Obama Administration Vetoes Ban on Sale of Some Apple Devices

I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to comment on a couple of your other comments...as far as the first iPhone, the LG Prada being a “feature phone”... so was the second iPhone... you know the one produced by Apple. It is interesting how you try to redifine what a "smartphone" is depending on the needs of your argument. The LG KS20 and others released around the same time in the Asian market had Windows Mobile 6.1... does that qualify?

As I have stated Apple has a pattern of making improvements to others products, then claiming that they have come up with an original idea. When really what likely happened in the case of the first Apple iPhone... Steve Jobs saw what was going on in smartphone development... identified what he liked best about them and told his people to copy those features, change and improve a few things and then market it. It is the same thing as every car manufacturer now having a combo-minivan SUV.

And as far as your comment that the iPhone would be as thick as the PPC-6700 if it had a removable battery... That is just silly; there are numerous phones far thinner than the iPhone that have removable batteries.

I do have to hand it to you though... you have a tallent for coming up with bogus arguments that sound convincing to those unfamiliar with a subject. If I didn't know about these things because I owned and used these products... I would probably believe what you are saying. You do work as a lawyer... don't you?

The thing that bothers me the most about Obama intervening on the behalf or Apple is that it appears lawless and adds to the instablity of our trading system. It is just wrong.

You didn't even READ my post before you posted your drivel on the PRADA. It is not MY definition of the LG Prada as a "Feature Phone” but the industy's definition. I warned you not to bring it up because it was NOT a Smartphone. . . But i knew you would. It's in your troll handbook. All the LG Prada was is the first phone to use a capacitance touch screen rather than a resistance touch screen.

Apple could NOT have copied the LG PRADA because LG's non-working, clay mock-up of the Prada was only revealed to the world on January 18, 2007, ELEVEN DAYS after Steve Jobs demonstrated working models of the iPhone at the MacWorld Exposition on January 7, 2007 in San Francisco, California, in front of 2300 witnesses. Apple had shown the iPhone to the CEO of Cingular Wireless (now AT&T) and already had a contract in hand to sell the iPhone. that had been in the works for over a Year. Cingular did not just jump on board at the last minute. GOOGLE had worked with Apple on the iPhone maps and it was ready to go. . . based on the form factor and screen size. Again, they did NOT work in the dark! I WAS THERE! I saw the iPhone before the LG-Prada mock-up was ever shown!

LG had plenty of time to build their mock-up in eleven days after seeing the iPhone. I grant you that on December 12, 2006, LG announced they were planning to release a capacitance touch screen phone. Some revisionist articles claim that Engadget showed images of the LG-Prada on that date but that claim has been debunked numerous times by Endgadget. The first images released were the mock-up in January. They had plenty of time to get it working, which was seen as they showed various versions of their work, until they released the Prada overseas in mid-May 2007.

To demonstrate that the Prada is NOT a smart phone, its apps ran on FLASH scripts—it had no qualified operating system to be called a "smartphone" as FLASH is not an OS—and it had only 8 megabytes of "shared" capacity. One could add 2 GB storage for photos, but that was not usable for apps... And no potential for more. A limited capacity of 999 contacts. A Microsoft office document reader but no ability to edit said documents, no PDF reader. The Browser was limited to Mobile sites only. It was a FEATURE PHONE by industry definition. . . Comparable to other feature phones of the period.

You accused me of not being familiar with phone models before the iPhone. . . But I am. . . far more than you. I have been handling Trolls like you since way before 2007. . . and I do it with fact based information.

You still have not linked to a phone that was demonstrably a predecessor to the iPhone that was what you claimed. The closest you got was the Prada. . . And it demonstrably was "officially" revealed in a press release ELEVEN days after the iPhone, although "sort-of" unofficially announced by a blogger as an up-coming capacitance touch screen phone 26 days before the iPhone was shown, but with no description, so it could have looked like anything.

I have no clue why you think the second iPhone was a "Feature phone." I owned one. You did not. My ex-wife still uses it. Oh... And it’s still using the original battery from 2008. It can not be upgraded to the later iOSes—I think it EOSed out at iOS 4.5— but my Ex doesn't care; it meets her needs. It's a true smartphone capable of running 90% of the apps out there. .

You REPEATED your LIE about Apple spending more on Attorney's than R&D after I showed you the true facts ($3.4 Billion in R&D v. Less than $150 Million on legal expenses in Fiscal 2012, i.e. 23 times more on R&D than on Attorneys!). . . Yet YOU prefer the LIE. by repeating the LIE when you now know the truth, that makes you a liar. You now trot out the canard that Apple claims to have invented things they have improved on. SHOW ME! Cite a source with proof! They only claim to have invented those things they have actually invented. Only the FUD spreaders confabulate Apple's true statements into a broader claim to ridicule them and YOU are totally willing to swallow the FUD, the mis-information. You NEVER bother to search out the actual quotations the FUD misquotes, takes out of context, and distorts. I either heard it first hand because I was there, or I find it in original source documents, recordings, videos, etc. I don't take the FUD spreaders word for it. You repeat the lies as if they were Gospel. You have posted not one thing that has not been disproved, easily, with facts.

Batteries: PLEASE, PLEASE, show me those "numerous phones with removable batteries that are far thinner" than the iPhone's 0.30 inches that has removable batteries. PLEASE. . . Especially ones that weigh 3.95 ounces and have eight hours of talk time or even approach that. By the way, you won't because you can't. It is another of your patented "made-up facts!" I've looked for you. They simply don't exist. It's my business to know these things. It's one of the ways I make my living.

By making phones that have non-consumer-removable batteries, Apple can fit custom designed batteries into their products where ever there is space to put batteries, adding to the power density and the charge capacity. if the batteries had to be removable, the cells would be required to be in a safety casing which adds weight and dimensions. and LIMITS the shape, location and connection of the battery. structures must be added to support the access port, the battery package itself, and jack, both mail and female—which have to be made robust enough to withstand repeated connecting and disconnecting on a daily basis. this adds weight, bulk, and unneeded dimensions and LIMITS the battery size. It also provides a means of access for dirt and moisture into the device and also adds an unnecessary failure point. Even Samsung has dropped removable batteries to gain battery capacity and as a necessity to drive their larger screens, especially given the inefficiencies inherent in Android's app and energy management.

You, sir, make up "facts" and are unfamiliar with technical history, don't bother to read responses and cut and paste FUD articles based on other FUD articles.

On the other hand, I have provided FACTS and can provide documented evidence for everything I write and everything you accuse of being "bogus arguments." Your arguments have in every instance been shown to be false. . . based on lies. Myths promulgated by competitors with axes to grind. You've been presented with the documented facts but you STILL cling to the lies. Are you being paid to be a TROLL?

As for Obama "intervening" in the ITC decision, it is EXACTLY how this law is required to work. The President is REQUIRED APBY LAW to either approve or veto these injunctions. you again show you haven't a clue what you're talking about. do some studying before you condemn something that IS following the law. Twenty-seven years ago President Ronald Reagan intervened in exactly the SAME WAY, also against Samsung, also on a SEP Patent claim, for similar reasons!!! For once, Obama followed the law! AS I said, you do not know what you are talking about! I do! I have studied this. . . Read the laws, read the decision, read the orders, read the arguments.

You, on the other hand, fly by the seat of your pants. . . And you get hoist on your own petard when someone lights a match near one of the factoid farts you spout through that seat!

You don't understand the sheer audacity that Samsung was using in even Suing for infringement with Standard ESSENTIAL Patents in this manner.

APPLE'S POSTION WAS THAT THE PATENT LICENSE HAD ALREADY BEEN PAID TO SAMSUNG BY THE COMPANY THAT MADE THE CHIPS THAT APPLE WAS USING AND THAT LICENSE WAS INCLUDED IN THE PRICE OF THE CHIPS!!!

This is a concept in law called "patent exhaustion." I.E, the right to license the patent for use is exhausted when the first manufacturer licenses it to make a product for resale to other manufacturers for the purpose it is intended to do that the patent helps implement. His customers may reliably utilize his product without relicensing the patent because the license is paid, exhausted. In this instance, Apple bought chips from CIsco that included SEP patented technology licensed from Samsung. For these chips to perform their cellular radio function they required Samsung's license, so Cisco licensed it. This, by law, should exhaust the patent. Samsung has received it's royalty and the product its invention facilitates making is made: the 3G radio chip. Apple buys it, and by extension is licensed to use it through the concept of patent exhaustion. They owe no licensing royalties under the law. However, Samsung wants access to Apple's iPhone patent portfolio which are NOT standard essential and are proprietary, so Samsung, now being sued by Apple for patent infringement of those iPhone Patents, brings a counter suit citing these SEP patents because THEY ARE THE ONLY WEAPON THEY HAVE!!! Most patent lawyers say they don't have a leg to stand on. . . Because of their FRAND agreements. So they go to the ITC, not the federal courts.

