I won’t be surprised if they’ll retry to enter China soon.
> Google employees are calling on the company to cancel Project Dragonfly, an effort to create a censored search engine in China.
“Many of us accepted employment at Google with the company’s values in mind, including its previous position on Chinese censorship and surveillance, and an understanding that Google was a company willing to place its values above its profits,” an open letter signed by Google employees published Tuesday on Medium says. “After a year of disappointments including Project Maven, Dragonfly, and Google’s support for abusers, we no longer believe this is the case.”
Google’s Chinese search app would have reportedly complied with demands to remove content that the government ruled sensitive and linked users’ searches to their personal phone numbers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/27/read-google-employees-open-l...
But they still make hardware there like everyone else
How is abiding by the decision of a court not following a principled view? Wouldn’t going against the rule of law be non-principles behavior? Apple is not required to license the patent nor is the holder required to ever license their patent. They can tell Apple to go pound sand as this isn’t the seemingly typical cell phone FRAND dispute.
Trying to find a way to build an Apple Watch 9 that doesn’t infringe on a patent is a valid and principled way of behaving, even if it’s perhaps a bad business choice. If it takes them a week or two and stands in court it’ll be seen as a good decision. If they can’t and pony up anyway it’ll be seen as a poor choice of action. We’ll certainly know soon enough.
Selfishly* principled. There's no exclusively abstract benefit here the way there is with e.g privacy rights; there's both the benefit of not having to pay royalties if they prevail as well as the second order benefit of deterring others from submitting patent litigation because other plaintiffs will know that Apple would rather burn cash reserves on litigation than on paying.
It's precisely for that reason that Apple should lose.
As for privacy, as an aside, Apple's track record is substantially better than Google's.
Apple of all companies certainly could've afforded to pay.
Most initiatives are not purely good without any downsides. A principle to consider is: Just because there are some negative aspects sometimes, do those outweigh the good? In this case, how many negatives actually come from patent law? (Btw, a monopoly most often is not the result - there are often many solutions to a similar problem/need.). And consider the side of the creator (which I’ve been finding is surprisingly rare in hn) - creating a company and product is already incredibly hard, how much harder do we want to make that? What and who are we sacrificing?
Maybe we just adjust the patent law some. Decrease the number of years? I’m sure it could be better.
(This isn't a leading question, I have no informed opinion about Apple specifically.)
Then there was the previously mentioned rounded corners etc.
This is all the end result of allowing businesses to perform regulatory capture.
'Bout time it bit apple in the ass
We live in a world where companies want us beholden to them and not the other way around.
This is a false dichotomy. Apple can be evil, and deserve to have bad things happen to it, without performing its evil through the medium of patent lawsuits.
Why do you say that?
Do you disagree with the idea that patents promote innovation? Or do you think that 20 years specifically is too long, and if so, based on what analysis?
Patent reform is something that is sorely needed (and more funding for the USPTO).
Take for example this patent on an anti gravity device: https://www.nature.com/articles/438139a#:~:text=The%20US%20p....
And then there’s the patent troll problem. As a small shop, I am particularly afraid of trolls shutting us down overnight with basically no recourse.
I be more scared of non-trolls who own giant catalogues of patents. The giant companies will shut you down just as fast as any "troll". Try to invent any device with a touchscreen and an internet connection. It won't be trolls knocking on your door, but lawyers from Samsung, Apple and Microsoft.
Don't play the game of building products that are subject to other people's patents. If in doubt, buy them out. Pay for the international rights regardless of whether you think a patent invalid in some market. Apple isn't exactly struggling for cash at the moment. It can afford to pay for the patent rather than stage what is starting to look like a PR event.
Apple, Google, Meta and other big tech companies have used patents defensively not offensively. That is, as mutually-assured destruction.
The real villains in this story are the patent holding companies that sue in East Texas to get in front of one judge that, at a time, heard a quarter of all US patent cases, all brought by NPEs (non-practicing entities aka patent trolls). IIRC there was at a time another judge and I heard a story that a popular law firm employed a relative to conflict out the second judge so they could get the judge they wanted.
Apple aren't the bad guys in the patent mess.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electron....
Happened back in '11 when they were going after Android OEMs, despite the fact that the actual devices weren't infringing they still tried to get them blocked.
Apple vs. HTC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litigation_involving_Apple_Inc...
Normally, the threat implied by a patent moat is sufficient, so it doesn’t come to a lawsuit.
> Masimo CEO Joe Kiani told CNN he believes Apple deliberately infringed on his company’s patents. But the companies have been at loggerheads for years. In October 2022, Apple filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Masimo.
It never even made it to court - and they have since scrubbed all statements about that, and to this day still pay for the architecture license. Just too late for PowerVR as an independent IP vendor.
Never be a supplier to Apple - they will screw you over.
Plenty of good info on that operation, e.g. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/east-texas-judge...
A patent holder declares the value he is willing to license the patent to any entity. Inventor can consider their EXPANSES while declaring the value, but not the approach “my idea cost me 0$ but is worth a billion “. Society should be willing to compensate for monetary investment, not just imagination. You deposit 1% of the declared value annually to maintain the patent. This one to discourage arbitrary value declaration. Any company wishing to license, pays you the declared amount. If 10 companies pay you declared value, I.e You have earned 10x return on your actual expense of innovation, patent becomes public domain. Society doesn’t need per product patent pricing sh*.
The numbers , 1% and 10x can always be debated. Overall seems good enough to encourage innovation and discourage trolling.
> “If they don’t want to use our chip, I’ll work with them to make their product good,” Mr. Kiani said. “Once it’s good enough, I’m happy to give them a license.”
It sounds like they didn't just want some money. They wanted them to use their chip or partner with them.
I am no Apple fan, but telling them to politely fuck off seems reasonable to me.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/technology/apple-ban-watc...
So they are giving Apple the choice of either buying a turnkey solution or partner with them to fix Apple's flawed implementation.
That $8 pulse oximeter from aliexpress is better than nothing, but it’s a long way from what Masimo or Medtronic (Nellcor) sell.
And the prices for oximeters aren’t really affected by insurance, as individuals almost never get them at diagnostic grade. They’re durable, have screens that convey more than just a number, electrically isolated from the patient… there’s a lot going on there that is not, at first glance, obvious to the layman.
(I’m an anesthesiologist; pulse oximetry with a good waveform display is a critical monitor for us. I would rather have a good pulse ox than any other non-invasive monitor, if I could only have one.)
Do we know the total BOM cost plus the amortized cost of development & other expenses for an Apple watch ?
While I don't think one patent holder should get a major share of the available margins, I find it hard to believe that margins for Apple on smart watches are anywhere close to "thin".
Though I suspect this is more on Apple. Going to be blunt for a bit, but Apple has a habit of assuming only it produces innovation worth paying for. Apple usually doesn't wind up actually taking the import ban in the end, but there's a whole host of patent litigation that has targeted Apple. It's kind of funny, though - I remember the days where Steve Jobs insisted that them owning a swipe-to-unlock patent meant basically any phone with a touchscreen and a not-ass operating system was infringing them. "Zero-length swipe" my ass.
