It’s difficult to connect with our members of congress, who have busy schedules traveling between their hometowns and Washington D.C., but YouTube is trying to make things a bit easier.

This week YouTube is rolling out enhanced channels for everyone in congress, which will now provide them with enhanced features like live streaming video. The new channels will also allow constituents to more easily follow events, hearings, and such that their congressperson conducts.

The move is nice, especially because the YouTube channels fit into the daily routine of most people — meaning they probably spend some time every day watching videos on YouTube. I’m guessing the same can’t be said for C-SPAN, the public access channel dedicated to government dealings.

Over the last year, Google and YouTube has significantly stepped up its efforts to provide video coverage for the government. It’s encouraged congress members to conduct live Google Hangouts via Google+, which allows constituents to ask questions via video chat. It also set up its own political hub to help collect coverage of the 2012 presidential election as well as provided coverage of the Republican National Convention.

Congress photo via Shutterstock

Today at Y Combinator’s Demo Day, founder Michelle Crosby told the story of going through her parents painful divorce as a nine year old. The silver lining? That she grew up to smooth this process for families to come.

Crosby has a background in family law. Nearly half of all marriages in America end in divorce and studies have shown that divorce iCan be a traumatizing event for children and cause lasting psychological damage. Despite this, little has been done to improve the experience for everyone involved.

Rather than starting with competing lawyers, Wevorce puts one lawyer at the center of the parents to begin negotiating and planning. Each step of the process also involves a software component to help iron out the various agreements and settlements and track all of the paperwork. Wevorce claims its software helps attorneys complete paperwork in 60% of the time it normally takes and saves clients money on fees.

Wevorce also provides information on the psychological effects of divorce to create empathy on both sides and help people cope with the challenges. It integrates counseling and communication in a more holistic approach to what is traditionally a heavily legal-centric process.

The internet is here to help with the good parts of relationships. There are dozens of internet companies to help you find your partner, and just as many to help you plan your wedding and subsequent baby showers. When a relationship is no longer working, however, the internet is a fair weather friend with little aid to offer. This is where Wevorce comes in. Divorce is unpleasant enough as it is, why not make it easier?

If you’re trying to understand how existing intellectual property law applies to 3D printing, let me save you some time: It’s a complete mess.

From top to bottom, 3D printing raises more legal questions than it answers. There are lots of companies making 3D printing hardware, even more companies offering online repositories of 3D designs, plenty of services that will print things for you, and almost zero precedent for disputes among them. From a legal standpoint, 3D printing is the Wild West.

While that may sound liberating for such a young industry, it’s also potentially dangerous. There’s a very real chance that the lack of any regulation could be replaced with bad regulation. And that could have some dire effects on the whole industry.

“Copyright precedents are created one case at a time, and eventually they can lead to the accretion of copyright expansion in a way that was never intended,” Public Knowledge attorney Michael Weinberg said.

Bad laws, Weinberg says, emerge out of a basic misunderstanding of how industries work. And for a young technology like 3D printing, misunderstandings are going to be common.

How bad could it get? Consider a law that would force companies like MakerBot and 3D Systems to shell out a percentage of their sales to offset the piracy factor, with the money going into a fund to compensate makers of plastic toys, like Mattel and Disney. Or a law that required 3D services to adopt software that limits the number of times 3D design files (STLs, etc) can be printed or which printers can print them.

For people who are excited about free, unfettered access to 3D printer technology, those are some scary possibilities. But Weinberg is convinced that 3D printers, on the whole, will come out all right.

“These are general-purpose machines, and the companies that make them are fairly well-protected,” he said.

Copying, printing, infringing

Right now there are quite a few sites that act as repositories for 3D designs. MakerBot’s Thingiverse, Shapeways, and i.materialise all invite people to upload their designs and share them with (or sell them to) others.

But once you let people upload their own files, you expose yourself to all of the risks that come with that freedom, such as files that infringe on copyrights. (Consider all of those Yoda figures that Star Wars fans like to put on Thingiverse, for example.)

One 3D-printed interpretation of the Penrose triangle. (Source:Thingiverse)

These sites handle copyright concerns the same way YouTube does: Copyright holders post takedown notices, and the hosting sites, as protected “safe havens” under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), cover their butts by taking the infringing files down. Simple enough.

Sometimes the process is a bit more complicated, though. Thingiverse hit a major milestone in February 2011, when it got its very first takedown request. The complaint came from Ulrich Schwanitz, a designer who claimed that a Thingiverse user had uploaded “his” design to the site without his permission. The problem? The design in question was a model of the Penrose Triangle, created in 1934.

Community response to Schwanitz’s claims was, suffice it to say, not glowing (“Ulrich Schwanitz is an ass,” a Thingiverse commenter eloquently quipped), and Schwanitz eventually dropped his infringement claims and donated the design to the public domain.

Another example: Earlier this month, 3DLT, a 3D design marketplace, posted designs on its site without the permission of the design owner. 3DLT eventually blamed the problem on sample listings that went live before they were supposed to, but the damage was already done: 3DLT was forced to give a public apology and reaffirm its commitment to protecting the intellectual property of all designers — not just its own.

“3DLT is committed to providing a consumer-friendly, 3D design marketplace where creative assets are safely protected and designers are properly compensated for their intellectual property,” the company said in a statement to VentureBeat.

But while Thingiverse and 3DLT are already dealing with IP issues, Todd Grimm, president of consulting firm T. A. Grimm & Associates, says that the concerns over 3D printing are, at this point, overstated.

“That future of consumers making their own designs and firing up their personal 3D printers to pirate objects is years, or even decades away,” he said.

Unlike most people who pay attention to 3D printing, Grimm isn’t convinced about the technology’s short-term potential to disrupt, say, the kids toys or spare car parts industries. And neither, he says, are the industries themselves.

“Honestly, most companies may not even be afraid of it. They’re really not thinking of this now,” he said.

The pirates discover 3D printing

Companies may not be paying close attention, but the days when physical objects can be pirated as easily as Weezer songs are coming, and the Pirate Bay is already pushing things along.

A slow start for 3D-printed piracy.

Last year the torrent site launched its “physibles” category, which hosts STL designs that 3D printer users can print out. Right now the category only houses a hundred or so files, and they’re limited to things like gun parts, Guy Fawkes masks, and printable copies of records like Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The early days of pirated objects are, well, subdued.

It won’t always be this way, of course, and it’s only a matter of time until the piracy of physical objects will be as common as the piracy of music and movies is today.

How will companies handle this? That depends on how well they adjust to the realities of  IP law.

Public Knowledge’s Michael Weinberg says one of the big challenges for all object industries will be to collectively recognize the realities of intellectual property as it relates to both digital and physical objects. The first step? Realizing that IP law is nowhere near as robust as we think it is.

“People assume that everything they sell is protected by IP, but that’s often not the case with physical things,” Weinberg said.

“Companies are going to have to recognize when they have legit claims and when they won’t — and most of the time, they won’t,” he added.

This is something established industries won’t like to hear, of course and, if history is any indication, most of them will react by firing their legal teams in all directions.

Weinberg, however, hopes that they won’t. The music and movie industries have already shown us what happens when fear drives ligation: Lots of people get sued, lots of money gets spent, and no one really has much to show for it.

Instead of suing the 3D printing industry, smart companies of the future are going to figure out how to profit from it. 

I’m going to be honest from the get-go: I hold a legal degree, and I’ve spent a long time advising startups after they’ve already gotten themselves into a small (or big) situation. I’ve worked as both a large-firm lawyer and a boutique lawyer. And I think large law firms are great — I just don’t think they happen to be the right choice for every startup.

That said, as an entrepreneur myself, I’m also a big fan of working with service providers that want to grow with your company.

Getting the right legal counsel for your company is like getting a great base for your startup, but you have to know how to pick the lawyer or firm that will best serve your goals. Here are five questions to ask as you embark on your own search:

1. Do they understand your industry?

My biggest gripe with lawyers is that they often don’t understand their clients’ industries. Many firms are excellent with contracts and document preparation, but if they don’t understand the industry your startup lives in, they aren’t going to be the best counsel for you, because they simply won’t know what to look out for.

So test their industry knowledge a little, and make sure they get your business. We’re in the fashion world at Viciare NY, which means we looked for someone who understood everything from international textile buying to copyrights, manufacturing contracts, and e-commerce. If our legal counsel doesn’t know key industry information, they won’t know what to advise you except what you tell them. And in that case, what’s the point?

2. Have they worked with early-stage startups?

Early-stage startups have very different legal needs from mature startups. For early-stage companies, the focus has to be on building a legal infrastructure for the company; for later-stage companies, the focus is often on securities, funding, etc.

If a firm hasn’t worked with early-stage companies, it may not understand what goes into that architecture. I once worked with a startup that had incorporated a C-Corp in Delaware and then registered in New York as a foreign entity – and, as a result, was paying twice the fees and taxes it would have if it had chosen to register in only one state. It just did what its lawyer said to do, without having the lawyer explain exactly why he/she was advising this course of action. The startup folded after two years and paid taxes even without having made any money.

