Apple sued Samsung over a laundry list of "patent" violations. Now, I put the word patent in quotes because I'm a little disappointed that Apple was actually able to obtain these patents. Apple has 16 different complaints against Samsung (I am not going to go over or list them all, but I will highlight some of the absurd ones), but the first complaint, which in these proceedings, is always the most egregious, is a "trade dress" complaint.
I have never heard of this before, so I had to look it up. A trade dress is very similar to the ubiquitous trademark, which essentially boils down to symbolic name recognition and is designed to not confuse consumers when they're shopping. For example, if you go to Best Buy looking for an Apple computer and you see a computer with an "apple with a bite mark", then you as a consumer have an expectation that that computer is an Apple computer. It's not your job to be a detective when going shopping to make sure what you want to buy is actually what you're purchasing. Sure, you need to do your through research to make an informed buying decision, but once you go to the store, you have an expectation that the store is selling "legitimate" products and not "black-market" products.
For new and unique products, this is very important so customers aren't "fooled", but some companies, and the US Patent and Trademark Office, under the Lanham Act, abuse these trade dresses if they are first to market. Apple has a trade dress for the following symbolic representations and the PTO granted it to them!!!! (from @reckless via link at end; redacted for brevity):
Hardware and software trade dress claims
- a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded;
- the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders;
Packaging trade dress claims
- a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and
- a rectangular box with minimal metallic silver lettering and a large front-viewpicture
- a two-piece box wherein the bottom piece is completely nested in the top piece; and
- use of a tray that cradles products to make them immediately visible upon opening the box.
Yes, that's right, Apple PATENTED the use of:
- a rectangular product (I thought playing cards were around before the iPhone)
- any product without a keyboard
- lining icons to a grid (cartesian coordinates, wow, a novel concept), placing
- placing a picture of a product on the front of the box (I only buy soup cans that have the labels ripped off)
- a box with a removable top
- packaging so a product isn't damaged in shipping
On of these, some of the other "infringements" that Apple claims are that Samsung's (more accurately, Google with Android in a not-so-indirect way) "place a call" icon with pictures a phone is too close to Apple's phone icon. Yes, a TELEPHONE can no longer be used to represent a phone call. Like I said, childish and disgusting.
There should be three fall-outs from this:
- Samsung, which makes DRAM, SSD, and the A4 and A5 processors (which Samsung is the sole manufacturer) for Apple, should tell Apple that "production might decrease for the processors as Samsung shifts resources on it's Apple Management Product Line to focusing on the current legal proceedings". Ha, how would that taste for Apple? First, Toshiba and Panasonic have lower yields because of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and then Samsung slows production? Apple won't make quarterly profits and will have to answer to the shareholders over silly complaints.
- The DOJ should open up anti-trust & anti-monopoly investigations against Apple. If the whole concept of anti-trust laws is to prevent a single player in a market place to unfairly dominate the marketplace, I think Apple suing over rectangular products and phone icons on a mobile phone are pretty stifling.
- The PTO needs to do a through audit and vetting process of current employees. If the PTO issues a patent for a rectangular product, then everyone involved in that process should be fired. Although it is self-funded by user-fees ($10,000+ for a patent), the cost of litigation and enforcement on these idiotic laws cost the tax payers a butt-load of money (and yes, "butt-load" is a precise amount).
P.S.
Sorry Steve, but I stand by my previous claim that there are way too many lawyers in this world and most of them are pointless. Think about it; lawyers go to law school to study law, then become politicians to write more laws and that often conflict with current laws, forcing more young students to go to law school to study more laws so they can become politicians to write even more laws so thus more lawyers then more politicians then more lawyers, etc. The cycle is longer than my previous run-on sentence and it never ends. POINTLESS.
Apple products are not worth the money they charge. They make them pretty and shiny so people will think they are "hip". Then they give you very limited options so you don't hurt yourself. Give it up, Apple BLOWS!
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