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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."
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.
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?
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.
In one of the keynote speeches Steve said (in different words) that 7" is just a bad choice. Who knows, maybe they expect customers to regret 7" purchase choices and decide that Samsung suck for selling it to them.
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.
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.
Reminds me of a blog post by Sun's Jonathan I. Schwartz:
And further down:
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.
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.
I am a developer, so I have quite a bit of hardware lying around. I have several 10" and 7" tablets. I strongly prefer the 7" ones. While a 10" is really nice around the house, when you're mobile a 7" is just so much more preferable. And you don't really miss the size at home either. The great advantage of the 7"-ers is that you can comfortably hold them in one hand for long periods, something you cannot do with the 10" tablets.
Then again, that will depend on what you do with it. However, I find 7" being "a bad choice" in general complete bullshit.
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.
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.
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.