Back to patent exhaustion: Without patent exhaustion, Samsung's theory would allow them to demand a license from everyone who was involved with the product, including the end buyer. This isn't just double dipping, its triple, quadruple, and multiple dipping into licensing. Samsung wanted an additional license on the complete product, something NEVER BEFORE ALLOWED on any product unless the patent were FOR that end product. One analysis I saw calculated that if Samsung's method of figuring royalties on the end value of a cell phone were the normal practice and their figure of 2.5% for trivial patents like their patent's contribution a normal rate, given the thousands of FRAND licensed patents in the cellular phone standard, plus the music industry licensing, and the video licensing, and all other things that the manufacturers have to license older FRAND agreements just to make the frigging phones, an average smartphone equivalent to an Android or iPhone would have a retail selling price between $25,000 and $30,000! THAT'S WHAT'S AT STAKE IF SAMSUNG IS ALLOWED TO HAVE ITS WAY HERE!

The ability to license every patent in ALL the thing we need in our daily lives at reasonable rates is hinging on the trust of Standard setting organizations and the willingness of each patent holder to adhere to the FRAND agreements. If a rogue like Samsung is allowed to break that trust and discriminate, or use their SE Patents as weapons against a competitor, then we are all going to be screwed.

This patent was for a very minor process. . . But Samsung was demanding a license based on a 2.5 percentage of the RETAIL PRICE of the final product, something NEVER heard of before. It certainly was NOT Fair, NOT Reasonable, And it certainly was NOT Non-Discriminatory, since this demand applied only to Apple among all cell phone makers. It was NOT FRAND. Samsung therefore was in violation of the FRAND agreements which Samsung had signed and agreed to when they put their patents into the standards pool so that THEY, Samsung, could get reciprocal access to other standards patents that belonged to other companies, including Apple, at FRAND rates!

According to those FRAND and Standards agreements, if the patent is NOT offered by the patent holder under FRAND terms, or the parties cannot come to terms, the potential licensee may use the patent as though it were licensed so long as the normal FRAND rate is set aside pending the outcome of litigation. Apple did this. Ergo, no there is no infringement under contract law.

For these reasons, the ITC ALJ, ruled that Apple was NOT infringing, and agreed that SAMSUNG was doing a "Patent Holdup!” Samsung appealed, and a three judge ITC panel affirmed the ALJ's decision. Samsung appealed to the ITC Commission, all political appointees, who tossed out the judge's, staff's, and all other's determinations, and thumbed their noses at the law, and came down on Samsung's side. . . and issued an injunction against Apple's products, that their own staff and judges said were NOT infringing the patent! The legal community was shocked! There was no legal basis for such a decision.

Keep in mind the USITC is charged with protecting US businesses from unfair FOREIGN competition. It's in the ITC's Charter!

fireman15?Tell me, exactly how is benefiting a 100% KOREAN owned company from the competition of an AMERICAN COMPANY by any stretch of the imagination with-in their CHARTER or with-in the spirit of the law???? I don't see it.

How many American's retirements are invested in Samsung? Lots are invested in Apple Stock. What in hell is going on here? Reagan pointed out that the ITC's purpose IS for American business' protection against unfair foreign competition, NOT to be used as a tool for foreign company's to use against American business. That's what happened here.

Samsung is known around the world to engage in bribery. In the UK a judge came down with a controversial decision benefitting Samsung over Apple in which the facts did not seem to justify the decision. Three months after he rendered the decision, the ex-Justice was on Samsung's payroll as an advisor on patent law in another case with a huge salary. In Germany a similar case occurred with the Judge in the case winding up on Samsung's payroll with a hefty pay increase very shortly after ruling on their behalf. Just last week , when Samsung's PR firm was found to be paying bloggers, college students and others to post negative comments about an unnamed competitor, Samsung threw the PR firm under the bus, claiming they knew nothing about it, but did not discontinue using the firm. . . but turns out the PR firm is a wholly own subsidiary of Samsung, when the ownership was tracked down. LOL! Samsung was even convicted in Korea of bribing government leaders. . . Oh, my. Could that be why the ITC commissioners acted so strangely in this decision? Anybody think they might wind up with cushy jobs at Samsung later? Hmmmmm

The real lawlessness may appear when the ITC doesn't issue an injunction AGAINST Samsung this Friday (August, 9, 2013)—which they've already delayed one week, claiming they "need more time!"—on legitimate infringements the ITC ALJ found them doing on FOUR non-SEP patents, or if it does and the commission reverses the injunction. . . Or if the commission allows them to stand and Obambi vetoes legitimate product injunctions that ARE harming American companies by infringing their patents! That will be interesting to see!

You are very good at wasting a whole lot of your own time trying to educate me about something that I know far more about than you. And your posts are quite impressive in both appearance and in realistic looking BS. But you see I am not a typical moron from the US Jury pool which I am certain that you are very capable of winning over. I was an early adopter and I was there and I saw these things develop. No amount of your well articulated crap is going to influence me. However, I am perfectly willing to keep up this conversation. I would rather see you keep wasting your time with me... than in some other thread where your crap might actually fly. So thank you and good day!

I find your tag line extremely ironic. And idiotic. . . Considering everything you've posted on this thread has been exposed as ignorant of the actual facts. I've posted facts from source materials such as Financial records required to be accurate or somebody goes to prison, I.e. Apple's 2012 10-K, to prove your just one of your IGNORANT assertions wrong—your continued assertion Apple pays more for Attornies than R&D. That's just one easily shot down IGNORANT claim you make that makes you look like a fool.. Others come from factual original sources, but YOU call it all crap. You are choosing to remain willfully ignorant. You keep harping on your precious POS-6700, a Windows phone. Fine like it all you like, but all your Dancing does not make it into a DESIGN PATENT predecessor to the look and feel of the iPhone, no matter how much you dance and jive. Your IGNORANCE of Design Patents and Design Patent law makes you look like a fool, again.

Your repeated arguments for lozenge phones (and that's what they are called in the industry) and candy bar phones ( another monicker for the shapes) and flip phones and the palm and berry phones of the pre-iPhone slab era, cuts no ice in trying to claim that the iPhone made a complete change in how the look and feel of cellular phones appear. It's obvious to everyone but you. Phones today are slabs with large touch screens, generally black. Before the iPhone, um, no, they were not. Now, more color choices are coming back. I think that's a good thing. Me? I like black.

More ignorance is displayed on your part with your June 29, 2007 GOTCHA question. You think because you looked up when Apple released the iPhone to the public that was when it was revealed? Nope. The fully working, functional iPhone was shown on Januaury 7, 2007, at Macworld. Apple did not ship until they had sufficient quantities in the pipeline. Your vaunted Prada was a clay Mock-up in January of 2007 and as I've told you, that mock-up was only shown 11 days after Steve Jobs was TALKING over his iPhone, demonstrating Maps working, showing Mail sending and receiving, writing notes in Notepad, taking photos, playing music with the fully functional built-in iPod, sending instant messages, getting stock quotes for Apple, and showing FULL page browser surfing of the Internet on a working iPhone. January 7th. I was there, in the audience.

As for your picture, er, no, That is a third generation LG Prada from 2010. This is the first generation LG Prada KE850:

This photo taken from the mock-up shown in the official press release on January 18, 2007 was used to replace the blurry photo that may have been shown on Endgadget on December 20, 2006. My current research shows a very blurry December 2006 picture on Endgadget which can't be linked. . . But it's sourced where this photo came from as the source of the blurry shot, they stated they were forced to remove their blurry photo because of copyright issues but that Endgadget still had it. In any case, they also said:

Rumours have been circulating recently that the KE850 is actually a working version of Apple’s imminent iPhone, but we can categorically say that this is not the case! We know that the iPhone is going to come in 4GB and 8GB versions, but the KE850 has only a nominal onboard memory.

More proof this LG Prada is not a Smart phone. Incidentally, fireman15, although it is a capacitance touch screen, it was NOT a multitouch touch screen, it was only single touch and very sensitive at that, prone to errors. There were many complaints about input errors in texting. So, again, your IGNORANCE shows and you are making your own facts up.

Oh, and if there was an endgadget photo? There was only one.

By the way, your pathetic attempt to denigrate me with the Jr. high school comment is not going to work. I've been working in various fields of IT for 35 years, have been the CEO of a corporation, was a friend of Ronald Reagan when he was Governor of California with a standing invitation to drop in to go swimming in the pool at the rented Governor's Mansion on 45th Street in Sacramento, and before I was in Junior High School I used to have conversations with Chief Justice Earl Warren while he repaired shoes while visiting his best friend in a shoe shop at the end of my block where I grew up, so you off by quite a few decades.

