn you your living. They can't understand a creator's motivation behind wanting to protect those efforts from abuse by the competition.

Nice insult on the sly there, I'm sure Rodimus Prime is oh so hurt by your insinuation.

FWIW, anyone who says Apple must be on to a winning case here must obviously support Lodsys in their numerous litigious processes as they too are vigorously pursuing a number of IP suits.

Just because they are pursuing it doesn't mean that they feel it is strong.

A company filed for a preliminary injunction. The night before the case was due in court, the plaintiff withdrew all of its witnesses. The case is still shattering.

uh yeah . . . it's pretty safe to say they do, given the kind of antics we've seen from Samsung over the past few months. They were already ordered by the courts to hand over their goods to Apple for inspection, and all of a sudden Samsung has declined to publish their smartphone figures (whereas they're published.)