That’s exactly what Samsung did

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Charles Babcock:

What a patent and legal system should aim to prevent is theft by copying, such as stealing the technology of a competitor’s product, or creating such a conscious, copycat duplication that one product can be confused with another, thus letting the profits of an originator be taken by an imitator. Samsung did not do this.

Did Charles not see the same trial the rest of us saw? That is exactly what Samsung did. Documents from Samsung’s own executives proved that’s what they did and the jury said that’s what Samsung did.

Samsung will sue Apple over LTE iPhone

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Samsung confirmed that it will immediately sue Apple if the latter releases products using advanced long-term evolution (LTE) mobile technology. LTE has been emerging as the top standard in the global mobile industry.According to data from Thomson-Reuters, Nokia ranked top with 18.9 percent in terms of the number of LTE patents, followed by Qualcomm with 12.5 percent, Samsung Electronics with 12.2 percent and Ericsson with 11.6 percent.

This is going to be an interesting year.

Maple syrup heist

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About 10 million pounds of syrup was stored at the site, at a value of more than $30-million.Anne-Marie Granger Godbout, executive director of the federation, said the organization is still trying to determine how much is missing and declined to offer an estimate. But a spokesman from the Sureté du Québec said the loss was significant.

Only in Canada.

‘Wow, Was I Wrong About Apple’

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Earlier this year, I made a few bold CAPScalls. Of course, as with many moves one might consider “bold,” you can find yourself boldly wrong.I put red-thumb, underperform calls on Apple and Netflix, two stocks that have long been among individual investors’ favorites. This was despite the fact that I had previously called out both stocks with “outperform” ratings in the Motley Fool’s CAPS database for years.

Good to admit when you’re wrong.

Apple, Google meet to discuss patents

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Eric Slivka for Mac Rumors:

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Larry Page have been participating in active discussions to address patent issues relating to the two companies, “keeping the lines of communication open” as patent battles between Apple on one side and Google and its Android hardware partners on the other side continue to rage.

I would love to be in that room.

Apogee Quartet

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I love Apogee gear. This teaser looks very interesting.

Amazon bullshit

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Today, Amazon announced that Kindle Fire is sold out, and that in just nine months, Kindle Fire has captured 22% of tablet sales in the U.S.

The mainstream press is jumping all over this pile of shit like it’s real news.

First, if a company announces that it sold out of one of its best selling products, it stopped production. Which means Amazon issued a press release saying it stopped production of the Kindle Fire. OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO SELL OUT!

Second, how can Amazon claim it has 22 percent market share when it has yet to share any sales numbers. Amazon will not say how many Kindle Fire tablets it actually sold.

Etchings for iPhone

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Instantly create beautiful etched illustrations from any photo! Experiment with eight stunning styles you can tweak to fit your image perfectly — it’s easy and fun to turn your photo into a unique work of art.

This looks cool.

Amplified 22: My Ecosystem is My Belly

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Jim Dalrymple and Dan Benjamin discuss what we’ll see at the upcoming Apple events, Twitter’s change in demographic focus, a leaked HTC tablet with curious iMac styling, the outcome of the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit, guitars, and more!

‘Hitler’ clothing store angers people in India

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The owner of an Indian clothing store said Wednesday that he would only change its name from “Hitler” if he was compensated for re-branding costs, amid a growing row over the new shop.The outlet, which sells Western men’s wear, opened 10 days ago in Ahmedabad city in the western state of Gujarat with “Hitler” written in big letters over the front and with a Nazi swastika as the dot on the “i”.

Wow.

Rounded corners and rectangles

Written by

Steve Wildstrom:

Samsung contributed greatly to this with a post-trial statement that said: ““It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies.” It’s more unfortunate that the claim was largely a fabrication that was swallowed whole by many writers.

What a great article by Steve. Go read it.

The innovation scare tactics

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Michael Wolff:

But let us not argue the case that all this quite obviously impedes innovation and is part of a new unreal property land grab – not about technology at all, but about intellectual property: an effort to privatize much of what was once understood to be shared and public (indeed, not ownable, like the shape of the iPhone).

There is just so much wrong with Wolff’s story, it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s just take this little gem of a paragraph.

How is it that stopping a company from blatantly ripping off your design “obviously impedes innovation”? It doesn’t. As I wrote earlier this week, all it does it stop copying. It encourages innovation because companies will have to think for themselves instead of stealing like Samsung did.

This is not about the shape of the iPhone. Nokia has a rectangle phone too, but Apple didn’t sue them. This is about Samsung stealing everything that Apple did, from hardware design to software and sold it as their own.

Samsung and writers like Wolff are using this innovation argument as a scare tactic. It won’t work.

Consumers dumping Samsung phones

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Customers of Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones over the past three days, which has led to a 10% drop in prices for those devices. “Consumers seem to be jumping ship,” says Anthony Scarsella, chief gadget officer at Gazelle.com. “We expect this trend to continue, especially with this latest verdict.”