This is of course typical of Apple which spends vastly more money on lawyers than it does on R&D. Did Apple invent capacitive screens? No. Did Apple invent multi-touch screens? No. Did Apple invent using gestures on multi-touch screens? No. Was Apple the first to use capacitive or multi-touch screens on a computing device or even a tablet? No. Was Apple the first to use a multi-touch capacitive screen with gestures on a cell phone? NO, NO, and NO.

Uh, fireman? Where did Apple ever CLAIM to have invented capacitive screens? That is what is called a straw man argument. Apple never claimed that. Multitouch? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, Apple did indeed invent multitouch as applied to capacititance screens on mobile devices, invented the specific way that such touches can be interpreted, calculated, determined what they mean and what they do. I've read the patents. Hard reading, but I was interested. Other phone makers license those patents from Apple. And, yes, Apple was the first to use multitouch on a phone—No, it was NOT LG Prada, it was single touch—and yes, Apple defined and designed the gestures used on multitouch devices through its wholly owned subsidiary Fingerworks. Apple owns those patents too, although some are under review because Samsung has challenged them. The last two that Samsung challenged survived review. Did you know that ANYONE can demand a patent review anonymously? They just have to post, I think, $2000. And the patent is suddenly under review. . . These review requests were not so well anonymous and were traced back to Samsung subsidiaries, lol!

RE: 3G. The first iPhones and 3G. Apple did not make them 3G because Cingular's network was not 3G capable. . . But then Bell South, Pacific Bell and several others merged and changed the name to AT&T and aggressively started rolling out 3G. So the next iPhones had 3G instead of just EDGE. There was originally not much point in making cell phone for a network where only 2% of the network was capale of 3G transmissions. However when the merger occurred, and the other baby bells came in, that percentage was up to 35%. So Apple added 3G. Similarly, Apple did not add 3G LTE—what's called 4G—until there were sufficient towers capable of supporting it.

I don't believe you about using iPhones. If you had you wouldn't be claiming the things you do about false equivalences.

I've been working in various fields of IT for 35 years, have been the CEO of a corporation, was a friend of Ronald Reagan when he was Governor of California with a standing invitation to drop in to go swimming in the pool at the rented Governor's Mansion on 45th Street in Sacramento, and before I was in Junior High School I used to have conversations with Chief Justice Earl Warren while he repaired shoes while visiting his best friend in a shoe shop at the end of my block where I grew up, so you off by quite a few decades.

I guess I will have to change my moniker to “The Black KnIght” and we will just call have to call this conversation “a draw”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690

Thank you for the time you spent schooling me. Any IT guy, former CEO, childhood friend of Earl Warren who was a personal friend of Ronald Reagan certainly doesn't need me pestering them.

Sorry, forgot the quotes and italics in my previous post.

For your research... here is the proper link to the Engadget article from Dec 15, 2016. This is a “snapshot” from archive.org taken on the 16th.

http://web.archive.org/web/20061216021600/http://www.engadget.com/

"Little is known about the KE850 from LG, but the folks over at International Forum Design must know a thing or two about it, seeing how they just hooked it up with a Product Design Award for 2007. And hey, with those hot Chocolate-esque looks -- though we have no proof this one'll actually be branded as a Chocolate -- who can blame them? The big draw here, of course, is a 400 x 240 touchscreen that takes the place of virtually every hard button you might find on a more traditional handset, save for Send, End, and a handful of keys on the sides. The posterior reveals a cam, though its specs remain a mystery. Does someone at LG (or iF) want to spill the beans for us?"

Here is another link that I thought might be interesting to you since you are having difficulty finding links and pictures from the pre-iphone era:

This article is from January 18, 2007

http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_ke850_prada_goes_official-news-246.php

"Today LG officially confirmed their upcoming LG Prada phone. Featuring a full touch-control design, the new handset is the result from the collaboration between the Korean manufacturer and the Prada design team.

Yesterday at the IF product design awards the LG Prada mobile was first seen designated as the LG KE850. The unique thing about it is the large touchcreen menu interface which eliminates the need for a conventional keypad whatsoever. We cannot help but think about the newly announced iPhone by Apple which though would much larger and would run under the OS X. The LG KE850 Prada phone on the other hand would be only 12 mm run with a Macromedia Flash user interface.

LG Prada phone

The Prada phone by LG (KE850) would feature a large 3" LCD touchscreen display with yet unknown resolution and would also have a 2 megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach optics and a microSD memory card slot. The most interesting thing about the display itself is that it's made using the capacitive touchscreen technology. What that means is that the screen uses electroconductivity to sense your touch - much like the touchpad on the popular LG Chocolate. This technology is made to be used with fingers only, so the use of a stylus is out of the question whatsoever.

LG Prada phone

The PRADA Phone by LG will be available with prices starting from 600 EUR in the UK, France, Germany and Italy as of late February, 2007, followed by countries in Asia such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore from late March, 2007. The Korean version of the phone is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007."

Strangely those pictures make it look like a little more than a "mock up" as you have charcterized it in your previous posts... LG is probably just really good with photoshop I suppose. Can companies win the Annual International Forum Product Design Award as LG did with the KE850 already had (according to this article from January 18, 2007) with a "mock-up"? It is also a little strange that LG was able start selling their working "mock up" phone to the public in February of 2007. I always thought it took a little longer than that to actually set up manufacturing facillities for production for functioning "mock up" products like that. You are so much more knowledgable on things like that than I am I am sure that you have a good explanation for that. Anyway if I can be of any more help to you please let me know.

You said Apple spent...
23 times more on R&D than on Attorneys

In the interest of helping you fight more painfully unfair propaganda against the saints over at Apple. I wanted to make you aware of this link from Gizmodo. The headline reads, “Apple and Google Spent More Money on Legal Fees Than R&D Last Year (And Google Apparently Thinks Apple Wants It That Way)”

They article also has all sorts of other anti-Apple propaganda:

“First, the Times says that Apple submitted and re-submitted its Siri patent 8 times, which is not only something that allows companies to worm its way into a patent, but apparently a tactic commonly used by companies to wear down an overworked patent office into just saying yes.”

That doesn't sound right... surely it can't be so???

Then:

"Apple and Samsung spent more fighting lawsuits and snapping up patents that either did on R&D last year. And that makes sense. After all, Apple spent less than $3 billion on R&D last year (and is on track to spend less than $4 billion this year). That's far less than nearly every major company in tech."

It is shocking that they would say such a thing... when you just told me that Apple has spent “Less than $150 Million on legal expenses in Fiscal 2012”!!! Somebody must be lying or making things up... I have to tell you that I am shocked to have been so badly misled. Please get someone from Gizmodo on the phone and straighten them out!

One other thing that I was curious about... you said...

"LG's non-working, clay mock-up of the Prada was only revealed to the world on January 18, 2006"

I am very curious as to how LG was able to convince all those who bought their highly anticipated "non-working clay mock-up" phones at the end of February that they were actually talking on the phone and using that clay capacitance touch screen just a month later. Was it mass hypnosis? Or do you have some other explanation? I am sure glad that I ran into you here... you have really cleared a lot of things up for me. Other people have sometimes made things up to convince me of things... but you are a genuine straight shooter... aren't you.

Oh hey sorry here is that link... Once you finish straightening out those fools over at Gizmodo I can send you another 50 or 60 links that say the same type of thing. It is just shameful... you must have your hands full everyday countering this type of stuff.

http://gizmodo.com/5949909/apple-and-google-spent-more-money-on-legal-fees-than-rd-last-year-and-google-apparently-thinks-apple-wants-it-that-way

FreeRepublic seems to be having a little bit of trouble this afternoon so I am going to have to reply to this thread instead of the earlier one where you said that that if the Obama administration hadn't just vetoed the decision in favor of Samsung that we “literally” would all be paying $25,000 for a smartphone.

Some people probably might be skeptical of such a bold statement, but you have won me over. It got me thinking... along with killing Osama, decimating Al Qaeda, saving our health care system, creating millions of new part time jobs, and stopping global warming years before he was even elected... Obama has now saved the smartphone from certain destruction. Most people just can't afford to spend that much on a phone.

We should definitely propose a new federal Obama holiday... Henceforth, I declare every August 3rd shall be known as Obama Smartphone day. All government and banking industry employees shall be given another paid day off. I mean it is the least that we can do. This lady would probably be glad to help you.

This lady would probably be glad to help you.

I think that given your ability at projecting the future price of smartphones that you definately could have a promising career predicting other future events such as global warming. You might even be able to help Michael Mann draw up his next set of hockey-stick graphs.

One of my bucket list goals is to visit all 3 branches of the future Baraq Hussein Obama Presidential Library and Choom Gang Museum - Honolulu, Chicago, and LA.

