Apple v. Samsung: What’s wrong with this verdict?

Last week I took a mini break, rented a car, and drove up the coast for a few days. When I sat down in my rental I found a steering wheel directly in front of me, with a speedometer visible on the dashboard behind it. The slot for the key was just below the wheel and to the right. The accelerator pedal was on the floor beneath my right foot, the brake pedal to the left of that. The gear shift was on a console in the middle between the two front bucket sets and the variable-speed wipers were on a stick attached to the right side of the wheel.

It did take me a few minutes to find the lights, which were on a dial to the left and below the wheel. Otherwise, though I’d never driven that car before, I was able to operate it immediately.

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If that car design had been software that was patented by, say, Apple, I might still be in the parking lot trying to figure out how to get the damned thing into reverse. Yet that is the future suggested by Friday’s verdict in the Apple v. Samsung case.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice breakdown of how the jury ruled on each of Apple’s seven and Samsung’s five claims of infringement. According to that jury:

• 16 Samsung phones and tablets infringed Apple’s patents on enlarging documents by tapping on the screen
• 21 Samsung phones and tablets infringed on Apple’s patents for “bounceback” when reaching the edge of the screen
• 22 phones and tablets infringed Apple’s patents because they did different things when you touched the screen differently
• 13 Samsung phones infringed Apple’s patents because they used icons with rounded square edges featuring images of objects like telephones
• 13 Samsung phones infringed Apple’s patents because they were essentially rectangles with rounded corners

The jury denied all of Samsung’s claims, which had less do to with aesthetics and more to do with the inner workings of the software — for example, how devices manage battery life, allow for multitasking, or switch between features. That’s apparently harder to determine than whether something has rounded corners.

There’s been a lot of speculation as to why the jury returned a verdict so much faster than anyone expected — in just three days — despite the fact they had 109 pages of jury instructions to plow through before filling out a 700-plus-item questionnaire.

Cnet’s Greg Sandoval interviewed juror Manuel Llagen, who claims the jury didn’t rush to judgment, but seems to have based its decisions on video testimony from Samsung’s executives whom he thought were “dodging the questions” posed by Apple’s attorneys. The Groklaw blog has a devastating takedown of how the jury contradicted itself several times and had to go back and redo some of its conclusions. Maybe they should have taken just a scosh more time, eh?

The problem isn’t so much with the jury — though you have to wonder if a jury trial makes sense in a case as complex as this. The problem is with the patent system itself. Just about everyone now agrees that software design patents are stupid, even the parties who win many of these cases. So why can’t we do anything to fix that?

Some legal observers have noted that this ruling, if it stands, may force companies like Samsung to “innovate” more. I have a couple of responses to that.

One: Samsung makes more innovative types of smartphone than any other company on the planet. I’ve been to their manufacturing centers, I’ve met with their design team. Trust me, Apple has nothing on Samsung when it comes to innovation. The problem is that people want iPhones and phones that look and feel like iPhones. They don’t actually want innovation.

Two: More innovation isn’t necessarily better. Do I really have to learn a new way to enlarge documents on every damned tablet I pick up? Should I really be forced to read a manual to figure out how to make a call because only one smartphone maker is allowed to use a picture of a phone on its dialing icon?

Tell me the last time you heard someone say, “I bought this tablet because I love the way it enlarges documents when I tap on the screen and those rounded icons are just to die for”?

For the record, I own both an Apple iPad 2 and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 — because I am that kind of geek. The biggest differences? The iPad 2 has a much better battery life than the Galaxy but is also a much bigger pain in the ass because of Apple’s “iWay or the highway” philosophy. Otherwise, they are just Internet and app delivery devices. Period, full stop.

There’s no need to reinvent the steering wheel, either.

What do you think of the Apple v. Samsung verdict? Post your weighty deliberations below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Apple v. Samsung: What’s wrong with this verdict?,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.