The #appsung story 1.0

The Verdict arrived and all of a sudden tech world went nuts. Actually, they started going crazy right after the news that the jury has reached a decision and the announcement is imminent. Although patent lawsuit is very common and never ending phenomenon in tech industry, this one packed little more punch.  This was the largest patent lawsuit in history and involved giants of mobile business. Everyone who was even remotely following this story, jumped in. Everyone had opinion, a thing or two to say. After all, smartphones affects everyone. The verdict wasn’t entirely surprising though. Apple was expected to win and they won big. But, the scale of Apple’s victory (One Billion, forty nine millions and changes) stirred up a massive debate. As a student of technology, let me offer my two cents worth on this issue.

Patents and verdict

The six patents that Samsung was adjudged to infringe were: 1Tap-to-zoom (Utility Patent), 2 Bounce back (Utility Patent), 3 Single-finger scrolling and two-finger zooming (Utility Patent) 4 iPhone's edge-to-edge glass, speaker slot and display border (Design Patent),  5 Rounded corners and home button (Design Patent), 6 Grid-style icon layout in iOS (Design Patent). The only victory (if I can call it a victory) for Samsung was that the jury decided no company could patent a geometric shape and threw out Apple’s seventh infringement claim: Patent for the iPad shape (Yes, Apple had a patent for a rectangular shape with rounded corners).

Samsung’s statement right after the verdict was “It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners”. The statement reads great but it’s not valid. Because as I said earlier that’s the only claim Apple didn’t win. Sad part of the statement is that Samsung could have gone for a more valid argument like “can you actually patent a human gesture ?” and fuelled a more creative debate, instead they chose to sensationalize the issue and opted for a lie.

A company invests a large amount of money to come up with an innovative design and it’s not fair for any company to copy and use it in the product that directly competes with the innovator’s product. Innovators need security and patent provide that. You can say that patent law is not perfect, but however imperfect; it’s all you have right now.  I don’t believe it stifles innovation but encourages novel ideas and to think out of the box. But, if a company still wants to use others design then there is a legal way to do it, getting license. Apple offered to license its patents to Samsung back in 2010, but Samsung didn’t budge. Samsung claimed and still claims those patents weren’t valid but they were valid according to US patent law and every company that wants to do business in another country should honor their law. Remember Google getting out of China?

Effect on consumers and Industry

I believe it affects consumers more favorably than other way around. It forces companies to be more innovative and it’s always a good thing for consumers. Actually, Samsung seems to be in this track already. I believe they envisioned this scenario beforehand, because Galaxy SIII is quite different from its past iterations and have some really cool features. Whereas, in the past all Samsung seemed to do was to make phones that look like iPhone(Galaxy S, ACE are more prominent examples) and sell them little cheaper. 

Expect few more rounds of court fight though. There’s a reason I put 1.0 in the story. We may see few more twists in this story as Samsung will appeal to the U.S.Court of Appeals, and then possibly to the Supreme Court. Google has their work cut out too, because if the verdict stand then Android won’t remain “free and open”. Google will have to act swiftly to convince its partners that Android hasn’t become a liability. Microsoft is obviously buoyed by the verdict, but it may be short lived. Android is here to stay and will remain dominant plus nobody seems to buy windows phone anyway.

Virus Scan for Cars?

Toyota brake problem reminded us of the sea change the vehicle has gone through in recent years. Most drivers don’t realize or are unaware of how modern cars have changed from their ancestors. Few years ago Automobiles started following the Airbus’s path to replace direct hydraulic controls with electronics. No more the accelerator or brake pedals are directly connected to the throttle by a physical connector. Electronics acts as intermediary.

I remember one of my friends expressing his frustration for not being able to do small repairs of his new car by himself. “Its all electronics, I don’t know what’s goin’on? I can do nothing” he was saying. Electronics systems and networks to connect them now make up 40% of the vehicle. Its difficult even for the auto mechanics as 40% of the vehicle is Black Box for them and they have to depend upon other Black Boxes to diagnose the problem. The firmware to control all the electronics is becoming increasingly complex too. For example in Prius, the software in the brakes controls the anti-lock braking systems, stability control and a system to convert the energy from braking into power to recharge the batteries.

The stakes are high with firmware design. Small glitches can have damaging effects. Problems with sudden acceleration and momentary lapse of braking are scary, esp in a highway situation. Even scarier thought is vehicles hacking which are very realistic, as we will see more software control of vehicles in future. What if terrorists were able get an insider into supply chain to insert a dormant code into each new vehicle that on a specific date and time would disable braking or cause sudden acceleration? I cannot outlaw a possibility of companies performing Antivirus software scans for vehicles before sending to the market in future.

Scientific Impossibility ?

We really did not have any work today. Everyone was slacking around, looking at weather predictions, talking about gas prices, amount of snow fall in South Dakota this year. So, having free time today I thought of reading little about Time Travel. Time Travel is such a Great idea for a Fiction but is it a scientific possibility? I am by no means qualified to analyze this. I do not understand the current physics how can I be able to analyze something that goes far beyond it?

The scientific world is so polarized in this issue that it just confuses me more. Stephen Hawking once said if time travel is possible where are the alien tourists from different time travelling earth and taking pictures around? Michio Kaka says perhaps we are not very interesting to these tourists from future. Are we worth a damn to these tourists? May be we are just too arrogant to think as technologically advanced and hope the tourist to visit us.

Well, there have been endless debates on this and we cannot really hope to get it resolved in near future. But history has taught us over and over again to be really careful to completely dismiss scientific ideas.

Here are few examples:

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895)

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943)

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." (Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)

"The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." (Western Union internal memo, 1876)

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." (Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French commander of Allied forces during the closing months of World War I, 1918)

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's associates, in response to his urgings for investment in radio in the 1920's)

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." (New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work, 1921)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927)

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H. Duell, commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899)


Sources for Quotes: Time: A Traveler's Guide, by Clifford A. Pickover