In the interest of helping you fight more painfully unfair propaganda against the saints over at Apple. I wanted to make you aware of this link from Gizmodo. The headline reads, “Apple and Google Spent More Money on Legal Fees Than R&D Last Year (And Google Apparently Thinks Apple Wants It That Way)”

GOOD GRIEF, fireman15! There are reliable sources and then there is Gizmodo. Gizmodo has published LOTS of erroneous articles. . . and this is not even an article. It's a blog. It's written by one of their self styled reader "journalists" Adrien Covert.

Any one can post on Gizmodo as a blogger for others to be amazed at their erudite commentary. No one certifies the truth of their "research," least of all Gizmodo. If you want TRUTH on expenses, look at the FINANCIAL REPORTS. Legal fees and R&D are both reported in there. Do you truly believe that ANY company could expend more than $3.4 BILLION dollars defending itself agains't nuisance lawsuits, most of which could be settled for a few million or less???? That would represent almost ONE ENTIRE QUARTER'S BOTTOM LINE'S PROFITS, YOU IDIOT! It's a "news report" that simply does not pass the SMELL TEST! If it were at all true, the stockholders would be lynching board members. If you do believe it, I have a Bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. You are a putz! Here is what the blogger took out of context to give you your talking distorted point:

"The second is more or less fact: Apple and Samsung spent more fighting lawsuits and snapping up patents that either did on R&D last year. And that makes sense. After all, Apple spent less than $3 billion on R&D last year (and is on track to spend less than $4 billion this year). That's far less than nearly every major company in tech. And considering Samsung just sunk a whole lot of money in a case it lost, it doesn't seem shocking that it made legal matters a priority."

I love that "more or less fact" statement, and the co-mingling of intellectual property acquisitions with legal fees, to totally distort the facts. They ain't the same thing.

When the acquisitions of patents, companies with specific technologies are included in "legal fees" then, yes, Apple did indeed spend more than the $3.4 billion they spent on research and development. BUT, fireman15, those purchases are Capital expenditures! NOT EVEN EXPENSES!!! They increase the value of the company. Apple gains the value of the R&D those company's already did, the million and billions of dollars of value represented by the technology inherent in the patents owned by those companies, not to mention the rights to USE these patents without paying royalties and to receive royalties from those who have licenses! This idiot, like the New York Times writer who conflated the two in the first place, had to have flunked economics (I might not have mentioned it, but my degree is in Economics), if they ever took it.

Then, the NY Times pops up with a $20 billion figure for Fiscal 2011 (since he's writing in 2012 and Apple's Fiscal year ends end of September 2012 and Google and Samsung's have not yet ended) as the expenses he's referring to. . . He conflates Samsung's, Google's, and Apple's legal costs and IP acquisitions as all being "costs" of this patent war.

First of all, there are many reasons why a company acquires Intellectual property. Use as a weapon against other companies may be one of them, but only a minor one. Google is the major player of that game, having little use for making actual physical products and giving away their major software products free. Other players who use that tactic are the patent trolls. Apple is not a major company to use that tactic. They have purchased certain patents to prevent their use for the public good, in the past. . . Most acquire IP to make a profit by making products and actually USING the patents. This is not acquisition for use in a "patent war."

Secondly, in the year they are referring to, Google acquired Motorola for $12.5 BILLION. . . Mostly for the 24,000 patents that Motorola Mobility owned, not because the failing cell phone maker was showing a profit. Motorola, under Google's direction, was quick to try and use those patents and loaned them to Samsung, ITC, and directed them to use them against Apple. The lent patents were disallowed by the courts as it was quickly found the companies were NOT the true owners. Motorola then attempted to use SEP patents in Europe against Apple and has earned Google and Motorola investigations from the EU's antiTrust regulatory body, with threats of major fines approaching the total profits of both companies in the EU for the period in question (the EU doesn't kid around), invalidation of the patents, and perhaps closer regulation of both companies. Google is finding their $12.5 Billion did not get them what they thought it would. . . But it should not count toward "legal costs." That's absurd.

Finally, Apple participated in a consortium that purchased Kodak's patents on digital photography out of bankruptcy. The consortium included Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others in the industry that would share the IP. This was included in the NYT figures which actually occurred in 2012. Again absurd. This, if I recall correctly that was $6 Billion, with Apple putting in $2.1 Billion. These, again ARE NOT LEGAL COSTS!

Some people probably might be skeptical of such a bold statement, but you have won me over. It got me thinking... along with killing Osama, decimating Al Qaeda, saving our health care system, creating millions of new part time jobs, and stopping global warming years before he was even elected... Obama has now saved the smartphone from certain destruction. Most people just can't afford to spend that much on a phone.

What? You can't do basic math? If Samsung were to be allowed to break the STANDARDS ESSENTIAL PATENTS agreements that are the bulwark of our technological existence, no patent holder would be obligated to do so either. The interlocking agreements that allow our devices to interoperate in a world of thousands of intellectual property rights would fall apart under a free-for-all of demands for compensation in patent Hold-Ups between competitors. Seeing one initiated in contravention of the signed agreements that both Apple and Samsung are already party to, tells what could happen. It is a simple economic exercise to calculate based on known factors exactly what could happen minus these agreements. it is WHY these organizations were created in the first place. you FAIL to understand that. Here, let me show you:

Samsung was demanding 2.4% of the retail price (~$600) of the IPhone for Apple to use a patent inherent in a chip made by Cisco, for which Cisco had already paid a 2.4% royalty (about 15¢) on the price of the chip. This normally would have resulted in patent exhaustion. Instead, Samsung was demanding a further royalty from Cisco's customer of $14.40 to use their technology. Apple said "no."

The normal accumulated royalties of all licenses paid per unit on an iPhone is ~$22. Had Apple knuckled under to Samsung's non-FRAND demand, the cost would have risen to ~$36.26, with Samsung setting a precedent for others to emulate.

Do you know how many patents are in the ETSI standard including GSM, LTE, WIFI, etc.? Neither do I, but the last time I saw one it was somewhere north of 2,600! Let's be conservative and use 2,000. If all the various patent holders assume their patents are just as valuable as Samsung's 3G patent, then they ALL could demand $14.40! But, let's again be conservative and assume they want $10 each. For the iPhone 5, retail $600.00, minus current licensing of $22, plus new licensing of 2000 x $10 = $20,578.00 conservatively for the iPhone 5 per unit, given Samsung's patent pricing model. It would be about $50 more for the Galaxy 4S because their suggested retail selling price is that much higher than the iPhone. Remember I went with VERY conservative estimates.

Now do you see??? Was Samsung's demand FAIR? Was it REASONABLE? Was it NON-DISCRIMINATORY? Especially considering they were licensing the SAME tech to all other cell phone makers for approximately 15¢ per unit? Was it in accordance with their signed agreements? Was it a FRAND rate? Be an informed juror, fireman15, a judge of the facts. Make a ruling. WHO was in violation here? APPLE? Or Samsung? Who followed the law?

The actual fact is that most patents in these organizations wind up being free because of cross licensing agreements. Mere membership allows the members the access to the FRAND rate negotiations. . . but Samsung decided to violate their obligation to fellow member Apple. That, fireman15, is the truth. That is why the courts in Europe, Australia, Japan, and KOREA through these cases out with prejudice! Only the ITC heard it here, and the Administrative Law Judge came to the exact same conclusion. . . only to have POLITICAL appointees of Obama reverse the LEGAL decision and order the exclusion. THAT was the rule of men over the rule of LAW. YOU are coming down on the side of the satraps. I'm ashamed of you.

“First, the Times says that Apple submitted and re-submitted its Siri patent 8 times, which is not only something that allows companies to worm its way into a patent, but apparently a tactic commonly used by companies to wear down an overworked patent office into just saying yes.”

That is not unusual for any patent, fireman15. In fact, that is a remarkable few number of re-submissions for any patent, let alone one of the complexity of Siri. Have you ever submitted a patent? I have helped two people do so and each of those required over twenty revisions before the examiner was satisfied with the application. One resulted in a granted patent, the other was rejected because of prior art the examiner found that we didn't in our patent searches. No patent is granted because the patent examiner is worn down by applicants submissions. The examiners take what ever amount of time the deem necessary, sometimes years, before making their decisions. Your point is specious. Worthless.

In addition, the first patents on Siri's voice recognition system harken back many years before that, but the most important were issued in 2001. There are a series of other patents that are included in the Siri technology that Apple has owned since they developed them in the 1980s, including the first hypertext database parsing language.

Somebody must be lying or making things up... I have to tell you that I am shocked to have been so badly misled. Please get someone from Gizmodo on the phone and straighten them out!"

