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Australian Court Blocks Sales of Samsung Galaxy Tablet
jimboh2k writes "Apple has succeeded in blocking the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia until a final hearing can be heard in the case down under. The judgment on Thursday could effectively kill chances of the tablet ever launching properly in Australia after Samsung claimed further delays to the product would threaten hopes of gaining traction."
This could potentially work against Apple if Samsung go after the iPhone 4S on Oz. Precedent has been set, and it would be quite difficult for Apple to argue that an injunction shouldn't block the iPhone4S if Samsung decide to assert their hardware patents.
This judgement delivered by JudgeBuddy for iPad. This is ridiculous. Singling out 5-10 patents which Apple Claims Samsung's infringing on, which are guaranteed to be covered by "prior art" with the hope of delaying a rival product until it's no longer saleable. Antitrust much?
With all these vendors tripping over each others patents it will likely result in a bunch of cross licensing.
Do anything, anywhere, anytime.
All of these patent laws and copyright laws - all they do is promote innovation and competition, don't they?
You can't handle the truth.
Oddly, people were saying this in 1990... Still hasn't happened.
I think you stretch the analogy too far
The judgement is based on broad patents that would be violated by any Android touchscreen based phone or tablet in Australia This goes way beyond the German ruling as it is not based on a design patent. Apple can now ask for a ban on any android device in Australia and it will most likely be granted. You can't blame Samsung for asserting FRAND patents, this ruling has equal anti trust/monopoly implications as it grants Apple a monopoly on tablet devices in Australia and could be used to do the same with smartphones. Apple have refused to license these patents. Software patents are now hurting consumers directly, beyond the tax we have been paying on devices that goes to play patent trolls and patent lawyers e.g. the $5-10 on every android device that goes to Microsoft. Now they are being used to kill consumer choice.
Yes. Don't you see them competing fiercely in court?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I already did. I specifically chose the Galaxy because of Apple's antics.
According to your link the issue is with multitouch. My LG android phone doesn't have that so it should be safe. My HP touchpad does and I expect HP would have been in trouble over that if they hadn't bailed from the market.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
See: http://slashdot.org/recent/
Specifically:
* http://slashdot.org/submission/1816404/dennis-ritchie-father-of-c-and-unix-reported-dead
* http://slashdot.org/submission/1816390/dennis-ritchie-co-creator-of-unix-and-c-has-died
It is in the firehose currently. Twice. These posts are off topic in this regard. I don't know why it hasn't been submitted to the front page yet if he is as influential as all of you commentors are saying. I never heard of him before today. However it is off topic. Give the editors a chance to post it. They were hours behind on Steve Jobs as well. The /. system is a reader's digest summary, not the place you go if you want breaking news (unfortunately).
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
I think you stretch the analogy too far
Oh no. You just used the words "analogy" and "stretch" in a reply to a comment about homosexuals. It suffices to say that the analogy will soon be stretched further. You have doomed us all.
I'm in Australia and had a friend bring me a Galaxy Tab 10.1 from overseas. It's not a bad unit, good size and weight, the speakers are okay. However, the most loudly touted feature, "it has Flash for the *full* web experience", does not work. The Flash plugin does not work in the default browser!
Small detail... this has nothing to do with Android. Apple has a beef with the design of the physical phone, the packaging, the cabling AND Samsungs skin for Android. In this suit at least, they got no complaint against Android itself.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This company needs to be knocked off their perch. ESPECIALLY as Australian people have a penchant for strongly following the rules of tall poppy syndrome.
Anecdotal comment: Out of the 50 staff I work with in my team in the office, we have had the following phone purchases in the past 12 months
1x iphone 4
5x galaxy S2
1x galaxy 1 series
3x HTC Android phones
2x Acer Android phones (surprisingly good, Liquid Metal phone - 120$ AUD outright!)
1xAsus Transformer
0xipads
Also of note, 2 of those Android purchases were directly moving FROM iphones to Android. If I increase that threshold to 18 months*, I can add another iphone 4.
The sentiment in the office and amongst all the nerds I know except 2 die hards is that "Apple is evil" and generally to be avoided. It's basically 'not cool' to own an iphone at the moment, at least with the people I speak with. (If you can't tell, I'm one of the converts)
I have in the past 12 months though, recommended an iphone for someone surprisingly. A girl who had an iphone 3gs she dropped it and shattered it, she's not tech savvy and already has an iphone with itunes backup, it would be silly to push my 'Android agenda' on the girl when clearly an iphone would suit here.
Flame comment begin: and to be genuinely honest, I see the iphone as the 'dumbest' of the smartphones, it's perfect for people like her because it's like the old Nokia 6110 of smartphones, simple and basic. You can't do much but you can't break much either. (Yes I genuinely believe that and I owned 3 of the things)
* and the guy who got his iphone 18 months ago is envious of everyones Galaxy S2, he's switching to Android at the end of his 24 month contract.
