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Apple Files Suit Against Motorola Xoom In EU
CWmike writes "Apple isn't just going after the Samsung Galaxy Tab in Europe, it's also attacking the Motorola Xoom. Apple's lawsuit, which was filed in Germany and led to Tuesday's injunction barring sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe, makes reference to a separate complaint against the Motorola Xoom. Patent expert Florian Mueller, who told Computerworld on Tuesday that the mounting patent cases could cast a cloud over Android licensing, found the original lawsuit, filed in Dusseldorf, Germany, and pointed out the Motorola action. The reference in the suit says that Apple has also filed a complaint over the design of the Motorola Xoom, which runs the Android operating system. But it's unclear if Apple is seeking an injunction that would immediately prevent Motorola from importing the tablets into Europe."
Is an Arsehole. You are the Apple of my Arsehole.
It's one thing to bully johnny foreigner about like HTC, Samsung etc. Motorola made the first mobile call in 1973, 3 years before Apple existed (well, that's if you are talking about the Apple with the same name as the Beatles record label which hates copying so much). Motorola has thousands of patents going right back through this peroid. You can only imagine how many of these relate to fundamental baseband radio tech. So these newcomers whining about the shape of the corners on their toys don't seem to realise the established guys quite literally have their finger over the button when it comes to radio comms. Let's see how many tablets/phones they sell when they can't make airtime connections.
You don't get it, you should think different. The rectangle is now Apple's "intellectual property". Euclid can go fuck himself.
I know the Apple fanbois will be out in force to defend this as they believe Apple should be the only player in the market place, but Apple's new litigious dream of being the only player in the market is bad for everyone. Apple didn't invent the smart phone or the tablet, so if monopolies of these devices were allowed then Apple wouldn't have been able to make their beloved iDevices in the first place.
The reason Apple themselves are doing this is because they want to control the way everyone consumes media. They want to replace the PC, newspapers, magazines, and ultimately the TV putting them all under their control and charging their 30% fee for allowing access to content producers to their public. For this strategy to work long term, especially in the face of free competition from Android where large corporates can set up their own channels and distribution mechanisms, they need 80+% market share (20 - 40% just isn't enough to command the fees Apple want to charge). They've seen how their early lead in the smart phone marketplace has been eroded and now surpassed by Android, and they fear that the same will happen with the iPad.
This isn't about protecting intellectual property or Apple wanting just reward for their 'innovation'. This is a land grab aimed at capturing and locking in market share through litigation. Apple *are* scared of Android, and especially these latest tablets like the Samsung, not because they're currently outselling the iPad but because they will most likely be the first steps to Android gaining momentum in the tablet market and establishing itself as a viable competitor. Once that happens it will only be a matter of time as Apple cannot keep up with the huge variety of products their competitors will release - exactly what happened in the smart phone arena.
Good to see no hypocrisy here then:
http://www.skuggen.com/2010/03/apple-ceo-steve-jobs-we-steal-great-ideas-shamelessly/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/apple_copies_rejected_app/
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
I'm really happy I managed to get an HexoPC a few month ago. In a near future anything looking like more or less like an iPad will not be allowed to be sold any-more, this is getting ridiculous. If you plan to buy any kind of photo frame (digital or not) buy them now... we don't know what Apple will do next since anything flat with a screen seem to in the line of sight of the Apple troll lawyers.
He's not much of a "patent expert" if he can't tell that this case is not about patents. Maybe "clueless troll Florian Mueller" would be more accurate?
It's interesting that they seem to just be going after the 10" tablets. Samsung make 7" tablets too, why did Apple not get an injunction on those too? Or is that basically they do not want anything that could compete with an Ipad be sold?
These are suits regarding the equivalent of design patents. If Apple thinks it has a design patent over both Samsung and Motorola (the two tablets are quite different from each other), it is basically claiming that it has a patent on the design of *any* thin tablet device.
Which would be utterly absurd. I can understand the Galaxy Tab thing since the devices were very similar in appearance. The Xoom looks nothing like an iPad in any way.