Remember, a lot of firms work with very established clients. Many don’t have the experience of setting up a business from scratch. Look for a lawyer that understands the inception-to-launch process.

3. Which lawyer will actually be working on your matter?

This is critical, because you may get a great presentation by an experienced partner and find out later that the person handling you as a client is a first-year associate who doesn’t understand exactly what your company does.

Those conversations become very annoying, very quickly.

4. What is their fee structure?

Startups want everything for extremely cheap or for free – especially when it comes to service providers (hey, it’s bootstrapping – we get it!).  But when someone starts offering you free legal services, I want you to consider this: What are they getting out of it?

If you can’t find an answer, then there is something wrong with the scenario. Last year, I ran into a startup that was two months away from closing a funding round and was in a panic because its lawyers were now demanding legal fees in excess of $30,000. Until that point, the lawyers had been working on the startup’s matter for a mere $150/hour (a heavily reduced rate). What the startup had not realized was the firm was not bound by any obligation to continue that rate – and exactly when the startup needed lawyers the most, the firm upped the charges.

This is not all that unusual — it’s just rarely discussed. There’s a reason they call us sharks — because lawyers are good at knowing the right time to get what is needed.

So look for legal counsel that is up-front with its fee structure or has a startup package.

5. Do you actually like the person you’re talking to?

This is something we all forget to consider: Do we actually like the lawyer we’re hiring? In any hiring decision, personality matters. If you don’t want to talk to your lawyer more than you absolutely have to, they not be the right person to represent and advise your company. Treat your legal counsel like any other hire.

Benish Shah is the CEO of Vicaire NY, an online e-commerce platform bringing luxury emerging designers to the middle market consumer, and defragmenting the fashion industry in the process.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via ►stephthegeek/Compfight cc

Patents. Nothing gets technologists going quite like the subject of patents and when — if ever — they should be implemented in software.

Now, a federal appeals court is taking a sweeping look at the topic of software patenting, especially when software takes age-old concepts and brings them to digital life without making a significant technological or novel contribution along the way.

For example, look at shoe shopping. It’s been around since, well, shoes. If ecommerce outlet ShoeDazzle wanted to patent the concept of online shoe shopping, they wouldn’t be able to do so because the concept is simply the web-based implementation of an existing activity or idea.

But that doesn’t stop patent trolls from taking advantage of a currently broken system and patenting the heck out of some very basic, universal, and even trivial technologies.

Experts feel this case may eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court — and with the most recent spate of patent warfare between Apple, Google (and Google-related manufacturers), and Microsoft, especially in the mobile arena, we’d say it’s about damn time.

The current case pits CLS Bank International against Alice Corp. Both parties use computer software systems as intermediaries to assist buyers and sellers in foreign exchange markets. Alice thinks that idea is patentable. CLS wants the patent invalidated.

Siding with the anti-patent CLS are Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Sprint, and eBay. Siding with the pro-patent Alice are IBM and a small army of patent trolls.

For our part, we side with innovation. And our consistent editorial stance has been that patents — the way they’re granted and used today, at least — stifle, hinder, and smother innovation in ways that are excruciating to watch.

Here’s the document describing the case more fully:

Patent Law Case by

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Ray Felts is North American president of crowdsource patent-research company Article One Partners; David DiGiammarino is a director with the company.

You’re a venture capitalist. You just invested in a promising startup, e-Widgets. The future looks bright. Suddenly, out of nowhere, e-Widgets gets a certified letter in the mail. The letter claims that the company’s flagship software is infringing on an existing patent. Instead of focusing on innovation that e-Widgets can bring to market, the company suddenly gets sidetracked into a legal battle that could ultimately destroy its business.

This is not an uncommon scenario.

Patent trolls, a common term for non-practicing entities (NPEs), are shell companies that do not design, manufacture or distribute products. Rather, their sole purpose is to acquire and license patents to unsuspecting businesses. Last year, NPE litigation cost tech companies $29 billion, up more than 400 percent from 2005.

The “Small Change” Hold-Up Strategy

The majority of NPE litigation consists of “nuisance suits” that target smaller companies for hundreds of thousands of dollars. NPEs take advantage of the fact that most venture-backed companies don’t have the resources of big corporate players, which often include a first-class legal team.

As a result, the venture-backed company is subject to something of an old-fashioned hold up.  Here’s how it works. The patent troll threatens to sue for significant royalties. The financial threat, business distraction and cost of defending the company disposes the startup to a lower settlement. Faced with possible ruin, the venture-backed company agrees to a tidy settlement of $20,000. If they instead choose to engage in a legal battle, the settlement threshold goes up, forcing them back to the initially intended amount. In the end, the startup takes the path of least resistance, and the NPE makes it up on volume.

This is how the patent trolls build their war chests to go after bigger fish. For example Lodsys, a well-known patent troll, has settled with about 150 iOS developers so far. Startups, meanwhile, are frustrated that instead of spending $20K to grow their business, they have to pay off a patent troll.

New Developments to Help Small Businesses

Rather than cooperating with the scheme, entrepreneurs can invest in solutions that derail patent trolls. When they do, they stop the “innovation tax” in its tracks. NPEs like the path of least resistance, so companies that earn a reputation as easy targets may be harvested repeatedly. On the other hand, companies that earn a reputation for shielding themselves against NPEs deter further attacks.

A small but growing body of resources is empowering smaller businesses to fend off NPEs. One such resource involves new ways of finding prior art, evidence that the patented idea existed prior to the patent application date. The process of finding prior art can take months (and lots of money) due to the amount and complexity of information available. The traditional solution to the prior art problem is to hire a specialist to do the search, but most VCs can’t afford the time or financial investment. New solutions can be found in crowdsourcing prior art research, tapping into multilingual experts whose collective experience and diversity of knowledge makes them efficient identifiers of prior art across languages and industries.

In addition, venture-backed companies can now access a number of resources dedicated to helping them defend themselves from litigation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), for one, offers an excellent knowledge base and resources at EFF.org/patent. UC Berkeley has developed the Defensive Patent License (DPL), in which inventors share their intellectual property without worrying about being sued, and agreeing not to sue other members.

In the private sector, patent enforcement insurance is another tool that small businesses are increasingly considering in their fight against patent trolls.

When Will Venture-Backed Companies Stop Hiding?

Small businesses are the lifeblood of America’s economy. When innovators are forced to divert resources from productive to unproductive uses, their very existence is threatened and the implications are broad. It’s crucial for venture-backed companies to understand and prepare for the growing threat of NPEs.

photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc

A Dutch court has ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets do not infringe Apple’s design patents on its iPad tablet. This new judgement follows Apple’s UK spanking over the same issue, and the Dutch judge referenced the UK ruling in his judgement.

In a statement to Reuters, Samsung twisted the knife:

We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples.

While Germany has proved kinder to Apple’s design lawsuits, European courts in general have not been sympathetic to the U.S. corporations’ claims. And with U.S. courts having denied Apple’s calls for Samsung important bans, you might think that now would be a good time to seek patent peace.

Especially since Samsung unilaterally dropped all patent lawsuits against Apple in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and, yes, the Netherlands.

Apple has of course already buried the hatchet with HTC over its Android phones, and Samsung has won the right to see many of the details of that agreement. Now if only Apple and Samsung could come up with something similar, we could report more actual technology stories and fewer riveting (not!) courtroom dramas.

photo credit: mac morrison via photopin cc

MIT released a statement today on the death of Aaron Swartz, a computer programmer and information activist who committed suicide two days ago.

MIT president L. Rafael Reif expressed “profound condolences” for the “inexpressible loss” of this talented young developer and activist.

“I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many,” Reif wrote. “It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.”

Swartz’s death came several months before he was due to stand trial on 13 felony counts related to his alleged misuse of MIT’s network to download nearly 5 million academic journal articles from JSTOR, a nonprofit publisher of journals. The charges were not for copyright violation, but for abuse of the MIT network, which the indictment alleges to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, an anti-hacking law.

His charges included copyright violations as well as more serious hacking charges. JSTOR declined to press charges, but reports suggest that MIT urged the U.S. Attorney’s office to pursue the case, which it did, aggressively: The charges filed against Swartz may have carried a maximum sentence of 35 years in jail and up to $1 million in fines.

In the wake of his death, many have speculated that Swartz, who suffered from depression, may have been driven to despair by the prospect of prison and by the financial ruin that mounting a legal defense had brought upon him. Some pointed fingers at MIT, and today, MIT responded.

Reif’s letter stops short of an apology, which is probably prudent, given that the circumstances of Swartz’s death are not yet fully known. Reif said that he would appoint MIT professor Hal Abelson to investigate, pursuing “a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement” in the alleged hacking and the charges.

“I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it,” Reif wrote.

Security expert Alex Stamos, who would have testified in Swartz’s trial as an expert witness for the defense, argued yesterday that Swartz was not guilty of anything more than “inconsiderate” use of MIT’s network, a use that — ironically — MIT’s and JSTOR’s usage policies actually permitted.

The MIT statement is below.

Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community, took his own life. With this tragedy, his family and his friends suffered an inexpressible loss, and we offer our most profound condolences. Even for those of us who did not know Aaron, the trail of his brief life shines with his brilliant creativity and idealism.

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

I hope we will all reach out to those members of our community we know who may have been affected by Aaron’s death. As always, MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling, but there is no substitute for personal understanding and support.

With sorrow and deep sympathy,

L. Rafael Reif

Photo credit: Sage Ross/Flickr

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But for merchants, its “Fulfillment by Amazon” storing and shipping service is an offer they can’t refuse. It’s more expensive than competing fulfillment services like FulfillRite or Shipwire, but the majority of third-party sellers use Amazon’s service anyway. Why? Because Amazon tilts user feedback ratings to favor its own shipping service.

Some competing shippers are calling Amazon’s approach an unfair advantage.

According to its terms of service, Amazon reserves the right to remove negative feedback about a shipping-related issue, such as delivery delays or corrupt packaging — but only for sellers that opt-in to Amazon’s fulfillment service.

Use a competing service, or ship products yourself, and your performance metrics will reflect negative reviews about shipping and packaging (among the most common problems). Oftentimes, a fulfillment issue isn’t even a seller’s fault. For instance, stormy weather often delays mail delivery, which might lead to a spate of unearned negative reviews.

Sellers that opt-in to FBA can request that a customer service representative cross out fulfillment-related negative reviews. Unlike eBay’s elaborate takedown process, Amazon will liberally exercise this right at a merchant’s request.

Rival providers of fulfillment services claim this is stifling the growth of the business, and is an anti-competitive practice. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

“It’s common knowledge that if you use Amazon’s fulfillment service, you’ll get pushed up in the search rankings,” said Joe Brieger, the director of small business at FulfillRite, which specializes in e-commerce fulfillment. To sweeten the deal, third-party sellers who choose Amazon’s fulfillment services can also offer free shipping for items over $25.

Brieger has a point: The first suggestion on a blog for Amazon marketplace sellers to avoid negative feedback? Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). “When you utilize all the benefits of the FBA program, you will minimize a lot of the reasons buyers leave negative feedback,” the author advises.

“As a seller you are essentially handing your inventory off,” said Brieger, who told me that “they are way cheaper” but he rarely bothers to convince Amazon sellers to shift their business anymore.

Source: Screenshot

Feedback showing a negative review’s score, crossed out by Amazon.

According to Brieger, competitors in the fulfillment sector offer cost-competitive storage and processing fees as well as improved customer service. But with the option to strike out negative reviews (pictured left), “sellers feel they’re getting better rankings and doing better sales with FBA,” he said.

Despite the higher fees, Amazon’s FBA service isn’t necessarily more advanced or efficient than the alternatives. In November, critics pointed out the failings of Amazon’s fulfillment service when images appeared showing the insides of one of the company’s colossal warehouses.

With its chaotic storage system, Amazon fills every corner and crevice of its facilities with products, and it charges between $.45 and $.60 per cubic foot in storage fees. In comparison, a competitive service like FulfillRite generally charges a maximum of $.36.

Once a product has been sold, the seller faces additional charges for handling, picking and packaging, weight handling and more, which Amazon is hiking in February. Amazon has been transparent about its warehouses not being storage repositories — sellers should expect to pay through the roof if an item doesn’t sell.

The policy of tying review ratings to the use of its expensive FBA service has raised some hackles among its competitors.

“The Amazon fulfillment service has been intriguingly ‘tied’ — and I use that in the antitrust sense — to the marketplace,” said Nate Gilmore, the vice president of marketing and business development at Shipwire, a fulfillment company specializing in e-commerce.

For a seller to have a high ranking, “they must use the FBA, and the FBA is expensive,” he said. Gilmore said this policy is well documented on seller forums, and he is “surprised there hasn’t been any investigation.”

The key term here is must — is Amazon actually tying a high ranking to the usage of FBA? Tying is the practice of selling one service as the mandatory addition to another product or service. Most states have banned tying.

Charles Koob, an antitrust lecturer at the Stanford Law School, said that it would be tricky to make an antitrust case out of Amazon’s practices, given that sellers have alternatives to Amazon’s Marketplace. For precedent, he made a comparison to the recent antitrust case against Google, which was thrown out after an exhaustive, 18-month investigation.

In this case, FTC commissioners and staff rebutted the theory that Google abused its dominant market position in Internet search to favor its own products and services at rivals’ expense. The Google decision suggests it’s unlikely that a court would find Amazon guilty of taking advantage of its dominance in the e-commerce market to push its fulfillment service and quash the competition.

“Can they [Amazon] force people into something they don’t want to do? You have to prove there is no alternative,” said Koob. He speculated that this might be more of a consumer protection issue than an antitrust case.

Competing vendors in the fulfillment space certainly have an ax to grind. But perhaps more troubling is the information that Amazon keeps hidden from consumers and sellers. With negative reviews removed, they are kept in the dark about the FBA’s error rate.

When reviews are crossed out, an Amazon representative will leave behind a comment claiming to “take responsibility” for the inadequate fulfillment experience. But it also prevents anyone from finding out how many packages sold through its marketplace are fraudulent, corrupted, or delivered a few days late. An Amazon spokesperson I contacted was unaware of any such data.

High error rates are bound to happen given that Amazon regularly co-mingles products, meaning that products are jumbled together. If one of the sellers sends in a fraudulent iPad or Barbie Doll to one of Amazon’s warehouses, it’s not clear who’s responsible.

According to Koob, law enforcement agencies are still trying to get their “hands around this high-tech industry” and its intricacies. And with regulatory bodies like the FTC slowly adapting to the rapidly-changing digital landscape, grey area policies can flourish.

So for now, Amazon is probably on solid legal ground — even if its practices don’t benefit its merchants or its customers.

Photo credit: public.resource.org via photopin cc

This year we woke up to the reality that much of U.S. tech policy is either deficient or horribly outdated.

But if 2012 has taught us anything, it’s that the average, often faceless Internet user’s voice can make a difference like never before. To be better prepared to make such a difference going forward, you’ll want know this year’s biggest tech policy issues. We’ve highlighted what we think are ten of the most important policy stories below; feel free to call out any we missed in the comment section.

10. Killing SOPA/PIPA

The SOPA/PIPA legislation was the epitome of awful tech policy. It asked for sweeping authority to shut down any website domain suspected of copyright infringement or piracy. The legislation claimed to protect American businesses from theft. In reality, it would have allowed major media companies to censor anything they didn’t like. SOPA/PIPA was also so vague that it could have started a slow decay of our current privacy rights.

The story: “Following the news that the Senate is delaying a vote the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) issued a statement today admitting that Congress may need to rethink its approach to thwarting piracy. Smith is the author of the House version of PIPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Last week, he announced that a vote on SOPA would be delayed until February, but the delay could actually end up being much longer — like forever.”

9. CISPA & Obama’s cybersecurity executive order

CISPA was yet another piece of legislation that could reasonably do more harm than good if not kept in check. The bill sought to give American companies more legal breathing room (protection against lawsuits) when collecting and sharing consumer/user data for the purpose of preventing massive Internet security threats. It passed a House vote with few guarantees that it wouldn’t grossly violate a person’s privacy rights (even in the face of a presidential veto threat). The White House eventually put a stamp of approval on the bill, pending certain amendments. But the Senate vote failed, and the president resorted to other methods.

The story: “President Obama signed a new cybersecurity directive in mid-October that begins to outline the government’s involvement in securing the private sector and how it will act when on the offensive. For the most part, the directive is still secretive and murky. A senior administrative official told the Washington Post that it will deal specifically with the issue of defensive measures or protecting the government and citizens from being hacked, and offensive measures, how the U.S. should act when pushing back.”

8. LightSquared vs. FCC

U.S. businesses are increasingly becoming both connected and mobile, which makes the need for additional wireless spectrum even more dire. You’d think that in this sort of climate that the government would be eager to bend over backward for any company willing to launch a wireless carrier startup to fulfill those needs. Well, you’d be wrong, at least in the case of LightSquared.

The story: “After spending the better part of 2011 fighting regulators, the wholesale wireless company LightSquared suffered a killer blow from the FCC today that could squash its 4G LTE network plans. We’ve been hearing from government regulators since June that Lightsquared’s proposed LTE network could interfere with GPS devices. Today the NTIA, an agency that oversees spectrum use, issued a letter to the FCC that claims Lightsquared’s network will indeed impact GPS services, and that ‘there is no practical way to mitigate the interference at this time.’”

7. The JOBS Act

The rise of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo is enabling a new wave of hungry entrepreneurs to disrupt the markets with business plans deemed too risky to gain investment by conventional means (venture capital, loans, angel funding, etc.). The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act is a direct response to the crowdfunding movement and would permit startups to solicit the public for microinvestments, which process is currently illegal. Despite getting passed, the JOBS Act isn’t currently being implemented. It still needs the SEC to determine a finalized set of rules outlining how the JOBS Act will be enforced.

