Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Says He Hates The Samsung Patent Verdict

(10:45 am PDT, Sep 13th 2012)

Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Says He Hates The Samsung Patent Verdict

Apple’s victory in the courtroom over Samsung last month was met with cheers from Apple fans across the world, but one of the biggest Apple fans ever absolutely hated the ruling. In an interview with Bloomberg today, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discussed Apple’s $1 billion legal victory and said that he doesn’t agree with it.

“I hate it,” Wozniak told Bloomberg. “I don’t think the decision of California will hold. And I don’t agree with it — very small things I don’t really call that innovative. I wish everybody would just agree to exchange all the patents and everybody can build the best forms they want to use everybody’s technologies.”

Wozniak has always had a preference for giving away intellectual property and letting others do what they will with it. When Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs built the original Apple I computer, Woz wanted to give the designs away for free, while Steve Jobs saw the opportunity to sell them. Given that history, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Woz wants everyone to just exchange patents.

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  • http://twitter.com/xraydelta1 John T.

    I wish this “legendary” has-been would just STFU.

  • http://www.facebook.com/joseph.krasnov Joseph Krasnov

    If not for Steve and his vision this guy be broke. Nothing is this world is FREE

    • Nick

      Everything in this world is FREE. Look at Linux. It powers servers, phones (Androids), and although a derivative, Mac OSX (Free Unix).

  • http://twitter.com/ramunasbl Munas

    If not S. Jobs strategy Woz – the genius with big heart, would still be sitting in a garage and giving his inventions and innovations for free.
    As regards Samsung they better start doing their things like many companies in the world do, instead of copying and showing lack of creativity.

    • Nick

      And the world would have still had computing which was free and open. Woz loves open standards, and believes that technology will absolutely grow in an open standard. Apple’s close minded strategies inhibit the growth of technology in evefry way. We have now had to become a patented society to protect ourselves from each other.

  • Ashinigami

    Hippie.

  • RaptorOO7

    If not for Woz, Jobs wouldn’t have anything to market to begin with. You bow at Jobs feet, but he was 1/2 of the team who built Apple and Woz is just as critical today as he was then.

    The currently BS patent wars are doing little for consumers, and face it Apple shook up the phone world in 2007 but has sat on their collective butts since then and others have passed their technology.

    If not for Motorola designing the first mobile phone Apple wouldn’t have been able to build anything. If not for all of the Standards Essential Patents that Apple gets to “steal” by not agreeing to pay because they claim he patent holder isn’t adhering to FRAND terms. Apple doesn’t actually offer to patent anything near FRAND terms either. Sure they don’t have to when it came to Samsungs supposed infringed patents (until the final ruling is truly handed down and all appeals are down, nothing is final). They wanted a kings ransom for some effects.

    They abuse the patent system and have done so against far smaller companies taking their tech without payment. They market great products but they haven’t truly innovated in 5 years, they have been playing follow our standard, when everyone else is pushing the technology ahead.

    I love my Apple products but I am refuse to look through rose colored glasses.

    • http://twitter.com/shanecbryson Shane Bryson

      Apple abused to patent system? I hope someday you design a beautiful device that has basically been your life’s work and then after its a success, someone comes along, builds a product that looks and acts just like it, changes the name, and makes millions.

      • http://twitter.com/sadirbabe Nobody Cares

        Are you kidding me? They look nothing alike if you take off your malum goggles.

    • jahsoul

      I was actually just typing that about Woz. People forget, the Apple II is what made the company successful. That was totally designed by Woz and the only input that Jobs having on it was regarding slots, which Woz eventually won. It’s one thing to disagree with someones opinion but to call him a has been and say he would be broke without Jobs is kind of far fetched. Has any one of you seen Woz’s patents. They speak for themselves..

      • http://twitter.com/xraydelta1 John T.

        Ancient history.

      • http://twitter.com/plaztiksoundz Rodrigo Freitas

        WOZ has patents? What for then? Why would he patent anything? patents are evil…

    • BenGleck

      Without Woz, Jobs would have found someone else to do the engineering. Without Jobs, Woz would’ve been just another tinkerer.

      Of course Apple doesn’t invent everything, including the mobile phone, from the ground up. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

      It may be your opinion that Samsung “supposedly” infringed on Apple, that it all comes down to “effects,” that Apple “abuses” the patent system, that “they haven’t innovated in 5 years,” and that it’s everyone else that’s “pushing technology ahead.” But when a jury of peers who were selected in a system designed to wring bias out was exposed to more facts than you will ever be exposed to examined those facts, they saw things differently than you do. And so you’re reduced to hoping that others who do have bias, as you do, can reverse their findings.

  • lucascott

    Woz hasn’t been a part of Apple for years. It would be nice if the blogs remembered that and stopped name dropping for the bonus hits.

    • Billy

      But he is still, and always will be, the Apple Co-founder. “Founder” status doesn’t change over time.