Really? That's weird. I have one of the original galaxy tabs (7" version) and flash works just fine.
Can't imagine why it wouldn't work in the 10.1.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Well, that's an admission. Since Ritchie was one of the pioneers of what has evolved to be the technology that powers most servers and almost all mobile devices, you could argue that he is of much more relevance to this article than your post. After all, it is about two companies fighting over technologies for which he was one of the major founders.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The delay is a good thing. Since we are all already aware of what has happened, this delay will give foolish people lots of time to post their faux-sincere "condolences" at shitholes like Hacker News, reddit and Google+. There'll be many thousands of useless one-line "My condolences to his family" and "RIP dmr" comments.
By the time Slashdot gets around to posting this news, the majority will hopefully have that crap out of their system, and we can remember him and the impact he made with useful, insightful, detailed comments, rather than single-line platitudes.
Make the lawyers fight it out in a cage filled with snakes, horny kangaroos, and drop bears. Last man/woman stand wins. It's the Aussie way.
(don't get all ruffled Aussies, it's just a joke)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Apple is getting all of these PRELIMINARY injunctions; which potentially hurt Samsung big-time in the long run. If Samsung ends up winning the actual court battle, does Apple have to compensate them somehow?
All your patents are belong to us.
Multitouch long predates Apple's patents, which amount to "we put multitouch on a flat screen device," as if that's not an obvious thing to do at the point where the cost/maturity make it economic/practical.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's just what US business does and some other places too - copy whatever they see working. One thing that really drove that home from finally getting around to watching the movie "Cloverfield" tonight I understood where those dozens of productions with pointless shaky camerawork came from. It worked in one situation so there were dozens of copies. Most businesses are at heart extremely conservative so they'll gladly rip off what somebody else has done if they can get away with it.
It's not a Korean problem at all. That's just blaming the "other" or cheering for the home team and pretending it is so gets nothing done apart from annoying people of the nationality you are insulting.
Blair Witch was the first (mainstream) film that kicked off that horrid form of cinematography, long before Cloverfield (and it has a lot to answer for because of that).
These childish patent wars have got to stop.
It sickens me that companies like Apple and Samsung are flinging patents around, while great men like Dennis Ritchie who contributed so much more to the world never achieved anywhere near the riches of these technology leeches.
What ever happened to competing on the merits of your product instead of the size of your legal team?
Want to fix the patent system? Deny the rights of corporations to hold patents. Only the actual inventor or creator, a real flesh and blood human being, should be entitled to a patent.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Much as I dislike Florian Muller, and his anti Google shill rants posing as 'news', he says the same thing: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-patent-enables-apple-to-shut.html
If that's true, then siding with Apple will just promote the system that you descripe. Apple represents abusive monopolies through influence, corruption, and abuse of the patent systems, and legal systems.
It sickens me that companies like Apple and Samsung are flinging patents around
Do not blame Samsung. This is 100% Apple's fault. Samsung is doing nothing more than trying to defend itself against an evil, abusive, monopolist. If somebody got mugged in an ally, would you critize that person for trying to fight back?
Government shouldn't be allowed in business, saying that it is ran by 'free market capitalist' is obviously skewing the reality, which is that government is ran by those, who do not want free market capitalism (for themselves at least), they want to create and maintain a monopoly for themselves, captivating the audience (not customers - prisoners of the system), and when they get in trouble because they are not challenged by any competition in any way, they expect a government bail out.
You can't handle the truth.
As this site says blatant copying: you decide.
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
Like assassinations, what comes around goes around.
Well there's a bigger picture, here. Apple is picking a few fights with Samsung in response to how Samsung is playing their cards in other markets. I'm a teacher working in South Korea, and it shouldn't come as much of a surprise at how dirty Samsung is stealing the rug out from under Apple, here, when the market WANTS Apple - both foreign and local. Samsung is a monster conglomerate that does pretty much everything... but it's also no secret that they, too, are guilty of bending laws and borrowing ideas (and designs) to get the jump on launching their products ahead of other more quality and tested products. Galaxy S has nothing on the iphone (except a bigger screen, I guess). SII is strides beyond S1, so they're on the right track... but still have a ways to go. And yeah, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder knowing how Samsung basically copied ideas to throw their phone on the market before Apple could get past the import laws reasonably, ruining Apple's commitment to the Korea (that's the way I see it. There isn't a single Apple store in this country, yet).