I really can't understand what Samsung were thinking with their device at all. People who want to pay stupid money for an iPad like device have probably already paid stupid money for an actual iPad. Who are their market for this thing? Android users? I doubt Android users are at all enamoured by something that costs so much, and apes an iPad even in the bad ways such as high price, sealed in batteries, proprietary connectors etc.
He never confirms or deny (reveal)that that the blog is funded by apple and microsoft to create about FUD about Android . Double Agent Florian Mueller.
Blatant anti-competitive practice. You can't buy up companies to kill competition, cause you'll get an anti-trust suit, so you just sue them out of the market and the government has to back you up.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Apple will sue any company building anything similar to any iThing.
Both Samsung's and Motorola's products are very similar to the Apples'.
Nonetheless there's a clearly visible logo on them showing they ARE NOT APPLES'.
While I do understand that a design is something to be protect somehow, you should not go the Apple way.
Apple should focus on the meat (superior hardware, better software, funnier user experience), not on the skin.
What if I build a pad with squared or polygonal corners?
And what if unbranded unnamed chinese companies will start selling iPad clones running Android?
--
[Internal error: ads042.1e100.net is unreachable]
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Uhm, we're all patent experts. Any of us who have been following these patent cases and learning all the gritty details behind the scenes are becoming patent experts. Turns out, "expert" is a rather imprecise word. At best it means "knows more than the average joe on the streets" and that would be a significant portion of the slashdot demograhic and anyone who can sell garbage articles to tech magazines.
Not really. An expert is someone who has an authoritative knowledge about his area of expertise, i.e. someone who could probably stand in court and defend a case in patent law. On slashdot most are opinionated laypeople informed to a smaller or larger degree on the subject. Also, I hereby refuse to discuss the expertitude of the dude from TFA.
Samsung is now showing to a court in Netherland 20 cases of prior art in tablets, such as this one from 1994: the Knight Rider http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2011/04/tablet-computers-as-seen-from-1994.html As seen on these videos, this looked exactlty like an iPad! You may follow the courtroom debates thanks to Andreas Udo de Haes https://twitter.com/#!/andreasudo and on OsNews: http://www.osnews.com/
and my Macs maybe close behind. I am not going to support a bunch of assholes like what Apple has become. I have used a friends Galaxy and found it a bit slow but Android does have features iOs sorely lacks. While I don't think the current tablet implementations are all that wonderful I believe they are good for getting people to rethink how to write and use applications. Apple apparently thinks they invented all of this and considering how the patent office works they could probably buy history to be on their side.
Very disappointing to see this. Spend your money innovating not suing Apple. Be an ideas company, not one that stifles anyone else having them.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
At best it means "knows more than the average joe on the streets"
So, again, how does that make Florian an expert? He's been accused of being a shill for Microsoft, but I don't think anyone with a budget the size of Microsoft's would hire anyone so inept - almost everything he says is wrong. On the subject of patents, he's less accurate than Magic 8 Ball, let alone the average Joe on the streets...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Why they didn't put a proper usb port and hdmi out on it is beyond me.
Probably the same reason Apple don't. Because they can rip people off by selling them overpriced dongles & cables. It's bad enough that Apple does it, and completely unacceptable that an Android tablet should.
IMO at the very least a tablet should have a Micro-b USB and SD / Micro SD slot. Better yet if it can charge & sync through the USB cable. If they want to shove their own connector on there too for docks / port replication / HDMI / hi speed charging out then fine but even for that there is a industry standard called PDMI which combines HDMI, USB, power and some other stuff into a single connector.
How much are ComputerWorld/ITWorld paying to get this Mueller FUD campaign to the front page?
I hope it's worth all the subscriptions they cost you guys.
Maybe if all Mot screens were square, they could claim that as an innovation, further claiming that they had eliminated the concept of portrait/landscape viewing by doing this, and neatly sidestep Apple's objections. Or else, they could be difficult and make an elliptical screen
Reminds me of a blog post by Sun's Jonathan I. Schwartz:
And further down:
Yeah, next to nobody seems to have USB. When Apple didn't put a floppy on their first iMacs, other vendors like E-machines did, and claimed that advantage. But this time, nobody has put USB ports - not Apple, not Mot... Had they put it, people could have attached their SSDs or HDDs and kept whatever data they wished to put there. Granted, given that the processor is just a 32-bit processor, the capacity of the HDD that could have been accessed would have been limited.
