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The situation is reversed already, Samsung has stated that Apple uses many of ...
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A 3rd-party source conducted their own survey with a more comprehensive ...
Survey: Apple patents worth $100 per device
Rick Merritt
8/11/2012 2:00 AM EDT
SAN JOSE – Users of Samsung products said they would pay as much as $100 extra per smartphone or tablet to get features covered in three Apple patents, according to a survey done for Apple.
Users would pay $100 extra for a smartphone or $90 more for a tablet that had features described in Apple’s ‘915, ‘163 and ‘381 patents at issue in its suit against Samsung here, said John Hauser, a market research expert, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and witness for Apple.
Users would pay $39-$45 for just the features on the ‘915 patent which covers use of a reverse-pinch gesture to zoom into content. The ‘163 patent covers use of a double tap to zoom, and the ‘381 covers a bounce-back feature that in a playful way lets user know when they have scrolled to the end of content.
“I concluded Samsung consumers are willing to pay a substantial price premium for features associated with the Apple patents in this case,” said Hauser.
Apple presented testimony of the conjoin survey in just a few minutes with minimal description. Judge Lucy H. Koh has limited both sides to a total of 25 hours of time before a jury.
Samsung attorney William Price asked Judge Koh to throw out the evidence because Apple did not take time to describe to the jury the details of the survey or its methodology.
“Now I have to describe the whole survey--that’s not my burden,” said Price.
Koh denied the request.
“Did you teach this jury what you did in this survey?” Price then asked Hauser.
“It’s a good survey, and I think the numbers make sense,” Hauser replied. “I believe the direct examination got the message across,” he later added.
The survey showed consumers animations of the features in question. Price noted Hauser did not show those animations to patent experts to verify they reflected the features described in the Apple patents.
Price also suggested the survey was flawed because it had no checks on whether it would be realistic to charge as much as the survey said users would pay. For instances, iPad users typically pay $100 for an extra 8 Gbytes of memory, he noted.
“You could have checked if the market figures you suggested were realistic,” Price said.
“That’s more complicated than you put on,” said Hauser.
In addition, Price noted the amount users said they would pay does not directly reflect what consumers would actually spend in the market. “So [the numbers] do not indicate what people would actually pay in the market place, is that correct?” Price asked.
“This relates to it, but it is not it,” Hauser said.
The otherwise tense cross-exam had a lighter moment when Price asked how much Apple paid Hauser. The consultant said his rate was $800/hour but he did not know how many hours he had billed Apple to date.
“I wish I could call my wife,” Hauser said.
“Sometimes we have to check with our spouses,” retorted Price who had contended the survey was flawed because users were asked about purchasing decisions without consulting his or her spouse.
Users would pay $100 extra for a smartphone or $90 more for a tablet that had features described in Apple’s ‘915, ‘163 and ‘381 patents at issue in its suit against Samsung here, said John Hauser, a market research expert, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and witness for Apple.
Users would pay $39-$45 for just the features on the ‘915 patent which covers use of a reverse-pinch gesture to zoom into content. The ‘163 patent covers use of a double tap to zoom, and the ‘381 covers a bounce-back feature that in a playful way lets user know when they have scrolled to the end of content.
“I concluded Samsung consumers are willing to pay a substantial price premium for features associated with the Apple patents in this case,” said Hauser.
Apple presented testimony of the conjoin survey in just a few minutes with minimal description. Judge Lucy H. Koh has limited both sides to a total of 25 hours of time before a jury.
Samsung attorney William Price asked Judge Koh to throw out the evidence because Apple did not take time to describe to the jury the details of the survey or its methodology.
“Now I have to describe the whole survey--that’s not my burden,” said Price.
Koh denied the request.
“Did you teach this jury what you did in this survey?” Price then asked Hauser.
“It’s a good survey, and I think the numbers make sense,” Hauser replied. “I believe the direct examination got the message across,” he later added.
The survey showed consumers animations of the features in question. Price noted Hauser did not show those animations to patent experts to verify they reflected the features described in the Apple patents.
Price also suggested the survey was flawed because it had no checks on whether it would be realistic to charge as much as the survey said users would pay. For instances, iPad users typically pay $100 for an extra 8 Gbytes of memory, he noted.
“You could have checked if the market figures you suggested were realistic,” Price said.“That’s more complicated than you put on,” said Hauser.
In addition, Price noted the amount users said they would pay does not directly reflect what consumers would actually spend in the market. “So [the numbers] do not indicate what people would actually pay in the market place, is that correct?” Price asked.
“This relates to it, but it is not it,” Hauser said.
The otherwise tense cross-exam had a lighter moment when Price asked how much Apple paid Hauser. The consultant said his rate was $800/hour but he did not know how many hours he had billed Apple to date.
“I wish I could call my wife,” Hauser said.
“Sometimes we have to check with our spouses,” retorted Price who had contended the survey was flawed because users were asked about purchasing decisions without consulting his or her spouse.
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TrafficSpecialist
8/11/2012 4:06 AM EDT
Samsung should use diagonal swipe to increase image size with a fade out button to Auto-zoom, a ping or vibrate at the end of the page would be every bit as effective and "playful" users could even assign their own sounds such as a Homer Simpson "Dohhh" or the sound of Pacman dying just for a couple of examples. This survey was conducted by Apple and is biased for Apple it is ridiculous to assume that users would pay an average of $33.00 for each feature on a device. After paying for the electronics and activation my Droid Charge would cost over $2,000 just in features. My phone cost me less than apple believes their 3 "cute" features are worth, as a consumer I have just developed a new loathing for Apple.