    • Nick

      What are they supposed to say? “An unamed resource, who may, or may not, have helped found Apple in 1976″?

      • lucascott

        They can say his name. Point stop.

  • http://twitter.com/xraydelta1 John T.

    Has Woz designed a single circuit – or written a single line of code – for any successful product in the last 20 years or on the market NOW? Only lazy tech writers go to him for quotes… which is all he’s good for these days.

    • adara

      Apple haven’t invented anything since Woz left the company actually. Sure the Iphone is Apple’s phone but the hardware is made by Sony/Samsung/LG and other companies. In Apples computers the hardware is also produced by different companies.

      So to be fair no one at Apple have really designed a single circuit. Mac OS X is based on Unix and so is iOS so it’s not really something that Apple invented themselves.

      • http://twitter.com/plaztiksoundz Rodrigo Freitas

        “Sure the Iphone is Apple’s phone but the hardware is made by Sony/Samsung/LG and other companies.”

        I don’t understand why people always throw this BS around to try to imply that Apple doesn’t design/create their hardware. Apple designs their hardware, that’s why they pour millions in R&D. The A4/5/6 are made by Samsung, but designed by Apple, that’s why you don’t see Ax’s in other phones! The Screen is built by Samsung, but DESIGNED by Apple! That’s why you didn’t see “Retina” displays in any phone before the 4/4S. Or where you thinking that Samsung just created that on their own, but just decided to let the competition use it first??? It doesn’t matter which company builds the chip/antena/screen/etc.! Because it’s built to Apple’s specifications and design. Why this concept is so hard to grasp to some people just blows my mind!

        Back to topic. WOZ is just a “pure soul” with absolutely no grasp in a world which revolves around economies. He lives in utopia. It’s always good the world has dreamers. But nowadays, money makes the world go forward, and companies survive through profit. Doesn’t mean it’s the way it should be, it just means it’s the way it is.

  • Teche21

    Woz is a media hogger and he knows what to say to get some limelight, as he isn’t doing anything worthwhile nowadays.

  • http://twitter.com/LoganJonesing Logan Jones

    I agree in principle with the core idea that patents shouldn’t be used as bludgeons to stifle inovation. I do not agree that major corps should be allowed to blatantly copy and then profit by underselling someone else’s design. It’s a fine line for sure.

    Woz has an interesting perspective on this, since he’s essentially living off his partner’s really good idea – that being to market the Apple Computer correctly. The way he wanted to run things likely would have resulted in a human interest story about the guy who invented the personal computer and then gave it away. Of course this would have been written after his anonymous middle-class life ended.

  • http://twitter.com/Wirehedd Wirehedd

    It’s amazing to watch some of the historically ignorant blather about how Woz didn’t do this, wouldn’t have anything but for that…it’s all bullshit. He just happens to be the guy who created the FIRST personal computer, something all of you are using irrespective of platform, and he also happens to be the guy who invented those UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL devices a lot of you also use, can you say Logitech Harmony? He also made primitive gaming systems on TVs display COLOURS for the first time as well as designed a number of integrated circuits which are commonplace throughout the world. Woz is a BILLIONAIRE for work he did outside of Apple for more than what he earned from Apple. He’s in the league of Tesla and people still have no idea yet will try to shoot him down out of mindless Apple hate. It’s childish.

    There’s a book called iWoz that explains the enormous number of accomplishments he’s made after he left Apple. He may still be an Apple employee, obviously, but he only gets paid what a high level engineer, what he’s always considered himself to be, gets paid and he gets paid air fair and comped accommodations to act as a spokesman for Apple at some events. That’s about it.

    He also has at least one Android device with him at all times.

    Seriously guys, do some reading before shooting your mouth (fingers?) off online and making yourselves look dumb. It’s embarrassing.

    • Nick

      Wozniak is an enormous inspiration for everything we have today. Steve Jobs exploited the talents of Wozniak for money, and all Wozniak wanted to do was to enjoy what he had. I am not saying that Woz is ungrateful for everything Jobs did for him, but I know that there was a lot of pain in the relationship when Jobs saw the money coming in and brutally battered Woz in so many ways to get to where he wanted to be.

      Yes, I am an Android Fan, and yes, I read the book. I am no Jobs fan, except that I think he brought computing to where we are today. I do not believe he revolutionized the phone industry, but instead gave it a kick start. I believe that so many people were working towards where Apple was going with the iPhone, and if Apple hadn’t released the iPhon, within a year, someone would have released a PDA Phone with features close to the iPhone. We saw this already with some other devices, whic were already using App Stores.

  • Ace gazer

    U guys are just dumb asses stop complaining and just buy and use whatever U feel like using , we are just consumers.

About the author

Buster HeineBuster Heine is Cult of Android's Social Media Editor. Hailing from Roswell, New Mexico, but now spending his days in Phoenix, Arizona, he wastes most of his time eating burritos and reading spanish romance novels.  Twitter: @bst3r.

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