Galaxy Nexus Designed To Avoid Infringing Apple Patents

An anonymous reader writes with an except from an article on Geek.com about the Galaxy Nexus: "Samsung has been on the receiving end of many an Apple lawsuit in recent months, and in some cases a ban on selling its products. The Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which was unveiled last night, could also come under close scrutiny in the courts once Apple takes a look at it. But unlike previous Samsung Android devices, the chances of that happening are apparently going to be diminished or even non-existent. Shin Jong-kyun, the president of Samsung's mobile division, admitted yesterday that the Galaxy Nexus has been developed taking into account Apple's patents."

Re:Proof positive

[Dyinobal]

Not innovation, just needless small alterations to an over all design.

Galaxy SII

[Nerdfest]

TFA says "dubbed by media as Google and Samsung's answer to the iPhone 4S". Not particularly accurate. From a tech point of view, the Galaxy SII was the answer to the 4S, and was released ahead of it. This is the next step.

Re:Proof positive

[bhagwad]

It's important to remember that it still might infringe on some Apple patent or the other. It's a sad sign of how broken the system is when you try and design a product to specifically avoid all patents but still can't be sure that it succeeds. If Samsung/Google with all their resources can't be sure that it avoids hundreds of thousands of "patents," how is a smaller company without all the resources supposed to do the same?

Re:Proof positive

[h4rr4r]

That is not a sign of the system being broken, that is just a sign of you not understanding its purpose. The system is working exactly as these big companies want it too. They can live through suing each other and are more than willing to deal with it if it keeps out any new competitors.

Re:Interesting admission

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how English works. "We did X" does not imply "We used to do the opposite of X".

Re:Interesting admission

[GodInHell]

You could read his statement that way, or, you could read it as an admission that they simply developed technology without reference to Apple's patents and were surprised to find out these obvious technologies and algorithms were patented.

Incidentally, all of the items you list -- those aren't patent violations, at best they're trademark issues.

-GiH

Blue phone icon

[Adrian Lopez]

The first thing I notice is they've changed the phone icon from green to blue, which I'm sure is an attempt to avoid Apple's claims of trademark infringement [copymarkblog.com]. The color green has long been used to indicate placing a call, which is why Samsung changing the color from green to blue is such a good example of IP law being so stifling that companies have to intentionally avoid making anything remotely similar to another company's products. The problem is there's only so often you can do this before you run out of things to avoid.

Aside from the green phone icon, another example is Apple's claim that Samsung's yellow notepad icon infringes on its own yellow notepad icon. Yellow notepads are fairly common, yet for some strange reason it is wrong for Samsung to use the color yellow for its notepad icon. If all other companies acted the same, imagine the many different colors each company would have to avoid, like mines in a minefield.

Re:Interesting admission

[ceoyoyo]

And they come in white boxes with the exact same shade of gray lettering Apple uses, with a picture of the device taking up most of the front of the box. Inside the box is a white cardboard insert holding the device.

Oopsie. And it doesn't matter what "anyone familiar with both devices would instantly notice," trade redress suits are about complaints that a product is designed so that someone NOT familiar with the product might confuse them.

The only thing Samsung did that's different than a cheap knockoff manufacturer is that that put "Samsung" on the device instead of "Adple."

Maybe they should get into selling Rolaxes.

Re:Galaxy SII

[ColdWetDog]

(Feel free to laugh at this if you want) I'm no fan of Apple but their products do work. They do exactly what they are designed to do. The disconnect comes when consumers expect them to do something different.

But I thought iPhones were supposed to make telephone calls.

My bad.

Re:Proof positive

[bhagwad]

There's a right to not have artificial barriers to entry. Creating software for example isn't a "natural monopoly" like railroads or electricity generation. Patents are a form of imposed barriers to entry that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Re:I like it

[spacepimp]

So without knowing the quality of the CCD or the quality of the Optics on the device you are summarily dismissing it because the Mega Pixels are less than the number you like? Let me ask you a question: If you needed to get a good quality photo would you rather use a 5MP DSLR Nikon or an 8MP camera on a phone? I would take the DSLR without pause. The Mega Pixel argument is brought up buy salesmen and manufacturers because they make an otherwise crap camera sound better. Manufacturers use tricks like pixel doubling and pixel size to game this because uninformed consumers fall for it all the time. If the ability to take decent pictures is important to you, then you pay attention to this. The mega pixel myth is something you should have learned a long time ago. Now share this with your friends and help them make informed choices.

Re:Interesting admission

[horza]

Oh please, the box is completely irrelevant.

Phillip.