Yeah, it was SOOOOO good that it died on the vine. So much for your budding career as an analyst. . . .
He never confirms or deny (reveal)that that the blog is funded by apple and microsoft to create about FUD about Android . Double Agent Florian Mueller.
If you keep track of what he does, he is clearly paid by Microsoft. Google is enemy number one. Apple, Linux, IBM are secondary enemies. In a case like this where a secondary enemy sues a primary enemy, he sides with the secondary enemy, but he will and has attacked Apple, Linux and IBM as well. And usually, as seen here, gives nonsense arguments. The case Apple vs. Samsung and now Apple vs. Motorola has nothing to do with Google at all; it only has to do with the shape and looks of the Samsung and Xoom devices and packaging over which Google has no control or influence.
While I'm not agreeing with the GP how did the Xoom die on the vine? Last I checked I could buy it (still), Android is still going strong though it is being challenged, and I know several people who love their Xoom. Just because it isn't as popular as the iPad doesn't mean it died on the vine.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
These are suits regarding the equivalent of design patents. If Apple thinks it has a design patent over both Samsung and Motorola (the two tablets are quite different from each other), it is basically claiming that it has a patent on the design of *any* thin tablet device.
Which would be utterly absurd. I can understand the Galaxy Tab thing since the devices were very similar in appearance.
I would be interested if you could point to two LCD televisions which look in any way different apart from the manufacturers logo.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Hey Slashdot, if you insist on continuing to use the Microsoft Borg icon, then it's only fair that you use this icon for Apple.
>So, again, how does that make Florian an expert? He's been accused of being a shill for Microsoft, but I don't think anyone with a budget the size of Microsoft's would hire anyone so inept - almost everything he says is wrong. On the subject of patents, he's less accurate than Magic 8 Ball, let alone the average Joe on the streets..
Microsoft hired SCO.
Chew on that one for a while.
Florian is surely on Microsoft's payroll as sure as Robert Enderle, Dan "lyin'" Lyons, everyone at ZDNet, etc.
"He's just a puppet himself" - Aramaki
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BMO
I would be interested if you could point to two LCD televisions which look in any way different apart from the manufacturers logo.
Irrelevant and wrong - brand name TVs are generally quite distinct from each other in terms of their bezel, base, gloss / matte finish, decals, remote control, speakers, ports, colour scheme etc. Put a Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, LG and Sharp TV next to each other and you'd instantly notice many differences. Put a bunch of laptops or phones next to each other and the same will be true.
In this case we see Samsung mimic a lot of the visual cues of the iPad, to such an extent that most reasonable people would believe it was intentional. While I am anti Apple in most things I am not surprised they are upset and I would not be surprised if the Tab gets pulled and redesigned. That said, Apple are thieving bastards when it suits them so I wouldn't feel any sympathy if they ultimately lose to Samsung.
Additionally I see no justification for Apple to extend legal action to other tablets such as the Xoom, Eee Pad, Iconia etc., which IMO do not remotely resemble the iPad at all except in ways that come from the nature of the devices. Such actions appear to be anticompetitive rather than supported by any legimate legal reason. I hope they fail and fail hard there too.
if the GP claimed Linux = Android, he/she would have written "He has agenda against Linux".
Do not moronize /. above regular level.
Fair enough.
If you can't innovate - litigate.
Motorola sued Apple in October 2010 over a number of patents: http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Press-Releases/Motorola-Mobility-Sues-Apple-for-Patent-Infringement-344d.aspx.
I'm not saying I'm supporting all this patent fighting but if you go after Apple, Apple will go after you.
Does anyone here read German? All of the news stories about it quote each other with no independent confirmation. I mean unlike Groklaw which actually gets a copy of the lawsuit filing, can that be done in Germany? The other thing is it isn't clear if Apple is suing Motorola for design patents like they are Samsung. Also I wouldn't necessarily believe Florian Mueller. He always has spun everything negative that isn't Microsoft.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Uhm, we're all patent experts. Any of us who have been following these patent cases and learning all the gritty details behind the scenes are becoming patent experts.
I know patent experts. Almost nobody that posts on Slashdot is even remotely close.
