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?
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.
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...
> “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.
Apple should lose this, if only to minimize the deterrent effect so that others know they can prevail with legitimate claims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010–2016:_Giving...
Google had no problem with censoring the search results in China. They exited the country after it began hacking into their data centers.
> Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.
Google linked its decision to sophisticated cyberattacks on its computer systems that it suspected originated in China and that were aimed, at least in part, at the Gmail user accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html
The first case you mention is against third-party repair and parts. This isn't a simple issue. At one end of spectrum people have died from fake accessories (eg [1]). So while I trust (and use) Anker devices that are sold in the US, would I buy and use a charger in Cambodia? Probably not. So I support the idea of third-party repair but you have to deal with the question of quality and the parts being suitable.
The second relates to, again, design (and trademark). This is less defensible. I mean they do look like Airpods but really how many ways can you make an earpod?
[1]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/apple-replacing-fake-iphone-...
As a follow-up, it looks like Masimo is trying to make a consumer watch-like device (or possibly just pretending to so they look like a competitor to Apple). https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/
Thanks for the info.
You can't have it both ways in my opinion. I hope they go to court and lose.
So are recusals for such conflicts really optional?
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/will-the-biggest-tech-mer...
Apple also writes horrible software and breaks perfectly fine APIs with every OS release to eventually force you into hardware upgrades.
Windows and Ubuntu have dropped support for 32 bit processors.
I can still boot my white clamshell Macbook from almost 20-years ago. It didn't disintegrate at the 5-year or 10-year mark.
That doesn't mean Apple must continue to support it.
TSMC is an interesting one, as they're pretty much the only person who have made that business model work, and even Apple's total business in that area is smaller than their scale seems to require.
Which makes me wonder: Imagine if USPTO published statistics that enumerated patents that a company applied for and were turned down. My guess is Apple has never been told no.
But yeah 20 years can be a long time.
"[We] think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours"
Then they had the gall to sue HTC. Glad the judge ended up forcing their hand, a rare case where might didn’t make right.
I do think a better system exists, and I’m all ears for any ideas around patent reform/USPTO funding.
- Not a serious competitor
- Based in Europe
- Bad PR to shut down a company trying to create a cruelty-free smartphone
Of course, such elected are replaced every few years.
> The Dragonfly project was an Internet search engine prototype created by Google that was designed to be compatible with China's state censorship provisions.
> The public learned of Dragonfly's existence in August 2018, when The Intercept leaked an internal memo written by a Google employee about the project.
> […]
> However, according to employees, work on Dragonfly was still continuing as of March 2019, with some 100 people still allocated to it.
> In July 2019, Google announced that work on Dragonfly had been terminated.
(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine), literally the first Google search result on that keyword)
Does this mean S&P would be more receptive to operations in China or less receptive to it?
https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-eur...
Who's that? Last I checked the US has a sizeable homeless population, a vast amount of people in precarious working conditions and most Americans would be financially ruined by a single major accident or health issue. I don't think people "just a few generations ago" would consider them to have unimaginable wealth unless you want to focus on the reduced costs of consumer goods rather than access to food, shelter and social spaces.
Also patents already existed "a few generations ago". If you want to cut down on IP protections be my guest but framing that in the same language as cutting back on labor protections or social welfare seems a bit questionable. Especially if you're implying we had unencumbered free markets before and no longer do now but our supposed present wealth is owed to those free markets of the distant past not the "encumbrance" of the more recent past - sorry, you'll have to give a bit more of a timeline and explanation of cause and effect than just a snappy one-liner.
The great majority of people living today. We currently have the historically lowest percentage of people living in poverty ever. Check out the statistics. Of course it’s not 100% but it’s never been better.
Show me statistics that don't make the basic mistake of considering moneyless hunter-gatherer societies equivalent to homeless people without money and we can maybe begin to have a conversation about the development of poverty and wealth over the ages.
In the meantime you're dodging the bulk of my question. When did things improve as drastically as you claim and what changed in terms of patent law that makes you think this improvement is being reversed or how do you see any suggestion of a causative link between market regulations and this decline? Also, how does your argument that we live in the best of times fit into this argument?
If we live in the historically best of times in terms of wealth and poverty but the current regulations and IP laws are making all of us worse off, that suggests you can point at some points where these laws and regulations were introduced or tightened followed by a decline in metrics you consider significant. I'd like you to spell out what you think these are (patents only seem to be part of it and even that is unclear as patents aren't new) and explain which metrics you think they had an impact on and what the scale of that impact was.
When and where did we have these unencubered markets?
They would probably be thrown out in court, but that takes time and money. Small startups have very little of either.
I am really just pointing out that we need patent reform and better enforcement very badly.