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TrafficSpecialist
8/11/2012 4:06 AM EDT
Break down the price on a new Iphone or Ipad deduct the manufactured cost of the device then calculate which features are more important to the users and assign reasonable cost benefit analysis, the 3 features in question become trivial relative to the price of the device but those are the figures that should be used to determine the value added to the Samsung devices by Apple patented "gizmos". Apple does not believe than competition drives the marketplace and would rather eliminate all competition giving everyone a generic box with no need to innovate since they would be the only game in town. Apple may feel it is necessary to milk their customers for every dime possible but they should not feel that since they do it the entire industry fall in line and do the same. Shame on you Apple! Being the owner of several Apple devices and an ardent consumer of high end electronics I am appalled that Apple seeks to defeat their competition through obliteration rather than innovation. As a parent I now feel responsible to provide alternatives to Apple for all of my children as an example of capitalism gone bad. Apple will need to go a long way to convince me that they see the error of their ways, until them they should see this post as only the first of many. I am setting my watchlists to Apple, please feel free to look for my future posts.
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markhahn
8/13/2012 10:06 AM EDT
making a page model real-world elasticity is not IP. double-tap-to-zoom isn't either - any more than pointing or pinching or single-tapping is. these are all gestures taken from The Real World. you know, the thing we all live in, the thing that makes such interactions non-novel?
Apple should be praised for its success, but not given fealty. in fact, it should be punished for resorting to litigation rather than innovation.
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gatorfan
8/13/2012 4:03 PM EDT
You're seeing the difference first hand between the "white box" model that IBM used in rolling out the PC vs the "feature ecosystem" approach of Apple with smartphones and tablets. Samsung walked into the difference in models as if head first into a buzz saw. It will be interesting to see if the "feature ecosystem" is defensible. If it is, bye bye white box forever and we'll have a lot of unlearning to do. This will usher in the era of differentiated user value, and out with technical data sheet superiority.
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xorbit
8/13/2012 4:20 PM EDT
I can't believe those things actually were patented. Double tap to zoom? How is that non-obvious when we're been doing double-click to zoom for ages? Bounce-back? Of course you're going to have a moving thing bounce back if you're trying to emulate real-world behavior. It's a basic physics simulation. I'm sure someone must have done it before.
I am so sick of innovation being blocked at every turn by obvious stuff being patented left and right. It has to stop. Can we drop the last 10 years of patents and start over by patenting only real inventions please?
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przemek
8/13/2012 5:07 PM EDT
This is nonsense--I most definitely would not pay $100 for the privilege of reverse-pinching---I maybe could spare a hundred cents, if I didn't feel revulsed by this whole situation.
I think the study is self serving, and Apple should be ashamed as a technology company for playing this game. My personal take on their attitude is that they ran out of good ideas for the future, so they seek rent on competitors and ultimately end users. I support the IP rights for significant inventions, like the idea of multitouch--too bad Apple didn't invent that either, like they didn't invent the mouse or windows.
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abraxalito
8/13/2012 9:37 PM EDT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
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mranderson
8/14/2012 12:02 AM EDT
This supposed survey is a joke. Nobody will pay $100 extra for some UI features that are not valid patents. In the end, I suspect the court ruling in the case between Apple and Samsung to not be favorable to either party. The government will step in for anti-trust reasons and block everything once one side decides to appeal whatever ruling comes down. The government, whether it is the US, the EU, China, or whatever, will never allow one company to control the whole cell phone industry.
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bcang
8/14/2012 1:58 AM EDT
just wonder what if the situation is reserved?
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bcang
8/14/2012 1:58 AM EDT
just wonder what if the situation is reversed?
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TrafficSpecialist
8/15/2012 1:49 AM EDT
The situation is reversed already, Samsung has stated that Apple uses many of their Apps also not to mention that Samsung manufactures almost as many parts for the Iphone and Ipad as Apple does. If Samsung were to freeze shipments of components to Apple there would be no more Iphones or Ipads for months while Apple looked for another vendor who would manufacture the Samsung patented components for them then we would have a real show. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=samsung%20components%20in%20apple&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashgear.com%2Fapple-to-spend-11bn-on-samsung-parts-in-2012-claims-exec-13218118%2F&ei=RTgrUIm4H8e9iwKAzYHYBA&usg=AFQjCNHlwDqvXqd4YHk6dM2GrBY0FgbaWw
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selinz
8/14/2012 6:43 PM EDT
If we put it in terms of an app to make it do that, the only thing in my mind worth paying perhaps as much as a buck for would be the pinch/zoom and doubletap. That's cool and I first saw that on an iPhone. The bounceback stuff is not even worth a free app with advertisements. That being said, if you multiply the number of android phones times $1, I'm guessing that's a big number.
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slc2173
8/14/2012 7:27 PM EDT
A 3rd-party source conducted their own survey with a more comprehensive selection of features, and the relevant features that Apple contends were worth about $10 per device combined, not $100 like the Apple survey ridiculously suggests.
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