[enraged_camel]

I swear, every time I read nonsense like this, I want to slap the person who wrote it.

Apple did not patent the rounded rectangle. Rather, the rounded rectangle was a small part of what's called their "trade dress", which they successfully demonstrated Samsung copied. This wouldn't be difficult to understand if you weren't so busy with trolling.

edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are.

[lotharbot]

Just a heads up: it's encouraged to point out when people are wrong, but you've trounced all over the guidelines [0] to do it. Please reread and follow the guidelines in the future.

Of particular note:

- Be civil.

- When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

- Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

[0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[enraged_camel]

It's funny you mention the guidelines, because they also list this one:

Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

[xenophanes]

You're right but you also allowed them excuses to complain about you (which is very hard to avoid) and I don't see what you hope to accomplish. Someone is wrong on the internet ... so you corrected them and expressed how annoyed you get when someone is wrong on the internet about this? It's not your problem if they are wrong.

I think you rightly recognize anti-Apple non-argued insults as being as uncivil as your own comments. So it's quite unfair you get complained at for being uncivil while people don't acknowledge the stupid, insulting-to-Apple comment as already departing from civilized and productive discussion. But still, you aren't fixing any of this.

If your goal was merely to educated other people who read the comments, I don't think your comment was well written to accomplish that. It'd be more effective for educating third parties if it was 100% impersonal and only talked about the issue in a serious way. I think you were trying to persuade the guy you replied to, not third parties, but I think you already knew that wasn't going to work when writing your comment. So there's a bit of a contradiction there.

[Natsu]

If you've read those, you should know enough to delete the "edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are." part of your comment.

Things like that detract from your message, especially if you are correct. And you were at least half right in that those are only part of the design patents asserted. The problem is that Apple really did argue that rounded rectangles were a protected design element. While you can argue over how big a part of the design patents that was, it was something Apple's own lawyers argued over at trial.

So the facts are that they claimed to own that idea in court and that some people think that was absurd. Everything else is a matter of opinion, especially the matter of how important those claims are to the design patents. So you're free to disagree how important that feature of the design patents was. But other people are also free to say that when they argue it in court, it's fair game for criticism. That's all a matter of opinion, and we're each entitled to our own.

[drcube]

You just basically said "I want to slap people who say Apple patented the rectangle. See, what they really did was patent the rectangle. Only a stupid troll wouldn't see the difference."

I'm not seeing it. Either way Samsung had to pay a billion dollars because they made a rectangular phone with rounded corners. How would it be different if Apple actually did patent the rectangle? What's the actual, relevant difference here? How exactly is the parent wrong?

[xenophanes]

There are other rectangular phones which Apple is not suing. Why is that? By investigating this question, you may shed light on whether rectangles alone is the issue or not.

[drcube]

Because they don't sue everybody? It's widely understood that Apple is avoiding bringing Google to court, for example, for strategic reasons. And some "infringers" are just too small to sue. It's a cost benefit calculation, not an admission that Samsung is the only offender. And Apple certainly has sued plenty of other companies for similarly frivolous reasons.

[bduerst]

You can sue whomever you want. The Samsung and the S3 just happened to be their target.

[Natsu]

You can find a good summary of the patents & verdict here:

http://www.zdnet.com/the-verdict-is-in-samsung-vs-apple-7000...

You are correct that it concerns trade dress, but the rounded rectangles were more significant than you give them credit for being. The ZDNet summary helpfully lists the design features at issue for each patent. I'm listing only those that contain rounded rectangles; there were seven patents in all:

Design patents infringed?

For design patent D'677 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel, horizontal speaker for phone): Yes for all but Galaxy Ace.

For design patent D'889 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel for tablet): No for all.

HN eats the links to these patents from the original summary, so I put them below:

http://www.google.com/patents/USD618677

http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889

[danielweber]

Given that Apple failed on D'889 (and D'087, which was also about rounded corners) it's pretty clear that Apple does not own "rounded rectangles."

"Rounded corners," by itself, is out-and-out not protectable by a design patent, since they are functional. But as part of a larger body of work they can be. The classic design patent is Coca-Cola on the Coke bottle. It didn't stop other people from using any individual feature of the Coke bottle, but the sum of the features (or close enough) triggers the design patent.

Also, I don't believe there is an official list of just what is covered by a design patent. ZDNet is applying their own editorial judgment there; that's not wrong, but it's also not binding.

[Natsu]

> Given that Apple failed on D'889 (and D'087, which was also about rounded corners) it's pretty clear that Apple does not own "rounded rectangles."

A couple things. First, you left out D'677 (which everything but the Galaxy Ace infringed). I was being generous in leaving out D'087, though I probably should have listed it for completeness.

Second, I believe that list is the design features were argued over at trial. The problem isn't just whether or not they own them, but whether they believed that they do. When they claimed to own them in court, that made it fair game for criticism.

[danielweber]

I think we're talking about two things:

1. Did Apple think they owned the patent? Yes, you're right that they did. The fact that they lost still leaves them open to accusations of patent abuse, but statements like "Apple won on their patent for a rectangle" are factually wrong.

2. Does Apple think they own "rounded corners"? I'm pretty sure they didn't believe or argue this. I would love to see a citation that Apple claimed that rounded corners on a rectangular device, by themselves, was something that they could stop competitors from including.

Patents are a thorny issue, but the facts matter. HN can't have a meaningful discussion about them if we toss facts out the window because it makes a better narrative to say things like "Apple patented the rectangle." If the situation is really bad, there should be no need to exaggerate it or make stuff up.

[Natsu]

> "but statements like "Apple won on their patent for a rectangle" are factually wrong."

Who made that statement, exactly? The furthest grandparent post said that, "Apple patented a rectangle, and I haven't seen much rise in awareness." and I've said nothing more than to give the jury's own verdict on three of Apple's design patents.

For the second point, I've already said that rounded rectangles are just one part, though the original post by marcoamorales is incorrect insofar as it implies that the design patents cover only that. It's pretty much inarguable that Apple asserted design patents with rounded corners as a key design feature. It was important enough to the claims that there was a prior art search for that specific element:

[1]: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120817121126489

The fact that they were such an important part of that design patent is probably what helped Samsung win on the D'889 issue, one of their few victories in the entire verdict.