Samsung’s Galaxy S4 is outselling the iPhone 5 by 2 to 1 and Apples solution is to try to use ancient generic patents to block sales of the Galaxy S4 in the United States. Apple literally are their own worst enemy, every time Apple attempts to sue Samsung, it raises the Korean company’s stock, bringing the brand and it’s devices to the attention of people who may never have looked at Samsung for smartphones. The message I get from this is Apple have no more innovation to bring.
The patents they are claiming the S4 breaches are so generic that it could cover just about any electronic device on the market today. Here are some of the patents they claim have been infringed:
“Universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system” – Windows search feature & Google’s search are just a couple of systems that breaches this patent, when you start typing in either, it comes up with history or suggestions, surely that’s too broad to be a valid patent?
“Asynchronous data synchronization amongst devices” – Seriously, they are claiming they solely own Asynchronous data synchronization? The scale of how widely used this technology is, is massive, ludicrously broad patent, if a judge upholds this patent it proves they must be in Apple’s pocket!
There’s more ludicrous patents Apple claim are being infringed, but I don’t want this article to drag on forever, see this article on Daily Tech for more information about Apple’s patent trolling!
Again this comes down to litigation, instead innovation, Apple are lost in a innovative quagmire and they’re only way to battle back is through the legal system. Android devices have caught up with Apple’s neatly packaged technology and is now starting to surpass it. Using legal methods to stifle competition is the desperate act of a company in trouble, innovatively, not financially!