They don't want to be "straightened out", fireman15, they want to repeat and spread distortions and FUD. Gizmodo has been pushing AntiApple FUD for years and has gone as far as buying what they knew to be stolen property to poke sticks in the eye of Apple. Apple will no longer include Gizmodo in any invitation to media events because of their anti-Apple activities.

Someone was making things up and lying to and misleading you. I showed you exactly how they used the smoke and mirrors to fool you. Same kind of tricks as the specious TAX issue. How do they make $150 million of legal expenses seem to be more than $3.4 Billion in R&D expenditures? They impermissibly redefine Billions of dollars of Capital Acquisitions as somehow being part of those legal expenses and hope nobody notices while you're waving a red flag in the other direction! Then they just claim that Apple improbably did so, aiming to convince the ignorati,—people like you who REFUSE TO CHECK THE TRUTH OF WHAT THEY ARE BEING TOLD—that they KNOW what they are talking about because they say it with such authority! Ignorant people like you, fireman, swallow that bilge water! Hook, line, and sinker.

You believed that TAX lie. . . Until I and a couple of other Freepers SHOWED you the "smoke and Mirrors" the FUD spreaders were using to fool you. you were big enough to accept you had been taken in. This is the exact same kind of lie.

Check it out. Look at the weasel words they REALLY used. Read what i posted to you. Unlock that hermetically sealed mind of your and shake out those hoary misconceptions you've allowed to fester in there because that's what the LIARS spoon fed to you. Look at the facts. You'll see I'm telling you the truth. Check out the REGISTERED Financial Reports. Try and find those mythical billions of $s of legal expenses. They are not there. . . and if they were REALLY expenses I assure you they would have DEDUCTED them from their taxes. They did not. ERGO, they simply don't exist.

I am very curious as to how LG was able to convince all those who bought their highly anticipated "non-working clay mock-up" phones at the end of February that they were actually talking on the phone and using that clay capacitance touch screen just a month later. Was it mass hypnosis? Or do you have some other explanation? I am sure glad that I ran into you here... you have really cleared a lot of things up for me. Other people have sometimes made things up to convince me of things... but you are a genuine straight shooter... aren't you.

Facts are irritating things, fireman15.

But I think you hit the nail on the head, fireman. It MUST have been mass delusion if they were making calls on the LG Prada Phones at the end of February 2007 because they didn't buy any Prada phones at the end of February, fireman15, because they could not buy any then! The KE850 was targeted for its Worldwide release in the UK for March 22, 2007, but did not make it to market until mid-May because of production delays. . . perhaps, rumor had it at the time, because the company making the capacitance touch screens had had a much larger, more lucrative order to fill, an order for a bigger 3.5 inch screen.

Here is the definitive proof of the Prada timeline:

”The LG KE850, also known as the LG Prada,[1] is a touchscreen mobile phone made by LG Electronics. It was first announced on December 12, 2006.[2] . . .
An official press release showing an image of the device appeared on January 18, 2007.[1] Sales started in May 2007. It is the first mobile phone with a capacitive touchscreen.[4] The KE850 sold 1 million units[5][6] in the first 18 months.[7]” — Wikipedia

You, apparently will believe ANYTHING negative aimed at Apple. Why? Did Steve Jobs pull the legs off your puppy when you were five?

By the way, fireman15, the US COURT OF Appeals just validated Apple’s patent on the CAPACITANCE MULTI-touch screen. So, in answer to your question “did Apple invent the Multi-touch capacitance screen?” The answer is a resounding YES!

A panel of three Federal Judges looking at the evidence de novo concluded in no uncertain terms that APPLE’S Engineers Invented the multitouch capacitance screen, and even describe how it works, who, what, and why, in their decision in quite technical terms. . . And shoot down Google/Motorola’s challenges about prior art in the non-transparent SmartSkin and their other argument about “obviousness” of combining smartSkin with the Japanese “Rekimoto” patent Application for transparent conductors decisively in their decision that had originally resulted in the ITC invalidating Apple’s patent in 2011. That invalidation is the basis for people—and no doubt YOU—saying Apple had NOT invented the multitouch capacitance screen. The court of Appeals ruled the ITC Administrative Law Judge erred in invalidating the patent and have RE-Instated the patent and Apple’s claims to have invented it! They specifically stated it was an important “innovation!”

http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/12-1338.Opinion.8-5-2013.1.PDF

"But, let's again be conservative and assume they want $10 each. For the iPhone 5, retail $600.00, minus current licensing of $22, plus new licensing of 2000 x $10 = $20,578.00 conservatively for the iPhone 5 per unit, given Samsung’s patent pricing model. It would be about $50 more for the Galaxy 4S because their suggested retail selling price is that much higher than the iPhone. Remember I went with VERY conservative estimates."

First, let me start by saying that I have appreciated your comments, observations, opinions, and your knowledge of all things Apple for the last couple of days and on previous occasions. I know that any matter involving Apple has been one of your primary interests on this forum for years and years. When you have called me a troll, stupid, suggested that I couldn't add, said that the first smart phone that I owned the PPC-6700 which came out in late 2005 was a “POS” and etc. etc... I have taken this all in the fun and jovial spirtit in which I have assumed that you have intended. I also appreciate your prolific writing abilities. Just the shear volume of your posts is amazing. So I wanted to thank you and let you know that I have appreciated sparring with you and hope that you have been at the least entertained by our conversation. It is a little hard to imagine that anyone else is actually still following this thread.

I am old enough that I was taught to use a slide-rule before my young hands were given a calculator, but young enough that I had a keen interest in digital electronics. I still own a fairly large percentage of early “home computing” devices. I am sure you remember typing in code from the early computer magazines and making modifications to the programs, and using a tape recorder to save your programs. That was all part of the fun in those days before even electronic bulletin boards became popular. So I never really focussed in on Apple products the way that you did, but I have closely observed the development of most consumer electronic devices since the late 1970s and also the companies that brought them to market.

So that said... The quote I started this post with is so typical of your writing and your reasoning. In your doomsday scenario... you are trying to use simple arithmetic to predict the future price of a family of products that even advanced calculus would not have a great deal of predictive value. (and yes I did take advanced calculus) So no, if Obama had not vetoed the judge in this case... smartphones would not cost over $20,000 as you have predicted. The market ultimately determines the value of smartphones not simple arithmetic. When you make statements that defy common sense it erodes confidence in everything else that you say. In fact you have made so many statements that sound good, but defy both common sense and logic. It is interesting to me that you can write so well, but your cognitive abilities seem so messed up in many of your arguments. I honestly am a little concerned for your well being because that does not seem normal to me.

With Obama again interfering with both the free market and judicial oversight... more than $1 billion was wiped out of Samsung Electronics Co.’s market value early Monday. And no not all of those investors live in South Korea... many of them are your neighbors right here in the United States of American. I am not sure what percentage of Samsung is owned by mutual funds are part of American’s retirement accounts but I am sure that it is not insignificant.

Of course this isn't the first time that Obama has screwed American retirees. We had friends who used to live not that far from you in Brownsville, CA. He was an engineer and placed much of his retirement funds in “secured” GM bonds. When Obama “saved” GM by giving it to the union he unilaterally and illegally wiped out every penny that our friends had invested in these bonds.

They lost their house and every possession that they were not able to fit into their van. They moved to Florida to live with his wife's brother. They had to have their 9 year old dog put down before they left because her brother didn't want a dog in his house. The last time we saw them was the day before they left. They were both broken after working hard their entire lives. So know I don't think that what Obama has done is right, either in the case of GM or the case of Samsung vs Apple. And no amount of mental gymnastics or your voluminous posts are going to change that. Crony Capitalism via the Obama administration on behalf of Apple or any other entity given favored status is bad and it hurts people here and abroad. A loss of a billion dollars of market value in one morning is guaranteed to hurt a lot of people

On to another subject... the LG KE850 was first introduced to the public on December 15, 2006 through an article in Engadget. You initially said the Engadget article was only alleged, Then you said that that the only image available from the article was a blurry picture that was of a “clay mock-up”. When I supplied the actual article, a “snapshot” from archive.org which had a very good photo. You still insisted that the phone shown was a “clay mock-up”. I pointed out that it had already been demonstrated to trade groups and slated for a prestigious award which it received in January...

You still persisted with the “clay mock-up” line. I also supplied numerous other pictures and another article that from the time of the official release in January that showed clearly that it was not a “clay mock-up”. I asked how it was possible for consumers to use these “clay mock-up” phones when they were first delivered at the end of February 2007. This of course was still months before the iPhone was released.

So now you are finally at least quoting Wikipedia which says that sales started in May of 2007... I am glad that you are finally dumping the “clay mock-up” line. I feel that is progress. I would point out however that Wikipedia is not the most reliable source of information because it is frequently edited by people with some sort of agenda... like you.

