This week, on the same day Steve Jobs resigned from Apple a year ago, Apple won a big victory against Samsung. Beside this good timing, people who create and have innovative ideas won too. Here is why.

You may agree with patents or not, you may be disgusted by the patent system in general but until this whole thing get reformed, that is the way things gets protected against copying other’s work.

Samsung copied many Apple’s ideas and innovations that were protected with patents and they did it on purpose. They diluted (and continue to do so by the way) Apple’s product identity. Many copy the work of others and get away with it but sometime someone has to say “enough”. Apple did it and they won.

To Samsung who think this defeat means less consumer choices, higher priced smartphones, I’m saying you are doing it wrong again. Even in your press release after the verdict, you exhibit your bad behavior. You sound like a child who complains about not being able to copy anymore… Just try to really innovate and work as hard as Apple did and you’ll come up with your own ideas and choices will flourish and customers will still have choices… Your corporate culture is so focused on copying others that you forgot how hard it is to innovate and create original work. Go back to you drawing boards just like anyone doing innovative work.

I think this trial is actually a good thing for innovation: now that Samsung lost this lawsuit, and for many other smartphone OEMs, engineers are going back to their drawing boards and will try to really innovate again instead of copying Apple. 

Here is an interesting quote found on the internet regarding the the 132 pages Samsung document showing how they got their “inspiration” from the iPhone:

Anyone who’s read the document can clearly see that. Most “solutions” are not to “copy the iPhone”, simply to make improvements. This document in a sense is proof that Samsung did not copy the iPhone, but made usability improvements based on the fact that their initial designs had flaws the competition didn’t have.

I call this bullshit here is why. There is absolutely no problem at getting a competing device, looking at it from all the possible angles, disassembling it, looking at the software running on it, etc. The problem is simple: once you’ve done all that, I sincerly think that not only you can improve your own design but you MUST try to outdo the competition and learn from the other guys. To me Samsung elevetated their design to Apple’s and that is it. This is the problem and for that, they should pay for this behaviour that is more and more looking as thief. Period.

What is your take?

Yesterday I closely followed the Appl evs Samsung live blogging via the Twitter hashtag #appsung and I was delighted.

Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall were the two interesting man who testified and gave very insightful information on Apple, the creation of the iPhone and of the iPad. Here are my favorites quotes.

Schiller was asked what his first reaction was when seeing Samsung’s first Galaxy S phone:

I was pretty shocked at the appearance of the Galaxy S phone and the extent to which it appeared to copy Apple products and the problems that would create for us.

Scott Forstall answering the question: Did you copy Samsung?

We wanted to build something great. No reason to look at anything they had done.

Scott Forstall on the history of the iPhone creation

For secrecy reasons, Jobs wouldn’t hire anybody from outside of Apple to work on what you’d see on the iPhone screen.

iPhone’s code name was “purple” and locked down building in Cupertino for that purposed, Forstall called the “Purple Dorm” because 24/7 job

The sign outside Apple’s top secret iPhone building said “Fight Club” after the movie, b/c 1st rule was “You don’t discuss F.C.”

I never directed anyone to copy anything from Samsung.

These are gems because we rarely get this kind of information directly from Apple but only via rumours. I think these are even more insightful than Steve Jobs bio. At some point  I even thought this trial was even better than a traditional Apple media event to launch a new product.