I guess you have to live abroad to really appreciate how badly some foreign companies abuse their position of privilege in their own domestic economies to see that U.S. companies aren't the great evil megalomaniacs they are often portrayed as. Apple has a unique design philosophy and really does innovate in many ways. If any of you spent a year in Korea working in IT or anything related you would be blown away by the cynical way patents and design concepts are viewed here. I'm not an apple fanboy, in fact I doubt I will ever own an apple computer. But Samsung couldn't invent an apple level product to save their lives, and anyone who doubts that just need to take off the blinders and really look at products like the Galaxy tab. If that was a Microsoft product you would all be lining up to scream about how big of an apple rip off it was. Anyway, I don't want to get dragged into the constant brand loyalty wars that pervade internet commenting. I was simply trying to make a point about the protectionist policy way that a lot of asian (especially Korean) companies do business. If you think Apple is bullying Samsung with this, you need to know the history of how Apple products have been excluded from the market in Korea.
Free market capitalist is not given any opportunities to run government or to buy government but also he is by definition not ruled by government.
Free market is by definition free of government intervention.
Once there is government intervention, then BY DEFINITION there is NO free market capitalism anymore. So at any moment that government starts regulating businesses, they stop being free market oriented businesses, their obvious response is to compete not by creating a better product at a lower price, but instead by compete by buying power.
You can't handle the truth.
"Homicide: Life on the Streets" pioneered shakycam long before Blair Witch. Except it was actually good.
I'm seriously considering the purchase of a Samsung Galaxy Player to replace my aging iPod 3G. I certainly won't be replacing it with another iPod.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Steve Jobs is gone. I suspect that most of this is what we will see out of Tim Cook. Even when Jobs was here and all this started, I bet Tim was actually calling the shots and defacto CEO just to make sure that the change of leadership which everybody knew was coming would work. At least that was my theory way before Steve actually stepped down and not just some bit of Jobs worship. When hearing about the iPhone and iPad, it was always Tim Cook talking about getting the deals in Asia and cornering all the production on the needed parts so competition couldn't build an identical one even if they wanted to.
Damn straight! I don't really think the idea of using more than one finger on the touchscreen is stealing at all. Apple may have come up with a very good implementation of multitouch usage, but unless you've lived your entire life interacting with the world one finger at a time, its an obvious step for touchscreen devices.
So yeah, Apple trying legal tricks to block competition based on retarded patents that shouldn't have been granted is something I don't like. Samsung violating stupid patents, is something I don't consider stealing. I look at it more akin to an act of protest against a tyrannical patent system.
As I said - free market is only free when it is free of government intervention. Once it is no longer free of government intervention, it is automatically no longer a free market, it is a distorted market, which sends out the wrong signals, which are not to compete based on user expectations and product quality/price, etc., but to use the distorting power that can be bought (and if a politician has power, then he is for sale, unless he is an ideological politician, which is probably one in 100,000).
It's not a matter of semantics, it IS the definition, that a free market is only free of government intervention. It's not free of anything else.
What do you THINK the word 'free' means in this context? Ponies?
You can't handle the truth.
I bought Galaxy Tab 10.1 recently (yes, mostly because of Apple) and flash works. Maybe there is something in the marketplace to download?
posting anonymously to protect my karma
Why should we value an opinion you don't even feel strongly enough to put your name to?
I've noticed a trend recently of people hiding behind anonymous coward status to protect their karma status, is karma that hard to earn? I get posting anonymously if you were posting information that might be confidential or identify you in other ways, but simply to karma whore? Seriously guys?
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
A business within free market competes with other businesses for the customers based on product quality/price.
A business within a non-free market can obviously compete with other businesses based on buying politicians, this is absolutely normal and to be expected (and I would do exactly that, presented an opportunity).
As I always contend - there is only one thing that is reliable, it's human greed. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Human greed can be a positive, constructive thing, when it's bound by the free market limitations of what competition is.
Human greed can be totally devastating, if it is allowed to get various powers that have nothing to do with free market, but instead are types of powers that governments have over individuals. That's why we want free market - market free of government intervention, so that the greed would be used for constructive, productive, wealth creating things and not for destructive, anti-competitive, power-buying activities that lead to market distortion and economy destruction.
I love the fact that people greedy - they build things for me and they want me to buy those things and they compete with each other based on quality and price.
I hate politicians and I hate all governments. Governments in my eyes are ALWAYS wrong. There is NO good that comes from government. Nothing good comes from government. Anything and everything that governments do is always bad.
That's because they also are full of people who are greedy, but individuals are captive audience, not customers but are prisoners of that system and they don't have to provide me with anything I would want to buy at prices I would be willing to pay.
Capice?
You can't handle the truth.
Yes, there is, another browser. The Flash plugin seems to work in Dolphin for Pad as well as Firefox. This is after updating to version 11 as well.
/. moderation is out of control. Unpopular opinion, including anything positive about Apple, MS, Facebook. etc... get moderated as flamebait or troll, even if it is clearly not. Just because you don't agree with someone, doesn't mean they should be moderated as flamebait. Now, mark me off-topic, because that would be appropriate in this case.