The story: “The JOBS Act that passed in the House today contains some big changes for crowdfunding startups. It now moves on to the Senate. Right now, it’s illegal for a startup to solicit investors on platforms like Twitter or Kickstarter. But the JOBS Act would change that. For startups raising $1 million or less, anyone can now buy up to $10,000 or 10 percent of the annual income (whichever is less) in equity.”

6. Verizon’s $3.6 Billion spectrum purchase

With the failed AT&T/T-Mobile merger still fresh in everyone’s mind, Verizon found itself running into constant road blocks when trying to buy a block of wireless spectrum from a joint venture made up of big cable TV companies. The deal would have allowed Verizon to buy the spectrum and begin selling  cable/broadband Internet packages from big cable companies (like Comcast) with its wireless service plans. (Verizon was also quietly trying to halt plans to grow its own cable TV/Internet business, FiOS.) U.S. regulators raised lots of red flags about how the spectrum sale could hinder competition, and attached all sorts of stipulations before giving the sale final approval.

The story: “Federal Communications Committee has approved a deal that will see Verizon purchase a portion of wireless spectrum from a handful of big cable television providers, the federal committee announced today. … Originally, the deal would have allowed Verizon to purchase the licenses for the spectrum for $3.6 billion and allow cable companies to run their own branded wireless services through Verizon as well as cross-promote their existing cable TV services within Verizon Wireless retail stores. After some push back from federal regulators as well as other wireless carriers, the Department of Justice approved the deal last week, provided certain stipulations were met.”

5. Driverless car legislation!

Google — best known for its search engine, advertising, and various web services — is working on a side project that will enable automobiles to drive without being under the constant control of a human being. As the company showed off the new technology in demo videos, it slowly started pushing state governments to pass new laws allowing cars to drive themselves.

The story: “California just added its name to the list of states allowing driverless cars to operate on public roads — and inadvertently made David Hasselhoff’s work on Knight Rider a bit more relevant to future generations. Governor Jerry Brown signed bill SB1298 into law today, thus adding automated vehicles to the state’s safety standards and permissions. This is, of course, wonderful news for tech giant and California native Google, which has been developing its own driverless car for the past few years. Brown even visited Google headquarters to sign the proper documents.”

4. U.S. domain seizures

This year marked the continuation of U.S. authorities seizing domain names accused of conducting piracy and copyright infringement. The big problem with this was the operation’s questionable legality. Prosecuting the owners of these domains (as well as the websites those domains pointed to) became even foggier because many were operating outside the United States’ borders. February’s “Operation Fake Sweep” sparked an important discussion about domain regulation — a discussion that’s likely to continue in 2013.

The story: “The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a new round of domain seizures today targeted at websites that provide access to illegal live sports streaming video. The DOJ’s timing is likely related to this Sunday’s NFL Super Bowl championship football game, which has routinely become the most watched televised event of the year with over 100 million viewers. In December, television affiliate NBC and the NFL announced that the big game would stream for free online for the first time — meaning illegal sports streaming sites could hypothetically steal traffic away from NBC.”

3) VPPA Amendment (aka Netflix-Facebook sharing law)

It’s crazy to think that Netflix wasn’t allowed to integrate with Facebook in the U.S. when it was legal in so many other countries. But two years of lobbying efforts and judiciary hearing testimonies later, Netflix finally got Congress to explicitly state that it was OK to share a person’s video rental activity if they consented.

The story: “Soon, Netflix subscribers in the U.S. will be able to connect their accounts with their Facebook profiles thanks to new legislation that the Senate just passed. While the majority of digital media services have benefited from the social network giant, Netflix has previously been noticeably absent from Facebook’s Timeline feature due to a 1988 law that forbids video rental services from sharing a customer’s rental history. The current law, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), was initially created for the purpose of concealing physical media rentals, but until now, Congress hasn’t clarified whether digital video rentals also fall under the law’s jurisdiction.

2. Oracle vs. Google

Federal courts finally ruled on a two-year legal fight between Oracle and search giant Google. It’s seen as a particularly important case because it touches on whether companies can claim copyright infringement over a programming language.

The story: “Google scored a legal victory today, as a federal jury has decided that the search giant wasn’t guilty of patent infringement claims made by Oracle. The two companies have been wrapped up in a legal battle since August 2010, when Oracle accused Google’s mobile operating system Android of violating patents and copyrights related to Java that Oracle owns. The trial is seen as very important because it’d one of the most prominent battles over intellectual property in the software industry. In addition, it could set a precedent for whether or not a programming language can be copyrighted.”

1. Apple v. Samsung (The Patent Wars!)

I’d like to say that this particular legal fight over patent infringement by two major companies gave us some clarity on how to deal with future patent-related policy. Yet what the Apple v. Samsung case really did was expose how truly broken and inadequate our current patent system is. Sure, this is something most people already knew, but the Apple/Samsung case highlighted the ridiculousness of trying to apply our current policy. (Seriously, it even spawned its own meme based on the mom-like reprimands of the case’s federal judge, Lucy Koh.)

The story: “After just 21 hours of deliberation, the jury has reached a verdict in the Apple-Samsung patent trial, a landmark case that is set to change the way we look at competition in the mobile market. It’s a decisive win for Apple, with the jury awarding damages of $1,049,343,540 to Apple. … The jury found Samsung infringed many of Apple’s utility and design patents, particularly with regard to the nearly 20 phones that Apple had called into question. In addition, the jury found that in most cases, Samsung’s patent infringements were knowing and willful.”

Honorable Mention: Supreme Court’s Ruling on Obamacare

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the health care reform law (Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare) did not violate the Constitution. And while this particular law didn’t originate in 2012, it certainly made an impact on the tech sector of the health care industry in the form of electronic medical records, new regulations, and more. A vibrant crop of health care tech startups are already out there, and these will continue thriving now that the threat of a Obamacare repeal is gone. Bottom line: Health care tech will be huge in 2013.

The story: “For cloud technology companies that are brave enough to tackle the healthcare industry, it’s a perfect storm — there are major challenges and opportunities. … By 2014, Obamacare mandates that hospitals and practitioners who have been maintaining paper records to switch to electronic medical records.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The U.S. Patent and Trademark office has invalidated the “pinch to zoom” patent that was at the heart of a dispute between Apple and Samsung last summer.

The patent, held by Apple, concerns the use of a “pinching” gesture to zoom in and out of an image, map view, or other display on a touchscreen. While widely cited, that patent may not have been as ironclad as Apple wanted you to think. The Wall Street Journal reports that the USPTO has invalidated the patent, although its source is rather indirect: The news comes via a Samsung court filing.

Neither Samsung nor Apple have responded to our inquiries yet, and we don’t expect to hear anything enlightening from them.

Many commentators, including VentureBeat contributor Vivek Wadhwa, have pointed out the obviousness of this relatively minor patent. However, it played a key role in this year’s legal battle between Apple and Samsung. Other patents at stake in that dispute included the rubber band-like “bounce back” effect when scrolling to the end of a list and the “trade dress” of the iPhone.

Apple won an overwhelming victory in the courts, with a $1 billion judgement against Samsung, but that victory has been somewhat tempered in recent weeks.

Michael Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, is publicly trading blows with HP.

HP acquired Autonomy for $11.1 billion in 2011, but wrote down $8.8 billion of that earlier this month after it discovered what it called “serious accounting improprieties” in Autonomy’s books.

“I utterly reject all allegations of impropriety,” Lynch wrote in an open letter to the board published today.

Lynch is not the only one defending his reputation. The allegations have sent everyone associated with the deal running for cover. Former HP CEO Léo Apotheker, who drove the deal, said he was “stunned” to learn there were issues.

Lynch’s letter has a string of detailed questions about how things could have gone so badly wrong, whether they were known before the acquisition, and how accounting shenanigans could have accounted for $5 billion of that $8.8 billion write-down, as HP alleges. His questions also cast doubt on HP’s management of Autonomy, post-acquisition, and suggest that he has no idea where HP’s allegations are coming from.

“I have been truly saddened by the events of the past months, and am shocked and appalled by the events of the past week,” Lynch concludes.

HP wasted no time in firing back with a brief statement of its own. In a nutshell: We’ve handed this over to the authorities, and have nothing more to say at this time.

“While Dr. Lynch is eager for a debate, we believe the legal process is the correct method in which to bring out the facts and take action on behalf of our shareholders,” said HP’s statement. “In that setting, we look forward to hearing Dr. Lynch and other former Autonomy employees answer questions under penalty of perjury.”

Both parties have everything at stake. HP, which has been flailing lately, is fighting for its life. And Lynch, while he may have a lot of cash in the bank from his successful exit, has his professional reputation on the line.

The gloves are off, folks.

A copy of HP’s letter is below, via AllThingsD, which published it earlier today.

On 20 November Hewlett-Packard (HP) issued a statement accusing unspecified members of Autonomy’s former management team of serious financial impropriety. It was shocking that HP put non-specific but highly damaging allegations into the public domain without prior notification or contact with me, as former CEO of Autonomy.

I utterly reject all allegations of impropriety.

Autonomy’s finances, during its years as a public company and including the time period in question, were handled in accordance with applicable regulations and accounting practices. Autonomy’s accounts were overseen by independent auditors Deloitte LLC, who have confirmed the application of all appropriate procedures including those dictated by the International Financial Reporting Standards used in the UK.

