Big Apple, Patent Mind

Consumers are human beings. They love products that bring meaning to their lives. Steve Jobs would have agreed to this. The idea was first shown back in 1984, with that famous Apple commercial of a man throwing a big sledge hammer against a gigantic screen. But now, we are not in 1984. Steve Jobs has passed, and although one must wonder what is going through the mind of Tim Cook, whether or not he is simply following a bequest perhaps from Jobs himself regarding these current sorties of lawsuits, or if he is actually thinking that these patent infringment lawsuits can be a win for Apple, I feel that what is happening now is actually starting to look petty and quite sad. If it is true that Apple will now go after the Samsung Galaxy S3 series of phones, and perhaps even other products by the manufacturer, whatever gains they think they will get, I can only assume will pale in comparison to the loss of consumers their actions may cause. Apple needs to remember that they are a publicly owned company, and that in turn, this means that they have an image to protect and maintain. If these lawsuits were designed to put the fear of God into their competition, this is a wasted effort, they are fighting the wrong battle. For one thing, they are going to be dealing with nation states who, after trying to adjudicate whether Samsung is infringing on Apple's patents, will find in favor of Samsung, for example, Japan. When District Judge Tamotsu Shoji announced his ruling, he stated "It's hard to believe the products belong to the range of technologies of the claimant". This litigal black eye may only be a shiner, but could form what I believe to be an uproar from consumers all over the world. Apple represents the United States in technology and the world thinks that we already swing too big of a bat. If enough of the 'Fan Base' get's it into their heads that these lawsuits are wrong, Apple will lose position and money. With these patent lawsuits going on, if I were an investor, I would think twice before buying an Apple share, since I judge the performance of a company just as other investors in the market do, by their earnings per share. If we have people all of the sudden bailing out of purchasing Apple devices or trading them in because of these lawsuits, I see the EPS going down. Another question I would ask is how much is it costing Apple to actually do all of these lawsuits? Upon reading the PC World article, "Apple Targets Galaxy S III, Note in Latest Legal Action" (http://www.pcworld.com/article/261800/apple_targets_galaxy_s_iii_note_in_latest_legal_action.html) I started to read some of the comments in the blog. If you get a chance, do the same. You will find some people using the words like "hate" and a sentiment of cessation of purchasing Apple products. Some will be switching to Android, just because they are disgusted with the actions of Apple. As of the writing of this blog entry, which began on September 1st, 2012 at 12:20 pm EST, I still saw no real pro-Apple people commenting, and the reason for this? Because some of their owners are normal consumers that love Apple, but may start to hate the actions of the corporation in general. Of course, you will have some that will come out and say, "Apple has the right to protect their creation.". However, the current problems in Patent law now are that corporations keep testing boundaries, and some of the rulings being done are short-sighted, if not down right incompetent and the actions taken by Apple will have terrible repurcussions in the future, that will impact Apple negatively, not positively. In conclusion, I want to remind Apple that what has made them loved by many is the 'feeling' one gets from using an Apple device. This feeling is substantially different from using a Samsung device, not only because of the function of the devices, but because of the history, but in any relationship, history only goes so far. Eliminate the history by your present actions, and lose the love of the consumers and that of Wall Street as well and all of that liquid cash will go down the drain of ignominy.