As I told you previously, I purchased a PPC-6700 in January of 2006 and became active in the smartphone community. You have refered to it as the POS-6700. It actually was and still is a good phone which was truly a ground breaker. By many metrics it arguably is a far more capable smartphone than the original Apple iPhone.

I honestly do not remember the exact dates, but I believe I saw reviews from consumers in early March of 2007 which would correspond with the projected release date in parts of Europe of early February. When I get a chance I will check on archive.org... so go ahead and taunt me on this because I do enjoy contradicting the discrepancies in your beautifully written but frequently misleading and inaccurate arguments.

Why was it again that the LGKE850 was important enough for you to make up so many easily disproved statements? Oh that is right... it looks almost exactly like an iPhone only it was released months before the iPhone. I though you said that everyone else was copying the iPhone. I am confused now... how did LG copy the iPhone before it was released?

You have given me so much more to comment on, but unfortunately I do not have enough time this morning. Keep up the good work and have a happy day.

First, let me start by saying that I have appreciated your comments, observations, opinions, and your knowledge of all things Apple for the last couple of days and on previous occasions. I know that any matter involving Apple has been one of your primary interests on this forum for years and years. When you have called me a troll, stupid, suggested that I couldn't add, said that the first smart phone that I owned the PPC-6700 which came out in late 2005 was a “POS” and etc. etc... I have taken this all in the fun and jovial spirtit in which I have assumed that you have intended. I also appreciate your prolific writing abilities. Just the shear volume of your posts is amazing. So I wanted to thank you and let you know that I have appreciated sparring with you and hope that you have been at the least entertained by our conversation. It is a little hard to imagine that anyone else is actually still following this thread.

I too have enjoyed the give and take, fireman. I do not believe I have called you "stupid," but ignorant, which is not the same thing at all. It is only stupid to remain willfully ignorant.

I had many friends who owned Windows Mobile phones and every one of them was repeatedly swearing at them, calling them POSes. They all had to restart them daily after lock-ups. I had another so-called smartphone. In the two years I owned the damn thing I was able to get the speaker phone to function only twice. Neither time was it in the same manner and neither time was it the way the half-inch thick manual instructed how to do it. Five times my contacts list went to Nevernever land. That is a POS phone. Wheee!

I am old enough that I was taught to use a slide-rule before my young hands were given a calculator, but young enough that I had a keen interest in digital electronics. I still own a fairly large percentage of early “home computing” devices. I am sure you remember typing in code from the early computer magazines and making modifications to the programs, and using a tape recorder to save your programs. That was all part of the fun in those days before even electronic bulletin boards became popular. So I never really focussed in on Apple products the way that you did, but I have closely observed the development of most consumer electronic devices since the late 1970s and also the companies that brought them to market.

I carried a gorgeous Post Loglog bamboo and ivory slide rule in a mahogany leather case (cost me over $75) clipped to my belt. My elder daughter ripped it off and has it on her desk but she hasn't a clue what to do with it, even though she graduated Summa cum Laude from Sac State and then got her Masters in just nine months. She just thinks it's neat.

When I was in high school, I was one of 100 electronic students (tube technology) in California selected by Pacific Telephone Company to participate in a program to make our own PNP Transistor. PacBell sent me a kit with all the doping chemicals and instruction in how to make a miniature kiln out of an electric heater screw-in element, a three inch wafer of silicon, and a phone number to one of their lab techs for advice. Only seven percent of the students, including me, were successful in getting a working transistor with the crude approach. Most failed on the plating step, I think. The following semester, they asked if I wanted to work on electronic voice production. . . With the equipment they provided I was able to produce vowels by manually swapping capacitors in a tuned circuit. That was amazing for the period. . . Now look what is possible!

So that said... The quote I started this post with is so typical of your writing and your reasoning. In your doomsday scenario... you are trying to use simple arithmetic to predict the future price of a family of products that even advanced calculus would not have a great deal of predictive value. (and yes I did take advanced calculus) So no, if Obama had not vetoed the judge in this case... smartphones would not cost over $20,000 as you have predicted. The market ultimately determines the value of smartphones not simple arithmetic. When you make statements that defy common sense it erodes confidence in everything else that you say. In fact you have made so many statements that sound good, but defy both common sense and logic. It is interesting to me that you can write so well, but your cognitive abilities seem so messed up in many of your arguments. I honestly am a little concerned for your well being because that does not seem normal to me.

Fireman, don't worry about my well being. I'm an economist. I know very well that at that price few smartphones would be sold. I thought you would grasp my point that no one would buy a phone at that implausible price. I was granting you a high level of economic sophistication. I was not analyzing the proper price point of a smartphone, I was demonstrating the absurdity of Samsung's royalty demand for their patent that was just one out over 2,600 licensed Standards Essential Patents included among other non SEP patents licensed to be included in the iPhone or, for that matter, any other phone. Think about it. What makes Samsung's so patent special that it should be allowed to be given preferential royalty rate based on the RETAIL PRICE of the complete product? What makes Samsung's patent special and more important than, say, the WIFI patent, the LED backlight patent, or the Lithium battery patent? Why can't they also get the 2.4% royalty rate on the $600 retail price that Samsung was demanding? Each of them was just as important to the function of the phone. Do you see the absurdity?

ALL the other patents were licensed under FRAND and patent exhaustion laws. Apple bought the battery made to its specifications from a supplier who PAID a royalty per battery to the patent holder of the Lithium Ion battery patent to make that battery. That patent was exhausted at that point. Apple does not have to pay a Lithium Ion battery license to use that battery in their phone. Similarly, Apple bought a 3G radio Integrated Circuit Chip from either Cisco or QualCom. Both Cisco and QualCom PAID Samsung a royalty per Integrated Circuit Chip for the right to make and sell it using Samsung's patent. Why, then, does Samsung think it can demand a SECOND royalty from Apple for an Integrated Circuit Chip on which the patent royalty has already been paid? The patent should be exhausted on each chip when the maker sells it through. And WHY does Samsung demand that the rate apply to the price of parts it has NOTHING to do with? This is akin to a supplier of the radio in an automobile demanding a patent royalty based on the retail selling price of the entire automobile because HIS radio is in it! This is Twilight Zone patent negotiation, fireman.

It does not take many unreasonable patent holders to price a product out of economic or competitive viability, fireman. THAT is why what Samsung's behavior is so reprehensible in modern commerce and cannot be tolerated. Unfortunately, they are not alone in this ROUGE, uncivilized behavior. HTC and Google/Motorola have also been caught pulling this crap.

With Obama again interfering with both the free market and judicial oversight... more than $1 billion was wiped out of Samsung Electronics Co.’s market value early Monday. And no not all of those investors live in South Korea... many of them are your neighbors right here in the United States of American. I am not sure what percentage of Samsung is owned by mutual funds are part of American’s retirement accounts but I am sure that it is not insignificant.

First of all, fireman, a lot more than $1 BILLION would have been lost from Apple's market value if four of their products were banned from the US market. Your assumption about Samsung and Mutuals is bogus. Few US Mutuals invest on the KOSPI, the Korean Stock Exchange. There are several reasons for this, prime being that the stocks on the KOSPI are not required to file any Financial reports to the FTC or the SEC. There are only 13 US Mutuals with any holdings in Samsung out of thousands of Mutuals. On the other hand, institutional and mutual holders of Apple stock total 1,998, holdin 62% of Apple's equity. Your focus is on the wrong company if you're worried about losses to retirees.

What Obama did in the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies was, as far as I am concerned, was tyrannical. He should be impeached, if he were legitimately qualified to hold the office, which I hold he is not. I am sorry for your friends' losses. I too had friends and relatives who lost money in that debacle, but I don't let it blind me to facts.

In the instance of the Samsung v. Apple case before the International Trade Commission, assuming Obama is a legitimately sitting President, he acted properly, in accordance with the law, within his powers, and appropriately. Your complaint that Obama is interfering in "judicial oversight" but you are wrong because under the law, the ITC is only a quasi judicial body. . . with a very specific chain of automatic appeal written into the law. The final review is required to be made by the President for his approval or veto. By law, it's his call. No one else's. The ITC operates under the President's authority. In this case, Samsung has brought this same patent infringement claim against Apple FIVE times in FIVE different courts in FIVE different nations—Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, and Korea—and been TOSSED OUT Five times because the patents are each registered as a Standards Essential Required Patent (SERP in European Union Parlance) with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the organization that sets the standard for 3G, GSM, UMTS, and LTE. In Europe, Samsung ran into a hornets nest with using these patents against Apple and are being actively investigated for "anticompetitive" behavior.