Having no details beyond the limited public information provided last week, and still with no further contact from you, I am writing today to ask you, the board of HP, for immediate and specific explanations for the allegations HP is making. HP should provide me with the interim report and any other documents which you say you have provided to the SEC and the SFO so that I can answer whatever is alleged, instead of the selective disclosure of non-material information via background discussions with the media.

I believe it is in the interest of all stakeholders, and the public record, for HP to respond to a number of questions:

• Many observers are stunned by HP’s claim that these allegations account for a $5 billion write down and fail to understand how HP reaches that number. Please publish the calculations used to determine the $5 billion impairment charge. Please provide a breakdown of the relative contribution for revenue, cash flow, profit and write down in relation to:

• The alleged “mischaracterization” of hardware that HP did not realize Autonomy sold, as I understand this would have no effect on annual top or bottom lines and a minor effect on gross margin within normal fluctuations and no impact on growth, assuming a steady state over the period;

• The alleged “inappropriate acceleration of revenue recognition with value-added resellers” and the “[creation of] revenue where no end-user customer existed at the time of sale”, given their normal treatment under IFRS; and

• The allegations of incorrect revenue recognition of long-term arrangements of hosted deals, again given the normal treatment under IFRS.

• In order to justify a $5 billion accounting write down, a significant amount of revenue must be involved. Please explain how such issues could possibly have gone undetected during the extensive acquisition due diligence process and HP’s financial oversight of Autonomy for a year from acquisition until October 2012 (a period during which all of the Autonomy finance reported to HP’s CFO Cathie Lesjak).

• Can HP really state that no part of the $5 billion write down was, or should be, attributed to HP’s operational and financial mismanagement of Autonomy since the acquisition?

• How many people employed by Autonomy in September 2011 have left or resigned under the management of HP?

• HP raised issues about the inclusion of hardware in Autonomy’s IDOL Product revenue, notwithstanding this being in accordance with proper IFRS accounting practice. Please confirm that Ms Whitman and other HP senior management were aware of Autonomy’s hardware sales before 2012. Did Autonomy, as part of HP, continue to sell third-party hardware of materially similar value after acquisition? Was this accounted for by HP and was this reported in the Autonomy segment of their accounts?

• Were Ms Whitman and Ms Lesjak aware that Paul Curtis (HP’s Worldwide Director of Software Revenue Recognition), KPMG and Ernst & Young undertook in December 2011 detailed studies of Autonomy’s software revenue recognition with a view to optimising for US GAAP?

• Why did HP senior management apparently wait six months to inform its shareholders of the possibility of a material event related to Autonomy?

Hewlett Packard is an iconic technology company, which was historically admired and respected all over the world. Autonomy joined forces with HP with real hopes for the future and in the belief that together there was an opportunity to make HP great again. I have been truly saddened by the events of the past months, and am shocked and appalled by the events of the past week.

I believe it is in the best interests of all parties for this situation to be resolved as quickly as possible.
I am placing this letter in the public domain in the interests of complete transparency.

And here’s a copy of HP’s full statement, which we received from an HP spokesperson today.

HP has initiated an intense internal investigation into a series of accounting improprieties,
disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations that occurred prior to HP’s acquisition
of Autonomy. We believe we have uncovered extensive evidence of a willful effort on
behalf of certain former Autonomy employees to inflate the underlying financial metrics
of the company in order to mislead investors and potential buyers.

The matter is in the hands of the authorities, including the UK Serious Fraud Office, the US
Securities and Exchange Commission’s Enforcement Division and the US Department of
Justice, and we will defer to them as to how they wish to engage with Dr. Lynch. In
addition, HP will take legal action against the parties involved at the appropriate time.

While Dr. Lynch is eager for a debate, we believe the legal process is the correct method in
which to bring out the facts and take action on behalf of our shareholders. In that setting,
we look forward to hearing Dr. Lynch and other former Autonomy employees answer
questions under penalty of perjury.

Many startups spend more than $10,000 on legal bills over the course of their first year. For a bootstrapped startups, that can amount to more than 25 percent of the company’s startup capital.

Starting up your company should not put such a dent in your early capital. Here are a few tips that can help entrepreneurs save thousands of dollars while still getting high quality legal services.

Use smaller firms, solo practitioners, and virtual services

Most of the time, finding the right lawyer is not easy. You might have to look up and call ten different lawyers and get price quotes. Many times, this means just getting hourly quotes as opposed to a firm idea of much something will cost. Often, entrepreneurs get fed up searching and make a selection out of frustration or go with a referral from a friend, which can still lead to overpaying. This is especially true when you need a la carte legal services, such as drafting an agreement or reviewing a document.

Finding the right attorney in our experience comes down to two basic understandings:

1. Independent and boutique lawyers can be just as effective as big law firms for 90 percent of your legal needs; and
2. Having a local lawyer is not as important as you think (i.e. virtual lawyering is where the puck is headed).

Smaller law firms and independent practitioners can be just as good as the big law firms. In fact, many of the lawyers who start their own practices came from these bigger firms. Relying on online reviews or social media connections can help you to assess quality of these small outfits which lack brand recognition. This is why online reviews are becoming so important. The one downside of using smaller outfits is that not everything is under one roof. You may need to work with several lawyers to service all of your needs, but you will save bundles.

Experience can include local experience, if that is important for you. For most business issues (outside of real estate and landlord/tenant lawyers), most lawyers doing business in the same state as your company will suffice. An increasing number of businesses are working with lawyers virtually from other cities in their state, choosing to do everything via email and phone.

We have seen around 60 percent of the entrepreneurs we work with have no preference for local lawyers because their rates more cost effective than San Francisco or Silicon Valley firms’. Thanks to virtual lawyering, cost effective and high-quality legal services are becoming more available from non-local lawyers.

Get it done right the first time

Some of the most expensive legal work is correcting work that was not done correctly the first time. More often than not, this occurs when using a document automation and filing service. Talk to any startup lawyer, and they will tell you they spend 15 percent of their time (or more) correcting the mistakes made by such services, most notably in company formation.

It is not because these services are bad services. They are actually good at doing a few things very well, but their services are limited and leave out requisite steps in critical processes that usually require a lawyer to complete. If you choose to use one of these services, make sure you do all your homework and know every single step that must be taken or the most important part of the documents you are automating. Otherwise, you will be paying 10x what you saved initially by using one of these services.

Take care of legal stuff sooner than later

There are most certainly legal tasks that you can and probably delay. I typically do not recommend forming a company until one has a product or a real team working on a product close to being released. Most of the time, however, the right time to take legal action is now.

One of the most common things we see is when entrepreneurs start operating their business without doing a trademark search and even getting a trademark. Only after operating their business for months do they realize there is another company with a similar name in a similar industry, or worse yet, they get a cease and desist letter. The costs to rebrand can be extreme.

Another common example is having contractors join a company. In the haste of getting people started, so many entrepreneurs do not put an agreement between the company and contractor in place. This formality gets put off and then before you know it, you have a dispute with a contractor and they take off with code or do not complete the work you paid them for — both costly results.

When faced with saving money, entrepreneurs have blazed the trails in finding ways to get high quality and cost effective services. Legal services are no exception and we should expect the industry to change dramatically over the next 10 years. By finding the right lawyers and avoiding some common mistakes, you can help save your startup valuable capital needed for the most important thing, growing your company.

Matt Faustman is co-founder and CEO of UpCounsel, a site for finding and hiring legal counsel. Prior to UpCounsel, Faustman worked as a startup attorney in Silicon Valley helping consumer and enterprise internet companies get started and grow.

Top image courtesy of Gunnar Pippel, Shutterstock

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For Leo Apotheker, the former HP chief executive who spearheaded the company’s $11.1 billion acquisition of Autonomy, the news that HP had to write off $8.8 billion over accounting irregularities with the subsidiary must have hit hard.

Apotheker, not surprisingly, is receiving much of the blame for not properly vetting Autonomy. During HP’s earnings call today, current CEO Meg Whitman said “the two people who should have been responsible for the problems are gone” — referring to Apotheker and former chief strategy officer Shane Robinson.

But in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Apotheker seemed surprised by Autonomy’s financial irregularities, and noted that the “due diligence process was meticulous and thorough” for the deal. While he vows to offer assistance to HP, his statement also cleanly skirts some responsibility on his part:

I’m both stunned and disappointed to learn of Autonomy’s alleged accounting improprieties. The developments are a shock to the many who believed in the company, myself included. But I also share the sentiment of HP’s current leadership and continue to believe in Autonomy’s market potential, as its core software expertise remains sound.

Looking back on the acquisition, which closed in Sept. 2011, the due diligence process was meticulous and thorough, and included two of the world’s largest and most respected auditing firms working on behalf of HP. Since Autonomy was a public company in the UK, much of the process relied on public financial reports — accounting statements approved, filed and backed by Autonomy’s leadership, board and auditors.