+1
Samsung's MO is to copy successful designs as closely as possible. There's a reason refer to them as Samesung.
Motorla Razr - Samsung A900
Motorola Slvr - Samsung T509
Blackberry - Samsung Blackjack
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Haha, dongle.
i dont understand why they are picking on different countries and not the US
Apple: "The Xoom is also better than the iPad 2."
As i said in a previous articles post... At first I just was not an apple fan.. now I truly HATE apple. Take your crap somewhere else. You feel so threatened by Android you are running trying to get your mommy to fix it. Just eat this apple and poo it out... I hope the day comes - again - and you have the same thing happen to you, then go bankrupt for your atrocities. Btw I claim the rectangle... I remember drawing it on paper when I was a kid... and my mother still has the blueprints!
Well if you think it's acceptable I suggest you slap $50-100 onto the price of such devices to account for all the proprietary shit you need to buy and tote around to use the device in a non proprietary way. And if you don't do that then you too agree it's not acceptable. And it's not acceptable.
http://www.cybertheater.com/lg-dp889-portable-dvd-playerdigital-frame-combo/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
either on android or any apple platform, performed visual techniques that mimic things on the apple products..things like the dock, where icons would zoom in or out(or grow larger or smaller) when scrolling horizontally or vertically, page layouts etc etc. Basically I am working on a graphics engine for my mobile apps that are being written in OpenGL for these special efftects. I wouldn't think and don't think that it would be an issue - obviously my implementation of any visual technique is going to be different.
It sure did die on the vine /wink/ and I'm also a career analyst /wink-wink/.
Furthermore it is unclear if Samsung is not a thief, after all they paid nearly a billion after stealing Rambus technology
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I think Apple is becoming desperate. As their market capitalization approached (and even surpassed for a moment) Exxon-Mobile market cap, they're now officially in bubble terrirory. At first glance it does not seem like a bubble as their P/E ratio isn't so high (around 14 as we speak), but their current profits is clearly a bubble thanks to fat profit margins. Most of their profits come from iPhones and iPads - all remaining revenue sources pale in comparison to these two. As they're getting more and more real competition in market they've created, they'll have to compete and they'll experience significant margin compression. In other words, if any real competition emerges, they'll lose support for their insanely high stock price. Don't get me wrong - I don't predict any kind of doom for Apple - I just say that their current stock price is unsupportable in long term.
My take is that they'll fight teeth and nail to keep any meaningful competition out of the market - legally or not. In Samsung case they've got too far - now it appears that they've managed to get injunction without even notifying Samsung about this, so Samsung lawyers had no chance to even respond. This is propably illegal, but it seems that Apple is prepared to pay very high fines/damages in order to keep monopoly on tablet market.
It also strikes me that previously they've always managed to get ahead of competitors in terms of new, better products and now they started using lawyers on grand scale. Why is that ? Is it because of Jobs' deteriorating health their product/innovation pipeline is shortening ? If the only person capable if envisioning a new product in this company is Steve Jobs, then they're a kind of one-time wonder.
So is this the official turning point of Apple from a product innovator to a run of the mill "I'm going to sue anyone and everyone so I don't have to put money into R&D to make better products!" company?
Seems like it... when was the last time Apple came out with something innovative? iPad 1 I'd say. iPhone 5 is shaping up to be more of the same, iPad 2 is more of the same. Macbooks, more of the same... Can't think of anything recently that Apple came up with that others aren't doing already or doing better in some cases.
The iPad 2 is so lackluster that Apple is scared the Tab and Xoom might prove to be more popular with consumers since it is at least on par and in some cases exceeds the iPad 2 in functionality.
It's a shame Motorola and Samsung are charging so much... if they dropped the price by a couple hundred bucks...
I agree. I've been wondering why they just don't come up with a different design (like gnome3 or unity or a billion other possibilities). People would still buy it, maybe even more people would buy it. It really does seem like they have gone out of their way to make it look and work like an Ipad.
Can you please stop quoting and independent blogger with no credentials and bias toward FOSS, who has been often exposed by Groklaw as FUDester. Use real news sources or experts. You guys are turning that troll into a legend. Please stop that.