Apple’s patent victory over Samsung is good for Android

When a federal court jury found late Friday that Samsung knowingly and willfully copied seven of Apple’s design patents relating to the iPad, iPhone, and iOS, Apple fans cheered. The ruling came after just two days of deliberations, signaling lack of doubt in jurors’ minds as to Samsung’s guilt. Android aficionados began fretting that the Apple victory would create a chilling effect on the Android platform, which far outsells the iPhone in the smartphone market but has only a minor presence in the iPad-dominated tablet market.

That fretting is unnecessary. The verdict is good not just for Apple, but for Samsung and the whole Android ecosystem. Most of the anguish centers around a claim that somehow Apple’s ability to successfully defend its design patents will stifle innovation.

I’m sorry, but copying someone else’s work is the opposite of innovation. Now, Samsung will have to innovate on the design end, which should lead to more innovation. And Samsung is very capable of innovating when it chooses to do so, as demonstrated by its Galaxy Note “phablet” smartphone/tablet hybrid, Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, and Galaxy S III smartphone.

All three of those innovative devices were designed after the year-long legal wrangling over design patents began — which shows, unfortunately, that Samsung found it easier to copy products such as the Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Tab (all ruled as infringing Apple’s design patents) than to be an innovation leader.

Google even warned Samsung that its designs were likely to violate Apple’s design patents, yet Samsung proceeded with them. To add insult to injury, Samsung in February 2011 announced the Galaxy Tab 10.1, then redesigned it in March 2011 to be more like the iPad 2 after Apple unveiled the iPad 2. Redesigning a product so soon after its orginal announcement is a rare evenrt, and doing so after the main competitor’s new design is unveiled is surely no coincidence.

For centuries, wannabies have copied and produced knockoffs of furniture, clothes, medicines, foodstuffs, and brand logos. It’s hardly a phenomenon unique to the technology industry. Design patents (and, in the case of logos, design trademarks) were invented to prevent copiers from fooling customers into buying the knockoff instead of the genuine article.

All those who decry how patents squash innovation should remember that they provide the economic incentive and certainty that funds innovation in the first place. Has the patent system gotten out of control? Yes. But not in this case.

Design patents have a very useful public purpose, unlike some of the newer patent categories such as business process patents that allow things like one-click online shopping carts and gene sequences. There are also too many patents granted to obvious things such as shopping-cart icons. Patents are supposed to be for what is nonobvious — that is, true innovations.

Remember that the Apple-Samsung case is mainly about design patents, not designs. Despite some people’s fears, Apple can’t just claim someone is copying its designs and sue to stop it. The designs have to be accepted as patentable, meaning they are unique and nonobvious design innovations.

Patents are publicly filed, so companies can check to see if they might be infringing and need a license or a new design. The fact that Google raised the issue about these specific Apple patents with Samsung — a company that can afford the lawyers to check — and that Apple tried to resolve the issue with Samsung directly shows this case is not about frivolous or knee-jerk lawsuits.

Understanding the larger mobile patent war But fighting that worthy battle has nothing to do with what’s going on in the multipronged mobile patent battle that at its heart is a struggle between the Google-led Android community and the old-guard technology companies. (Apple is most public, but Microsoft and Cisco Systems are also in the fight.)

In a nutshell, the Android community has been abusing the patent system so that it can copy the innovations of others. I’ve explained the details of their dubious tactics before. Suffice it to say they use patents that are part of technology standards to pressure competitors, which is a fundamental violation of the principles of fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing that companies agree to follow when their patents are accepted as part of a technical standard. The patent holder trades the ability to decide in each case whether it wants to license the patent and under what terms in exchange for gaining licenses from everyone who wants to use the standard.

The design patents case decided on Friday doesn’t involve FRAND because none of Apple’s design patents is part of a standard. Apple is free to not license them to companies like Samsung, maintaining the unique identity and behavior that defines the iPhone and iPad experience and therefore profiting from its innovation. That ability to profit encourages innovation, and is how we got the iPhone and iPad in the first place.

Why Samsung’s loss is good for Android (and Samsung) Apple’s counterattack to the dubious patent practices of Samsung, Motorola Mobility, HTC, and other Android device makers has been unusually strong. Microsoft’s counterattack was to negotiate licenses with most Android makers, so it now gets a cut of every device sold. That’s the usual approach, which is to negotiate a deal with the alleged infringer. Apple has clearly decided this is a matter of principle to be enshrined in court decisions — most of which it has won — rather than be quietly settled behind closed doors.

When Apple is on a crusade, watch out. Look what happened in less than a year after Hon Hai’s Foxconn plants’ inhumane working conditions were exposed: The factory makes many Apple products, so Apple took the heat for allowing the poor working conditions to exist. Apple responded by forcing changes on Hon Hai that have already been validated as real. All the other Silicon Valley companies have said and apparently done nothing, though they use the same and similar plants and so perpetuated the same abuses.

Because Apple has made the mobile patents fight so public and so much of a cause, it has forced the Android market to rethink its usual strategy of deriving its products from the work of others. Let’s face it: Most of what we’ve seen in Android and especially Android devices is clearly “inspired” by what Apple and others have done. Yes, Apple has also been “inspired” by Android, so it’s a two-way street. But the Android side has been far more so.

As a result of Apple’s legal attack, Samsung’s latest crown jewels — the Galaxy Note phablet, Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, and Galaxy S III smartphone — bring real innovation to the table. They’re also much stronger competitors to Apple’s products. One unintended consequence on Samsung has been to force it to be more innovative, which will only help Samsung compete with not just Apple but with other Android device makers.

If you look at the Android community, it’s Samsung that owns the lion’s share of the market, while HTC, Asus, and the rest have become minor providers of largely generic devices. Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, has been less innovative than Samsung but more so than the rest, occupying a middle ground also reflected in its middling market success.

Apple’s crusade will force Android device makers, and Google for the operating system, to focus more on real innovation than on adopting versions of Apple innovations. Those up to the challenge — and Samsung at least is — will prosper and make Android better as a result. The others will languish as generic device makers found in bargain stores. There’s money to be made there, but not a lot. And there’s certainly no innovation that comes from the generics business.

Samsung in particular will benefit. It’s become the face of the Android side in the mobile battle, and in many people’s minds has become not a generic maker of Android devices but an equal to Apple because most people now see this as an Apple/Samsung battle. Apple has elevated Samsung’s street cred, which Samsung has the ability to take advantage of.

The Apple-Samsung design patents case shows the legal system at its best: Patents designed to reward innovators have been both upheld and strongly affirmed by a jury. That will only encourage more innovation and discourage copiers. Surely the Android community can lead in innovation if it chooses to. And it should make that choice for its own benefit.

This article, “Apple’s patent victory over Samsung is good for Android,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com. Follow Galen’s mobile musings on Twitter at MobileGalen. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.