According to HP, the accounting issues it discovered pre-date its acquisition of Autonomy. As such, it’s apparent that Autonomy’s alleged accounting misrepresentations misled a number of people over time – not just HP’s leadership team, auditors and directors. In fact, the alleged improprieties apparently came to light only after an internal whistleblower raised the issue in the spring, well after my departure.

I will make myself available, however I can, to assist HP and the appropriate authorities get to the bottom of this.

Apotheker, who also served as SAP’s CEO for two years, was widely criticized during his reign for not understanding HP’s core business. He pushed to kill the company’s WebOS hardware just a year after the company bought Palm for $1.2 billion, and he also brought up the idea of spinning off HP’s PC business. HP ended up open sourcing Web OS, and current CEO Whitman squashed plans for breaking out its PC division.

Photo: HP

We weren’t the only ones who found Apple’s UK court-ordered note, in which it admitted that Samsung didn’t copy the iPad’s design, somewhat lackluster.

The UK court of appeal has admonished Apple for adding additional text regarding other court cases to the note, finding it “non-compliant,” the Guardian reports. Judges at the court told the company this morning that it must reword the note within 48 hours, link prominently from its homepage until December 14, and use at least 11-point font.

The original Apple note felt like a half-handed apology from Apple, never mentioned the iPad by name, and it was filled with confusing legalese. But it seems the court had a bigger problem with Apple mentioning other court cases with Samsung in the U.S. and Germany, where the Korean electronics company was found guilty of infringing on Apple’s designs. Apple also included one statement from a UK judge where he described their products as “cool” and Samsung’s as not.

Apple attempted to object from the judges demands this morning, saying that a new draft of the note would take at least 14 days to create. One judge simply said he “cannot believe” that claim. (As legal excuses go, Apple probably could have some up with something a bit more weighty.)

The news is part of an ongoing legal battles between Apple and Samsung. A U.S. jury ruled that Samsung willfully infringed on Apple’s iPhone design patents and awarded Apple $1 billion in damages. Apple also requested that several Samsung smartphones be banned from sale in the U.S., but it will have to wait until a December 6 hearing to start arguing those injunctions.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

One day after the massive new introduction of the iPad mini, Apple has won a preliminary ruling against Samsung. An U.S.-based ITC judge said that Samsung has violated four Apple patents.

One of them, for touchscreen technology, was coinvented by Steve Jobs. Another, a design patent on the front face of the iPhone, lists Apple design chief Jony Ive among the inventors.

The ruling is only preliminary, and will receive a review from a larger group at the ITC, sometime before Feb. 25. If it’s upheld, however, Apple may succeed in blocking Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet and the Galaxy SII and Nexus smartphones, among other devices, but not including Samsung’s Galaxy S III.

Of course, that highlights one of the strategic problems of seeking market share solutions through patent and trademark litigation in the consumer electronics industry. By the time you succeed, the products are no longer relevant.

This case is just one of at least 19 ongoing disputes between Apple, Samsung, and other Android phone and tablet vendors. Samsung has won in Japan, the U.S., and today in the Netherlands.

But Apple is the company with the big billion-dollar win in August. At least, until Samsung appeals that ruling, as it will almost certainly appeal this new ITC ruling.

Interestingly, if the full commission upholds the preliminary ruling, President Barack Obama can uphold or overturn the ruling.

That, at least, would be interesting.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Always wanted to know exactly what Apple banks when it sells an iPhone? Pretty soon you won’t have to guess.

Apple has been ordered by the Judge Lucy Koh — the same judge that presided over the company’s patent infringement case with Samsung — to reveal profitability details about the product that makes up the bulk of its revenue and profit.

The reason?

Since Apple used the numbers to justify its billion-dollar settlement, it cannot now keep them secret, Judge Koh says:

In seeking the very large damages award it sought at trial, Apple stipulated to the introduction of JX1500, a partial summary of its damages calculations, which contains some product-specific unit sales and revenue information. See ECF No. 1597. As Apple appears to have realized in introducing that exhibit, it cannot both use its financial data to seek multi-billion dollar damages and insist on keeping it secret.

And in any case, Apple has not explained to Koh how revealing its profitability data would help its competition:

As this Court explained in the August 9 Order, Apple has not established that public availability of its product-specific unit sales, revenue, profit, profit margin, and cost data would actually provide its competitors with an advantage, as would be required to find the information sealable under the “compelling reasons” standard.

I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been in business for over 15 years, and I don’t know a single business person who would want to reveal their profitability in detail to competitors. The advantages a competitor could gain from that seem to be obvious, from negotiating better deals with shared suppliers to gaining a better understanding of where Apple has expended considerable R&D money.

In any case, it appears we’re going to get a look. Which, at a very minimum, will give us better cost data than tear-down estimates that don’t include the costs of creating software and building services.

photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc

Hat tip: CNet

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Today, Samsung won a reversal of the sales ban on the Galaxy Nexus phone imposed after Apple’s August court win. Also today, Apple won at least a stay of execution on the iPhone and iPad sales ban imposed after Samsung’s August legal victory.

The first case is in the U.S.; the second is in Korea.

It’s getting hard to tell these patent infringement cases apart. By some counts, which may not be completely comprehensive, 19 lawsuits were ongoing between Apple and Samsung in nine different countries on four continents — last year. This year, with appeals, refilings, and potential new frontiers in different countries, the count may go even higher.

But at least we have patent peace in Antarctica.

Google hasn’t been selling the Nexus for a few months now …

The Samsung Nexus ban stemmed from Apple’s billion-dollar win in August in which a jury found that Samsung willfully infringed on the Cupertino, Calif., company’s patents. But as Reuters reported, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the California court had “abused its discretion in entering an injunction.”

I suppose that means Google will be selling the Nexus again at some point.

The iPhone/iPad sales ban stemmed from Samsung’s whopping $35,000 win in a Korean court that ruled Apple had infringed two of the Korean company’s patents, while Samsung had violated one of Apple’s. The bigger punch in that court decision, of course, was the threatened import ban, which Apple has now, at least, delayed.

Interestingly, the Korean court had also banned Samsung’s Nexus and Galaxy Tab tablets in a probably healthy “pox on both houses” attitude that could stand a visit to courthouses Stateside.

Both bans, and both reversals, will almost certainly face tests in further legal battles. Samsung will likely appeal its billion-dollar loss, and Apple must respond to the Korean ban, which has just been stayed, not lifted.

The soap opera continues. …

You can imagine that, at some point, a young lawyer would start to fantasize about using a computer to summarize those contracts instead of burning the midnight oil.

That’s exactly what the founders of eBrevia did. The company, which launched today at the DEMO Fall 2012 conference here in the heart of Silicon Valley, uses machine learning to automatically summarize contracts and other legal documents.

“We’ve spent many nights as corporate attorneys scanning computer screens at 3 a.m. to extract and summarize legal provisions as part of due diligence in mergers and acquisitions,” founder and chief executive Ned Gannon told VentureBeat. “We have literally felt the ‘pain’ of the process ourselves.” Now, Gannon and his cofounders hope, they can help law firms and legal departments cut costs and save time by semi-automating the contract examination process.

People who use eBrevia’s web-based eDiligence Accelerator service specify what kinds of provisions they’re looking for. They upload legal documents and, in return, receive a summary chart that shows all the uploaded documents along with a more detailed template for each document, with special attention to the provisions that the user is looking for. Readers can easily move back and forth between the summary, the document templates, and the original documents, Gannon said.

The software uses machine learning to improve its summaries and charts as time goes on.

“It is exciting that the software gets smarter and smarter with the more examples it sees,” Gannon said.

Not everyone is so enthusiastic, however. Onstage at DEMO, American Express Ventures managing partner Harshul Sanghi said, “There’s a reason these documents are as long as they are … The devil is in the details. I’m not sure you can shorten that.”

True Ventures founder Tony COnrad concurred, saying, “I love their technology, but I don’t think legal is the place to use it.”

The company hasn’t settled on exact pricing yet but plans to give its customers — primarily law firms and corporate legal departments — a choice between per-document and monthly subscription fees.

After the launch of its eDiligence Accelerator product, the company plans to launch products for contract management, document drafting, and consumer applications. Whether it succeeds in doing that will depend on how well its summaries work. It’s hard to imagine natural language analysis that’s capable of outstripping the contextual knowledge and legal savvy of even the most exhausted lawyer. But perhaps with enough raw data and a well-defined subject area, eBrevia will help save lawyers time — even if it doesn’t eliminate the need for them.

Gannon and cofounder Adam Nguyen started eBrevia in July, 2011. The company is based in Stamford, Conn. Its presentation at DEMO is the prize for winning a national contest sponsored by Startup America and DEMO. It is funded by its founders, with the addition of the $25,000 Startup America/DEMO prize.

“Connecticut has a strong and growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we’re thrilled to represent the state in the Startup America/DEMO Competition,” Gannon said.

The founders are now seeking $400,000 in seed funding.

eBrevia is one of more than 75 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Photo credit: eBrevia. From Left to right: Ned Gannon, Jake Mundt, Adam Nguyen.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Wonderfully-named mobile phone manufacturer “GooPhone” has patented a very iPhone-like design in China, according to local gadget site GizChina.