"The European Commission has been investigating Samsung over its use of standard-essential patents in its lawsuits against Apple across the EU. Samsung holds essential patents on the 3G UMTS standard. In order to obtain the patents, the company was forced to agree that it would license them on fair and reasonable terms to any and all companies that requested their use. By seeking injunctions against Apple products by citing those patents, the EU is concerned Samsung might not be holding up its end of the bargain." — Source

The European Commission doesn't levy slap-on-the-wrist fines like the US does. . . they are intending to fine Samsung $17.3 BILLION, or an amount equivalent to Samsung's entire European revenues for the period they were denying a license to Apple!

Are these other courts out of step, or was the decision of the politically appointed Commission—which reversed their own staff's findings, their own Administrative Law Judge's finding that under law there was no infringement, citing both the FRAND problem and Apple's patent exhaustion argument, which he found compelling, the commission's own second tier review panel of judges which upheld the ALJ's ruling—out of step with the laws? Laws that FIVE real courts have validated . . . and laws that may result in Samsung being fined billions in another venue for violating.

Which body is the outlier here??? All the other courts who slapped Samsung down for their misbehavior. . . The IT Commission members who, out of the blue, chose to ignore their staff, their ALJs, the law, the written Department of Justice Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Committments that were published the week before the case was accepted by the ITC and SHOULD have been reliable by the parties, i.e., the policy should be used to decide the case. The ALJ did, the Commission ignored it! President Obama set things right.

By the way, fireman15, the repeated suing of the same defendant, often with the same complaint, frequently in different venues, has a legal name. It's called barratry.

Re: the Prada. It has been brought up so often and the articles on it changed so many times by advocates only memory serves anymore. . . and that poorly. I was heavily involved in the release of the iPhone and followed the news closely. I recall it all vividly. I was there and posting it all on FreeRepublic for the 500 or so members of the Apple ping list. The hullabaloo about the LG-Prada was a "big deal" and a lot of analysis was done. The "clay mock-up" was a joking reference to proof that was produced that the early pictures shown were produced by photoshop for submission to the IF Design Competition. It was a non-working model, that had a few screens super-imposed on it.

Lucky Goldstar (LG) announced a target release date for March 22, 2007, but production misses from the overextended subcontractor for the screens—the same contractor was making the iPhone multitouch screens—resulted in insufficient quantities to make that date. The release date kept slipping. It finally made it to market in mid-May. . . Still beating the iPhone's June 29 marketing date by more than a month. C-Net's user reviews are all dated May 17, 2007 or later and C-Net's first day review is dated May 16, 2007. However, the Prada was not multitouch. It was only single touch. It could not distinguish more than one contact on the screen at a time. Nor was it a true smartphone. I've seen SO much tripe about Apple copying the LG-Prada to design the iPhone and I assure you, it is a bunch of twaddle. In the Apple v. Samsung case, Samsung demanded and got copies of early records of iPhone designs. These have been published. Apple had iPhone designs very similar to the final iPhone design on the drawing board or even in prototype in early 2005, far pre-dating anything that LG has been able to come up with. . . and Apple already had working Multi-touch at that time!

So, my point was that Apple did not copy LG, and since Apple had shopped the reference design around to various Asian makers, seeking contractors for the various parts, and final assembly, even granting that such shopping is always done under non-disclosure/non-compete contract clauses for what they are worth in the copyright infringing Asian market, iPhone manufacturing started in January, 2007, it's highly likely the IP Design theft went the other way. LG has not been squeaky clean in that area and has been charged with copyright infringement in the past.

I am sorry have been having fun with you here and I honestly haven't taken any of your comments in a negative way. I appreciate you sharing your point of view and admit to poking at you with more than a few arguments that I knew were facetious or not completely fair just to see how you would answer. Despite causing you some frustration... I have learned much from your posts and they have managed to change my opinion more than I would probably be willing to admit to you currently.

So I am sorry I really have just been poking at you with the Prada phone. You are actually the one that originally brought it up and it seemed to be a sensitive subject. I really couldn't care less about it at the time. I was really enamored with my PPC-6700 at the time and it's capabilities to me seemed very limited in comparison.

I still prefer a slide-out keyboard for typing on a phone. The difference between capacitance and resistive touch screens are not that significant for the applications that I use on our phones. I was using a resistive touch pad and stylus with photoshop before I ever saw a phone with one. The setup was more precise and speedier than using a mouse. The first iPhone seemed like all hype to me as well... I am still. Cell phones are not overly important to my wife or I at this time. My wife was doing some volunteer work at the Museum of Flight in Seattle and a stranger noticed who was using an HTC Touch Pro II cell phone. He came up to her and started bragging about his phone and saying how much better it was than her phone. She of course was not impressed in the least. She told him that she didn't care about his phone and that she had an airplane. He said she was lying and skulked off muttering something nasty. She came home still laughing about it.

We still use Windows Mobile 5 and 6 Phones. We have a plan with a very reasonable rate and free unlimited internet access on all of our lines. Sprint will not let us upgrade without changing our plan. I have been using Windows Mobile Phones since 2006. At one point I upgraded the PPC-6700 to Windows Mobile 6.5, bit decided with its limited processing power and memory... I could get more performance out of it with version 5 stripped down clean to just the programs and features that I actually prefer to use with it.

I never have had any real difficulties with any of our Windows Mobile Phones. But at this point I would have to admit to being a “power user” who knows how to get the most out of them. I would certainly not try to argue that any of them are superior to current iPhones or Android devices, only that as an experienced user I am able to get much more functionality out of them than most of my friends and coworkers who own technically superior devices. As an example... since they have built in GPS I have aviation navigation software on a couple of them for backup when we are flying.

I also have a couple of Android devices, a tablet and a EVO-4G phone that I use on with Wi-Fi. Both of them also have built in GPS. The devices and the aviation software I use on them is superior to the Windows Mobile devices and software. But even though both have capacitance multi-touch screens... I still am much faster typing on the keyboards on our Windows Mobile Devices.

As far as your friends who have had difficulty with their Windows Mobile Phones... You probably already know this, but the most common problem people have with Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices is running low on system resources. A program is not actually closed when you click the X in the top right corner of the screen. The program disappears from view, but in most cases it continues to use memory and system resources. So after you open a few memory and system resource hogs the performance often drops off dramatically and causes stability problems.

I was never a problem for me because I was aware of the issue long before I ever had a Windows Mobile Phone. There are third party applications that can manage this or you can just make sure that you always have a shortcut to the task manager handy. The other thing that helps is building or downloading a custom ROM that is designed to conserve your resources by not loading up features and processes that you don't normally use.

System resource management of course is something that those of us who have been trying to get the best performance out of all Windows Computer Operating Systems have had to deal with from the beginning. So some of us tend to always keep a close eye on our system resources. People who do this have very little difficulty and their computers and their devices operate with impressive speed, efficiency, and reliability. Those who don't pay attention to their use of system resources often have a lot of difficulties.

I believe that many Apple users are not as used to this type of issue because Apple has dealt with this type of issue largely by more closely controlling what processes can be run concurrently. These types of limitations and controls built into their operating systems are designed to keep the system running more efficiently and reliably. I believe Apple's priorities are ease of operation and reliability. Their are however some trade offs.

I enjoyed reading about your beautiful slide-rule. I have always felt that using a slide-rule developed the mind's understanding of mathematics in a way that using a calculator or computer does not. In a way I feel that it is a little similar to a pilot who starts off hang gliding and flying ultralights. My brother, a captain for a major airline basically freaked out when I tried to get him in the air with a hang glider. For him flying is almost a completely technical endeavor. I feel that the hundreds of hours I have in hang gliders and ultralight aircraft give me a completely different perception of flight. He of course has thousands and thousands of hours of flight time, but I sadly I sense the wonder and joy I feel when flying is almost completely gone from him.

I also enjoyed reading about your work making your own transistor. My teachers recognized me as a gifted student, but I have to admit that I didn't learn as much at school as I did reading books, assembling kits, and performing my own experiments. My favorite author growing up was Alfred Powell Morgan, an electrical engineer and inventor who wrote numerous books on science subjects including many for children. One of my favorites was The Boy Electrician which was first published in 1913.

http://rawfire.torche.com/~opcom/tbe/the_boy_electrician.pdf

In order to build the projects one had to adapt the original materials a bit to what was available 50 or 60 after the book was original published. He also had books on chemistry, electronics, electrochemistry and other subjects. Some were written all the way up into the 1960s. I also really enjoyed so called " electronic breadboards" and also those kits at radio shack that had electronic components mounted to springs so that you could hook them up to make hundreds of different projects.

They were certainly easier that trying to round up the materials needed to construct the projects in Mr. Morgan's books. Although I just thought it was amazing to make various small electric motors and actually have them work. This was of course before kit computers and "home computers" started becoming an obsession of mine. For me I think it is more satisfying to build a physical something than write programs. So I think it is quite neat that you were able to build a working transistor. That sounds like a very interesting project. I am sure that it gave you a feeling for the very basic building blocks of electronics that very few today will ever completely understand.

