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Luxpro Sues Apple for Damages and 'Power Abuse'
Dystopian Rebel writes "The Financial Times reports that Taiwanese company Luxpro (discussed on Slashdot last year) intends to sue Apple for US$100M for 'lost revenue caused by Apple's abuse of their global power.' In 2005, Apple obtained an injunction against Luxpro's Super Shuffle/Super Tangent but the Taiwanese Supreme Court has overturned the injunction, opening the door to Luxpro's legal action. From the article: 'The [Luxpro] product had almost the same measurements and weight, came in a white plastic casing and had similar buttons on the front. Its name, Super Shuffle, also closely resembled the original.'"
![[Luxpro] product](http://asia.cnet.com/i/r/2005/pav/39094321/b001.jpg){kind=link}
Awww.. poor widdle Asian company can't get away with producing knockoffs. Cry me a river.
That thing is SUCH a rip off, I don't care what makes it different, looking at the pic, it's obvious that they're trying to capitalize on apple's product by copying it.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
What possible mystery could there be here? I thought the Taiwanese were smarter than that. Here's a case where the Chinese don't mind delineating Taiwan as a separate entity.
Most of the stuff on
If you ask me and looking at Apples history of monopoly and abuse of power, it would not be a surprise to me that the story has a real base. I mean, look at the whole PowerPC situation when Apple just used his power to cut off the power to their competitors and remain the monopoly with the Macintosh hardware. Apple is a very closed company and clearly likes to use the advantage of their little monopoly (little by numbers , but a monopoly anyway). Anyway, time (and lawyers with tons of $$$) will tell.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Yes, if you want to put it that way. Nobody has a monopoly on making small music players. Anyone who wants to is entitled to take that idea and run with it. If they want to use patented features in their hardware they need a license. Similarly, if they want to use somebody else's software they need a license from the copyright owner. If they can design the hardware without infringing any patents and write their software from scratch, they are beholden to no one. The only other thing they can't do is name their product in such a way as to induce confusion in the mind of consumers, or use non-functional design elements (so-called "trade dress") that would lead to confusion. There is no law against picking up on other people's ideas and making something similar.
And, in this case, there isn't much to say about reward for innovation. Luxpro doesn't appear to be copying anything particularly innovative from Apple. After all, there have been a series of digital audio players since 1998. It isn't as if Apple came first or is even technically particularly innovative. Apple did not pioneer the use of laptop hard drives or flash, and arguably it didn't even pioneer important aspects of the interface, judging from the patent disputes with which they have had to deal. Companies compete in a variety of ways, sometimes by making a better product, sometimes by making it more cheaply. There's no law or principle of business ethics that says that Luxpro isn't entitled to try to win market share by making a product much like Apple's and selling it for a lower price.
604 WiFi is better!
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Really? You mean running a blatantly monopolistic business practice and then stomping the guts out of your competition is bad?
Who let these socialists in here anyways?
This is almighty Capitalism were are talkin' bout here!
It's all about the