The GooPhone i5 is a pre-emptive iPhone 5 knockoff apparently based on leaked product prototypes. It runs Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and according to GizChina, sports a 1.4 Ghz Tegra processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and a 4-inch “retina” display with a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels.

It bears some similarity to possible iPhone 5 concepts and leaked images.

iPhone knockoffs in China are nothing new. But a pre-emptive patent in China of a design that just might be what Apple is releasing on September 12? That would be new.

Source: GooPhone website

GooPhone’s existing iPhone 4S clone

How likely it is to stand up in court is another question, particularly since GooPhone is a known cloner, with obvious iPhone 4S clones in the market and for sale today. In an American or European court, GooPhone wouldn’t stand a chance.

In China, who knows?

Apple has already been accused of copying the “iPad” name from a little-known company, ProView, in Shenzhen, China. After a lawsuit, Apple was forced to pay ProView $60 million — less than the $400 million the company was looking for, but a very nice little payoff for what seemed to be a fairly meritless case.

This seems even less aboveboard … but the court system in China may not be very friendly to foreign companies.

The GooPhone is planned for a late September launch.

Image credit: GizChina

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Since when is getting sued, losing, and being forced to pay over a billion dollars in hard-earned cashed a … win?

Author, blogger extraordinaire, and all-round social media rockstar Robert Scoble thinks that Samsung actually won the patent case of the decade — the one in which the Korean company got its ass handed to it on a silver platter, lost on almost every single painful patent point, and got fined the previously mentioned Dr. Evil-ish pinky-to-the-lips One. Billion. Dollars.

Oh, and by the way, since the jury found that Samsung willfully infringed (in other words, with knowledge if not malice aforethought) the total damages could end up getting bumped as high as $3 billion. Triple ouch.

Source: Wikipedia

Robert Scoble

But Scoble, ever the contrarian, shared a different view on his Facebook account:

I think this is actually a sizable win for Samsung. Why? It only cost $1 billion to become the #2 most profitable mobile company.

Remember how much Microsoft paid for Skype? $8 billion. So, for 1/8th of a Skype Samsung took RIM’s place and kicked HTC’s behind.

And:

I bet that RIM wishes it had copied the iPhone a lot sooner than it did. So does Nokia and HTC and a raft of other manufacturers, I bet. Samsung is a much healthier company than any of those BECAUSE it copied the iPhone.

I find it a little easier to accept this second argument. With the Canadian company’s BlackBerry business in a death spiral, RIM wishes it had done anything that would have kept it relevant and interesting and competitive, even at double the cost.

For Samsung, however, it had other paths. Android was clearly the right direction, but steering product development to differentiate from and improve on Apple’s iOS while also learning from it would very likely have resulted in similar business results … but very different legal results.

In which case Samsung would have the products, the market, the credibility, and the billion dollars still in the bank.

So: controversial and contrarian, Scoble, yes. But not, in my humble opinion, correct.

Agree or disagree?

photo credit: ZeroOne via photo pin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple chief executive Tim Cook released a statement to employees Friday following the company’s gargantuan legal win against Samsung, saying that Samsung’s copying went deeper than Apple knew.

Apple’s argument was that about 20 Samsung devices violated 11 Apple patents. One of the keys to the case was an internal Samsung document that Apple obtained: Samsung product development’s iPhone versus Galaxy S1 comparison, and the jury basically accepted virtually every Apple argument.

One can only imagine how many patents Apple would have brought to the case if Cook seriously means what he says, and Apple uncovered more during the trial than it expected at find.

Cook’s statement emphasized that the case was about values — “originality and innovation” – not money.

Here’s the full text of Cook’s email:

Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.
Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than we knew.

The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.

I am very proud of the work that each of you do.

Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.

Tim

photo credit: deerkoski via photo pin cc

Hat tip: 9to5 Mac

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

While we’re still waiting on the jury’s response to the Apple v. Samsung case in San Jose, a South Korean court has issued its own verdict, which finds that both companies infringed on the other’s patents.

The court granted small damages to both Apple and Samsung, and it also ordered them to stop sales of the infringing devices, the Wall Street Journal reports. Luckily for both companies, the sales ban only affects older products: the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 for Apple, and the Galaxy S (I and II), Galaxy Nexus, and Galaxy Tab (both the original and 10.1 model) for Samsung.

Notably, the court ruled against one of the most prominent arguments in the U.S. Apple v. Samsung case: It found that there was “no possibility” that consumers would confuse smartphones from the companies. Additionally, the three-judge panel said Samsung’s icons don’t infringe on Apple’s design patents, but they did say Samsung infringed on Apple’s “bounce back” technology, which occurs when a user reaches the end of a mobile screen.

As with the other court cases happening worldwide, Apple was arguing that Samsung copied its designs, while Samsung was arguing that Apple is infringing on its wireless technology. The particular case was started by Samsung in June 2012 to counter Apple’s lawsuits in other countries, which led Apple to countersue in South Korea.

While both Apple and Samsung were seeking damages of 100 million won (around $90,000), the court ordered Apple to pay up 20 million won (around $17,650) for each patent it violated. Samsung has to pay 25 million won (around $22,000) per infringed patent.

The judges ordered Apple to pay 20 million won, or $17,650 in damages, for each violated patent. Samsung was ordered to pay 25 million won, or $22,000. Both companies had sought damages of 100 million won, or about $90,000, from the other.

Apple and Samsung can appeal the decision, but thanks to the complexities of South Korean courts, that would an involve a rehearing of the entire case, according to the WSJ. While the damages weren’t too significant in this case, both companies will likely fight back to be able to sell their older products (the iPad 2 is still a great bargain for tablet buyers, and the Galaxy Nexus remains one of the best Android devices).

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Whichever way the verdict breaks, the Apple-Samsung patent trial will have wide implications throughout the technology industry.

Lawyers for the two sides wrapped up their closing arguments yesterday. Today, the jury deliberates and fills out a stack of paperwork. A verdict could come as soon as tomorrow.

“It’s a very important decision you have to make,” Samsung laywer Charles Verhoeven told the jury yesterday, according to SFGate. The decision “could change the way competition works in this country.”

At the heart of the issue is Apple’s claim that Samsung’s phones and tablet devices infringe seven of Apple’s patents, ripping off the iPhone and iPad’s design. Samsung, naturally, disputes this claim, and it has also filed a countersuit claiming that Apple infringed five of its own patents relating to wireless technologies. The jury will decide the outcome of both the suit and the countersuit in this trial.

Apple ended its closing remarks asking for the jury to consider damages of $2.5 billion, the assumed profit Samsung made off of the phones, if they find the accused products infringing. If Apple prevails, it has also asked the court to prohibit Samsung from importing the infringing products into the U.S. Samsung claims Apple did not take into account operational costs that Samsung put into those phones, and that it actually owes Apple just $22 million. In addition, the countersuit claims that Apple owes Samsung $422 million.

But the implications are far wider than monetary damages and import restrictions for these two companies.

“At stake is whether patents are a competitive tool for use to control market share,” said Cheryl Milone, the founder and chief executive officer of Article One Partners, a community of patent researchers, in an email to VentureBeat. While patents can and have been used for competitive purposes, Milone points out that this trial turns on a less-tested arena: The patentability of a device’s design and usability, or “trade dress” in the terminology of patent law.

“The outcome of this trial will govern the development of an industry where consumer marketing is the key driver, whether its breakthrough designs or consumer usability such as easy texting or photo sharing,” Milone said.

Apart from the impact on tech companies, this trial’s outcome will affect what the smartphone market looks like and how varied it is.

“If Apple succeeds in keeping Samsung at bay, industry designs will diverge and strengthen Apple’s market advantage,” Milone said. In other words, any company making tablets and phones will need to go back to the drawing board and look for ways of differentiating their designs — not an easy challenge when consumers seem to favor devices that are primarily large, flat touchscreens.

On the other hand, Milone said, “If Apple’s damages case falls short, designs will become more uniform in the smartphone market.” If you thought today’s phones looked like copycats of each other, just you wait.

If Samsung wins, “expect to see an awful lot of Apple knockoffs without fear of retribution,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at market research firm Gartner, told the New York Times recently.

That’s especially critical for Apple, which has seen a tremendous amount of competition in the five years since it launched the iPhone as manufacturer after manufacturer jumped on the touchscreen phone trend. A similar thing happened after the launch of the iPad in 2008: A previously moribund tablet computer market came back to life, as manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, Toshiba, and others all released touchscreen tablets.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

On the eve of their patent trial’s closing arguments, the chief executives of Apple and Samsung spoke with one another — as the judge ordered them to — but failed to come to an agreement.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Kwon Oh Hyun met one final time last week. It was all for naught.

“The CEOs did speak … [but] there was no resolution,” according to Samsung lawyer Kevin Johnson, as reported by CNet today.

The two companies are currently locked in a highly-publicized legal battle over intellectual properties related to mobile devices. Basically, Apple claims that Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs/phones (and other devices) are ripping off the iPad/iPhone. Samsung naturally denies those claims and argues that Apple is actually ripping off some of its own wireless technology patents. Aside from unleashing numerous prototypes, the trial has amounted to both sides arguing over what’s different about each other’s rectangle-screened devices.