It seems like this market could use a little more disruption .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nei16gkVxpg

I suspected as much and why I just didn’t write you off as a typical troll. I appreciated the challenge. I was also poking you on the PPC-6700. Grin. For the time, it was one of the better phones out there.

You nailed the issues of why Windows Mobile of the period became unstable. The problem is that most users of the phones were not sophisticated users and really did not want to monitor the usage, the apps still running in the background, etc. they wanted to simply use their phones and forget it. They were the ones who had to reset frequently. They probably represented 95% of the phone users out there. apple recognized this and designed the iPhone operating system to keep any non-required app resident but totally idle, using no resources. . . but still ready to instantly return to where the user last left off. Android devices, at least the first three generations suffered from a similar problem and some of the most popular apps were those that could kill or manage other apps.

I do know that MY time is too valuable to spend babysitting my computer or my phone. I’ve been there, done that for too long in my life. Now, people pay me lots of money to do THAT for them. . . and I certainly don’t want to do it in my off hours.

I can tell you this, i have stopped making money off of every every one of my computer clients that I’ve convinced to go Mac. . . and every single one of them has said they wished they had made the decision years earlier!

I really don’t care which phone someone chooses to use. I think the boor who approached your wife to brag about his HTC was an idiot, not to mention rude, to boot. The resistive touchscreen cannot work with multitouch technology, cannot use a glass front surface and require recalibration. They suffer from clarity issues because of the flexible surface required, they tend to wear out much sooner, and wind up with either false positives, or failure to register touch contacts. Negatives for capacitance touch screens are primarily that they only respond to conductive contacts... which can be beneficial in a phone. . . but limits use with things like gloves, fingernails, generic styluses, etc.,. . . and too much sensitivity can give false positives. Those, however, can be handled by good software routines to determine what is a true touch and what is not.

As to typing, in contests of typing speed and accuracy, iPhone’s virtual keyboards have, in the hand of a practiced, skilled user, consistently beaten a practiced, skilled slide-out keyboard user. Add the ability to instantly have custom keyboards for any language, application, use, or configuration, etc., and the virtual keyboard beats fixed keyboards. However, it still comes down to personal preference. There are add on cases for iPhones with built in Bluetooth keyboards which provide that functionality for those that wish it. I had one for my first generation iPad. . . and never used it. I have a stylus I carry to use occasionally with an app, 123D, written by Autodesk, which I use for 3D design work. I use the stylus when I need more accuracy than I can get with my finger. It uses a rubber tip that incorporates a high carbon content. Works great.

There is a Sprint “employees” program you can take advantage of that gets you discounted phones and service discounts. It’s supposed to be for Sprint Employees but the Vice President of Sprint has made it available to those who know in the general public. My son has taken advantage of this. He got a family plan with three iPhone 4Ses and a shared unlimited data plan with 1200 monthly shared minutes for $155 a month for the 3 iPhones. The iPhones were free. I think a two phone plan was $99.

Re: flying and GPS. the iPad has been certified by the FAA to replace all Jeppeson Charts normally used by pilots, and is now officially certified as an electronic “flight bag” for airline plots. American Airlines is issuing iPads to their pilots.

Your airline pilot brother may be the rule these days. My girlfriend is a nurse case manager for Workers’ compensation. One of her latest injured workers is a female airline pilot “trainee” at age 51, who had been a pilot for six years after being a stewardess, then being injured in training in 2005, taking seven years off, and now getting injured again in training to go back to work. My girl friend’s father was a pilot so she knew a lot of pilots. ALL of them were enthusiastic about flying. They lived and breathed flying and airplanes. They knew airplanes, their history and variations, etc. my girlfriend mentioned some of the planes her dad had flown to this woman. . . She looked blank. Then she said “What are those?” They were planes she HAD to have flown on as a stewardess. . . and she knew nothing about them, and could not care less! SHEESH! My girl friend came away questioning if she was even a pilot!

Your book. I have a book I my grandfather gave me. It’s named “The Boy Mechanic,” from 1907! It has wonderful things in it from how to build your own gasoline powered automobile, aero plane, and even how to make a lady levitate in mid-air! The binding leaves a lot to be desired as my Grandfather, my father, and I poured over that book, drooling over the fantastic things we could (and sometimes DID) make from its pages. I learned a lot of skills from it, as did my Dad. His first job was as the loneliest man in town: a Maytag repairman. From there he joined the army, where he learned aircraft repair, bought his way out in 1939 for $150 so he could accept a job as a civilian at McClellan Army Air Base in Sacramento as an aircraft mechanic. While there he worked on some of the most famous air planes in history, including the Enola Gay, Boch’s Car, all of Doolittles B-17’s (my Dad is mentioned in “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” as the crew chief Red Lawson was pissed at for revving the engines of the Ruptured Duck beyond their rated RPMs during tune-up, not knowing my Dad’s crew was ordered to make them 116% efficient! If an engine couldn’t make the cut, it was pulled, and a brand new one put in.). He finished as the technical writer for the F-86, F-100, and F-104 jet fighters, and had to investigate any crashes involving those planes, and issue the tech orders for changes. . . yet, he did not fly. He retired in 1976 after not missing a single day’s work in 37 years. He died in 1996 at 85.

I had one of those Radio Shack breadboards. Kept building thing then tearing ‘em down to build something else. Do you remember Lafayette Radio Electronics catalogs? There was another one that my friends and I would drool over. Oh, to have an Osciliscope was the be-all and end-all of a twelve year old’s desires. . . that and a 7.25” reel to reel stereo tape recorder. Then the drooling book to end all drooling. . . Heathkit! Ooooh. To build your own color TV. Only $625. Please DAD? The whole family would benefit and when it breaks down I’d know how to fix it!!! I did build my own VTVM (Vacuum Tube Volt Meter). Damn it! Someone stole it out of my garage ten years ago. Oh, and I built a cool AM-FM radio in blue plastic. Hours over a hot soldering gun. Nothing like the smell of hot flux in the evening. I’d forgotten that. The thrill of seeing that tube light up with a warm red glow the first time I turned on. . .

My first computer was a Timex 1000. Twenty minutes to load a program from a cassette recorder. I still have it. Then I bought a Commodore Vic 20 and got the 16K memory expansion. I wrote a Roulette wheel emulation program in machine language that literally used ALL the RAM. there was not one byte left over. It worked though. Made the sound of the whirring wheel, the bouncing steel ball in realistic timing, with random hits, flashed the screen with the numbers in the appropriate order of the wheel spin, then slowed to a stop on a randomly selected red or black number . . . or green 0 or 00 (the house has to win sometime). It was the hit of my lodge’s Casino Night! Hardest part was coming up with a real random number generator.From there to C=64, 128, Amiga 500, 3000, Mac, Windows in various models for business. I prefer Macs in my home and my businesses. My office now is 100% Mac except for a dedicated Linux box that crunches the 3D radiographs on our CBCT panelipse X-Ray machine. The software would run on the MacPro we have as the Server for the images, but the Linux box came already configured with the CBCT machine so why switch? We did dump the free Windows 8 computer they gave us to use as a Server for the images as it kept crashing our network every other day as Windows, for some unknown reason, felt it was necessary to permit APPS to be allowed to turn off the network card if IT wasn’t using it. . . but the other network computers required access to the CBCT server then could not locate it because the f’ing thing was asleep at the network level because some f’ing inconsequential Windows utility shut it down! Finding and disabling EVERY app that had this capability was driving my crazy. Then (pregnant pause) upgrade Tuesday comes along, and f’ing Microsoft resets the defaults on all those apps BACK to being able to shut off the damn network card! I hear MS fixed that little glitch, but I don’t give a damn anymore. The “free” Windows 8 computer is at one of our dentist’s home happily burning Bluray disks and is nowhere near my network. . . and a six year old MacPro with Xeon processors is doing fine.

A little about me: attended Mackinac College (now defunct) on Mackinac Island, Michigan (300 students, 100 faculty from all over the world) but graduated with a degree in Economics, minor Business Admin from California State University, Sacramento. I worked as manager of The Olde Sacramento Armoury Gun Shop, Simms Hardware’s gun department, US Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business, then formed my own business when I got disabled (heart attack and a very bad back) in IT, database design and management, wrote and sold an accounting package, did graphic arts, PR director for a large choral group (sang in Carnegie Hall for its 100th Anniversary Concert as Bass Section leader) and for a concert band, did publishing, founded a local charity and ran it for 26 years as CEO, still own my own business consulting firm, and now manage a dental office on contract, and consult for professionals in the medical, legal, and publishing fields. Currently writing two novels. Trying to slowdown. Amicably divorced, two grown daughters, one delightful 20 month old granddaughter. . . and have a beautiful, fantastic girlfriend whom I love completely and who loves me the same way.