If you think "pinch-to-zoom on a mobile device with touch screen" is a reasonable thing to patent so that nobody except Apple can use it on a smartphone
I agree that this would be absurd, but I think it kind of misses the point of the case. Samsung pretty clearly copied Apple in a "look and feel" way that goes beyond the particular collection of patents. The patents in the case are just the instruments that Apple used to punish the copying.
There are all sorts of other phones that technically infringe on Apple's patents (and vice-versa), but Apple doesn't seem interested in taking the offensive on these. I think Apple's position is much more about the spirit of Samsung's copying rather than defending any particular technical patent violation. But in order to bring a case, you have to pick out some particular violations rather than argue some abstract notion of "copying the spirit" of the iPhone.
No it's pretty clear that among other things, Samsung is paying damages for violating the "pinch-to-zoom on a mobile device with touch screen" patent. It is also very clearly a bounded part of the claim: if it didn't hold, the rest might still, and vice versa. Assuming your justice system somewhat works, that really should mean that Samsung is in fact guilty of violating this patent.
But so far nobody has really explained what this actually means. You're all dancing around the question.
It's very simple: what is the non-absurd way in which Samsung violated the pinch-to-zoom patent in particular? And please be specific, if you're about to use the word "implementation", I'd like to know what you understand by that term. This is not "Explain like I'm 5".
You've mis-understood my comment. It probably wasn't clear enough. I'm talking about Apple's motivation to bring the case in the first place. It wasn't because of individual technical violations of patents -- lots of other phones violate the patents and Apple hasn't sued. It was the spirit and totality of the copying. But once you decide to sue, you have to pick out the particular patents that will be the legal basis for the suit.
I'm not trying to argue that the patents should have been grated, or that they are a good thing. I'm just saying that they were the particular tools that Apple used to punish a form of copying that went beyond the patents in question.
Will somebody please explain what this means. Does this mean Apple can now sue someone who uses pinch-to-zoom on a touch screen? In other words can Apple now just sue for using pinch-to-zoom without having to build a huge case like it did in this one?
I agree that this would be absurd, but I think it kind of misses the point of the case. Samsung pretty clearly copied Apple in a "look and feel" way that goes beyond the particular collection of patents. The patents in the case are just the instruments that Apple used to punish the copying.
There are all sorts of other phones that technically infringe on Apple's patents (and vice-versa), but Apple doesn't seem interested in taking the offensive on these. I think Apple's position is much more about the spirit of Samsung's copying rather than defending any particular technical patent violation. But in order to bring a case, you have to pick out some particular violations rather than argue some abstract notion of "copying the spirit" of the iPhone.