Judge Lucy Koh, the presiding judge in the Apple-Samsung patent trial, had asked the two sides to speak with one another in a last-minute effort to avoid the potentially unpredictable outcome of the jury trial.

“I don’t mean to waste their time,” Koh said last week, referring to the jury.

Then, Koh said later, “It’s time for peace. If you could have your CEOs have one last conversation, I’d appreciate it.”

In other words: You kids, solve your own problems!

Koh has proven to be one of the most entertainingly direct jurists we’ve had the pleasure of reporting on in a long time. As this trial has gone on, it seems clear her patience with the two warring factions has been wearing thin. We’ve collected some of Koh’s best quotes, so check those out.

Closing arguments in the trial are scheduled for tomorrow. VentureBeat will be reporting live from the San Jose courthouse.

Via CNet

I’ve got news, guys. Sometimes patent cases are boring (don’t worry, I was shocked to find this out, too). In the Apple versus Samsung patent case, however, there’s been one shining, albeit unexpected, entertainer: the judge.

U.S. Judge Lucy Koh doesn’t have time for your bickering, lawyerfolk, and she’s happy to tell you. Samsung and Apple are at each others’ throats in Koh’s San Jose, Calif., courtroom over patents pertaining to the companies’ smartphones and tablets. Apple goes so far as to say Samsung blatantly copied the iPhone and iPad in its designs, notably the Galaxy line.

Closing arguments are this week, however, bringing a months-long, objections-filled, paperwork-mounding argument to an end. Before the jury (there’s a jury!) decides who is at fault, we thought it was only appropriate to take a look back at five of our favorite Koh smackdowns:

• “I want papers. I don’t trust what any lawyer tells me in this courtroom,” Koh said after an Intel lawyer showed up in court to say one of Samsung’s witnesses was legally not allowed to testify. “I want to see actual papers.”
• “I will not let any theatrics or any sideshow distract us from what we are here to do,” we overheard Koh saying after Samsung released rejected evidence to the press. Koh said this created “real and possible danger” since the trial is to be decided by jury.
• “If all you wanted was to raise awareness that you have IP, message delivered,” she said according to Forbes, “In many respects, mission accomplished. It’s time for peace. If you could have your CEOs have one last conversation, I’d appreciate it.”
• “I am not going to be running around trying to get 75 pages of briefings for people who are not going to be testifying,” CNET recorded her saying when Apple attempted to squeeze in just a few more witnesses. “I mean, come on. Seventy-five pages? Seventy-five pages? You want me to do an order on 75 pages? Unless you’re smoking crack, you know these witnesses aren’t going to be called.“
• “You’ve made your record for appeal,” Koh said to one of Samsung’s lawyers from Quinn Emmanuel after he pressed her on why she dismissed some of Samsung’s evidence, according to All Things D. “Don’t make me sanction you, please.”

That’s right: This judge is in charge, and don’t you forget it.

Got more favorite Koh quotes? Let us know in the comments.

Lucy Koh image via Cult of Mac, Meme via Meghan Kelly/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

It is on. World War III, here we go.

Google is finished with helping Samsung and other Android sellers with its left hand. It’s tired of Apple attacking Google by fighting proxy wars with Asian manufacturers. No more cold war, no more semi-civilized conflicts in third-world countries no one has ever heard of.

Google vs. Apple, meet USA vs. USSR, circa 1985.

It’s the clash of empires: the $220 billion search and mobile giant versus the $650 billion personal computing and electronics giant. The open mobile operating ecosystem versus the closed, vertically integrated ecosystem. The propeller-heads versus the designers.

Last week Google threw down the gauntlet, knocked off the chip, and kicked some sand. Screw Kabul, they want Washington D.C.

The Google-Moto lawsuit against Apple announced Friday will, if successful, ban iPhones, iPads, and iPods from entry into the United States. That’s $30 billion in revenue just in one somewhat disappointing quarter.

At an equivalent annual run rate, that’s $120 billion in revenue. About 40 percent of Apple’s revenue is U.S.-based, and the vast majority is in iPhones and iPads.

During the cold war, the clash of empires was held to survivable levels by the doctrine of MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction. You can kill me, but I can kill you … so let’s just sorta get along. Now Google has told Apple that if it seeks to ban Android tablets and phones from importation into key markets, two can play that game.

The Commies have the bomb. And Steve Jobs’ famous thermonuclear quote – ”I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this” — has come home to roost.

How do you like them apples?

But in the passions and pride of full-nuclear patent-law battlefield lie tremendous harm for both. Wasted time, wasted effort, wasted focus … all adding up to wasted opportunity. Who does this legal clash of the titans benefit? Everyone else in the mobile market: Microsoft with Windows Phone; Nokia, perhaps, if it can get back on track, and maybe even the now little BlackBerry-toting RIM.

The also-rans in the mobile race are being gifted extra runway to try to possible make hay while a few glimmers of sun shine. All while Apple and Google are busy playing sojer boy and pushing launch buttons.

Somebody, please pick up the big red phone. Moscow, Washington: Have a conversation, and fix this.

Steve, we need you now.

photo credit: andy z via photo pin cc

Five people were charged by local police and are now on trial for allegedly removing one of the 17-year-old boy’s kidneys, transplanting it into another individual, and giving him cash that he used to buy Apple products.

If there could be a worse part to this tragic story, it’s that the teenager received only about 10 percent of the total amount realized from the sale of his kidney. He used his share of the proceeds, about $3,500 U.S., to buy an iPad and an iPhone.

When his mother asked him where he got the money to buy his expensive new toys, he told her that he had sold his kidney.

iPads and iPhones sell extremely well in China, where Apple actually enjoys higher tablet market share than in the U.S. Recently, a former colleague of mine who works for Intel in Shanghai shared on a Google+ post that Apple products are in high demand not primarily due to their reputed simplicity and reliability but for their social cachet. ”The key reason why Apple has done so well in China – status. Having an Apple product is a status symbol,” he said.

Organ harvesting is illegal in China, and 137 people have recently been charged in a crackdown on the practice. However, since the Chinese Ministry of Health estimates that 1.5 million in China need transplants but only 10,000 organs are donated annually, a thriving illegal market for organs exists.

Those illegally donated organs are not always removed or transplanted safely, and unfortunately, the boy is now suffering renal failure and is too weak to appear in court to face the accused organ harvesters. He is reportedly seeking damages of up to 2 million yuan, about $350,000 U.S.

The accused, who split about $32,000, include the surgeon who performed the surgery, a hospital official, and an alleged mastermind who prowled Internet chat rooms to find possible donators.

They face up to 10 years in prison, and four others who participated in minor ways have already been fined.

Image credit: Lightspring/ShutterStock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple should get down on its knees and thank God for whatever corporate traitor gave it Samsung’s internal iPhone vs Galaxy S1 comparison document.

I’m sure that you have seen some of the stories floating around about Samsung’s internal document detailing basically how the iPhone rocks and the Galaxy Samsung S1 sucks. I’ve read the entire document, and I’m almost literally speechless.

(I said almost.)

Let me offer a blinding flash of the obvious and mention I’m not a lawyer.

But I think it spells hellish legal agony for Samsung if the jury takes even a cursory glance at just a few pages. And an expert did tell VentureBeat just a few days ago that juries in “look and feel” patent cases will sometimes just simply eyeball the competing products to make a call.

Here’s your chance to play jury, without the hassles of showing up in court for $20 a day. I’ve included some screenshots below — okay, a lot of screenshots below — but they are all basically variations on one unchanging and massively damning theme:

GALAXY SUCKS, MAKE IT LIKE THE IPHONE.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m overreacting? Take a look for yourself:

I’ve managed products selling tens of millions in annual sales, and I have been in product development meetings where we’ve been late to market on an innovation and needed to catch up. And we did exactly what Samsung did: Study the market leaders, identify their strengths, and remedy our weaknesses.

But two things were different.

First, no product is perfect. And that includes the iPhone (anyone who wants a quick way to turn battery-sucking Bluetooth on or off on a non-jailbroken iPhone knows this). So in any product comparison, teams I participated in always found a few places even in the best products that were suspect or weak where we could take advantage.

Second, even very good is not the best. The iPhone is very, very good … but it could use some improvement. Apple does so with every iOS release. And the job of a competitor is to stand on the shoulders of whatever giants it can find … and move the sticks forward. To make progress.

In this document at least, Samsung makes zero attempt to do either. Page after page says: Do it the way iPhone does it.

And that kinda plays right into Apple’s point about “slavish” copying.

[ update ]

After reading some of the comments below, I went through the Samsung document again, picking out instructions that specifically mention iPhone or iTunes:

Page 73: “provide a diverse user guide manual like iTunes.”

Page 79: “support toggle method like iPhone.”

Page 81: “the concept has to change to be like iPhone.”

Page 95: “enable registration/editing of lyrics like iTunes”

Page 98: “enable one button access like the iPhone.”

Image credit: Complot/ShutterStock