Thoughts on the Apple v. Samsung Verdict

I've been asked by a few ppl about what I think about the Apple v. Samsung verdict (Apple was just awarded 1B $ in damages). Here are my thoughts.

In Defense of Patents

In seems the pat answer on the Internet is to believe that software patents have no merit. This is not true in my opinion. Patents (on anything) encourage companies to spend money (eg pay salaries) to advance technology, improve efficiencies, et cetera by making a deal with them. That deal is this:

The patent holder agrees to make available the specification of their invention to anyone in exchange for an exclusivity period on that technology (licensing or producing).

Without this companies would have to take extrordinary measures to protect their secrets and these could be stolen at any time, thus many inventions would likely never be made (think of all the amazing drugs we have avail to us today). If they did make them, many medicines would not be as cheap as they are today because the processes to make them would not be available (a proprietary secret). Can you imagine a world where a life saving drug costs 10k/pill? That would be a reality without patents.

So certainly some patents are a good thing. But are software patents a good thing?

Software Patents

I believe this applies to software as well. Would universities, or businesses be able to fund salaries of researchers if they could not have a sustainable competitive advantage? In many cases no.

However software is not like traditional business in at least the following ways:

1) Software moves at a tremendous pace compared with a physical product. Can anyone imagine a world without google, facebook and the iPhone? None of those things existed 10 years ago. I can't think of a single physical product that changed the way the world works in under 5 years. All of these companies did that and this will continue to happen in software.
2) Software is a very technical area where typically only someone in a subject area (within technology) will understand the patent application let alone understand patent law.

Repairing Software Patents

Repairing software patents I believe could be relatively easy. Here are my suggestions.

1) Tie the exclusivity of patents to the pace of the business environment endemic to that patent. For software patents I would suggest between 5 and 10 years.
2) Create a panel of experts in a germane field to review the patents before they're approved. There are several too-obvious patents issued that have to be fought in court even if they're plainly invalid or sometimes plainly invalid patent litigation threats shutdown valid business because of the likely defense costs.
3) Limit the damages to reasonable damages within a specific business climate as opposed to fantasy.

The Apple v. Samsung Decision

The decision is not necessarily wrong. This statement will probably surprise a lot of readers however hear me out. I have owned and used several samsung devices that are mentioned in the judgement and am of course familiar with the 'i' devices. If you had used an iPhone, a stock android device and say Samsung Galaxy device you'd see that in several places Samsung made customizations *away* from the stock Android experience that copied or mimicked the iPhone UI. In my opinion this was persvasive and deliberate. If an uninformed consumer picked up a iPhone and then a Galaxy I believe they'd be hard pressed to tell which of them were not apple devices without the branding.

I haven't and will not go through the specific patents in this case but I do believe that if there are patents that are valid and that were infriged upon then apple should be compensated. The compensation should be based on reasonable damages that apple experienced in the marketplace (ie how much would licensing these patents actually be worth). 1billion seems high but I haven't run the numbers.

I also believe that Samsung willfully set out to make a product in aggregate very close to apple's and there should be a separate set of damages for that. It's this that I find most aggregious - that Samsung *purposefully* set out to make a product close to apple's despite having android's base software work distinctly different than apple's. HTC, LG and Motorola all went a different route - they tried to innovate.

I'd also like to single out Google for their Android 4.0 UI changes and Nexus device designs - these are clearly iOS inspired (in large part). Is there no other set of UI standards and form factors we can think of? Are we out of ideas?

What's Next?

The follow-on to this ruling may have a huge and unfortunate impact on software. If apple embarks on a legal warpath and sues anyone who creates something remotely close to their UI we could have strange and inefficient UI experiences for the next 20 years - until the patents run out.

Or maybe apple will stop here and effectively say: "If you copy our UI prominently like Samsung did we are going to sue you. If you borrow a few things from us (as we've done from others) we'll look the other way." I hope that's apple's message.

Summary (TL;DR):

Are software patents a good thing? Yes, with small changes to the existing laws.
Did Samsung copy Apple's UI? Yes.
Is it reasonable to believe that Apple spent real time and money on their UI? Absolutely.
Does Apple deserve compensation for this? Yes.
Is 1billion $ too much? Almost certainly.
Will this adversely effect the software industry? Time will tell.