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Samsung’s mobile president, Shin Jong-kyun, had some interesting comments regarding their brand spanking new Galaxy Nexus and ongoing patent war with Apple. He said that the Galaxy Nexus was specifically designed to avoid Apple’s patents. In other words, this is finally all Samsung.
Shin acknowledged the complicated nature of patents and how hard it’s been for Samsung to deal with, but he claims that no “known” Apple patent was used in the Galaxy Nexus (is that an admission of guilt for previous phones?). Specifically, Shin says that with the new Galaxy Nexus:
“Now we will avoid everything we can and take patents very seriously”
The Galaxy Nexus looks like a beast of a machine and there isn’t any immediate similarities you can draw between the phone and the iPhone, but then again, no one really knows with patents. It’s an ugly mess. Not even Shin, he said, “We will see if (the Galaxy Nexus) will be 100 percent free.” I’m guessing Samsung is making it a renewed effort to avoid embarrassing patent disputes to protect their brand. All I know is I would like more of where this Galaxy Nexus came from. [Yonhap News Agency]
The important question is did samsung and google patent any advances in the phones hardware/software thenselves so that Apple can’t use them?
Owning a patent never stopped anyone. At first reading this statement from Samsung it does sound like an admission. But I think it is the first real statement from any company regarding a solid intent to work ethically, and I’d like to see others saying the same.
I guess one of the problems for any tech company at the moment is that a lot of patents are very broad and therefore whilst you may not think it infringes, it would be down to interpretation.
Historically the mobile making community have been relatively open in allowing technology to be used cross-company. This whole patent-suing, pre-release injunctions thing has really only developed over the last 3-4 years – ever since a certain company decided to get into the market – so it isn’t really surprisingly that so many companies are having problems.
Personally I hope the judges & patent issuers start throwing out the cases and force the companies to all get together and thrash out an agreement for cross-company patent use.
i agree.
It will never happen. The companies who have put genuine time and money into R&D for those patents will not let it go.
For someone that high up in a company to come out with those comments is pretty much an admission of guilt.
It’s no co-incidence that Apple products haven’t been banned in any of the jurisdictions where Samsung products have.
Also doesn’t help when your own lawyers can’t tell the difference between the two……