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Spanish Firm Wins Tablet Case Against Apple

Posted by samzenpus on from the and-the-sue-goes-on dept.

pmontra writes "A Spanish company has won a legal case against Apple and will be able to sell an Android tablet that Apple had claimed infringes on the iPad patent. It is now seeking damages from Apple for a temporary seizure of its products by Spanish customs. Furthermore they are pursuing an antitrust complaint against Apple, alleging abusive anticompetitive behavior."

6 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. All I can say is by Rexdude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Excellent!.

    --
    "..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
    1. Re:All I can say is by siddesu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And all I can add is:

      • there should be stiff penalties for frivolous lawsuits and
      • here's one more piece of solid proof that "IP" is mostly used to stiffle competition and innovation, not to promote it.
  2. Live by the sword, die by the sword by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We can only hope a few more judgements like these get the whole industry to settle down and allow a little more leeway in advancing tablet design.

    If lots of smaller companies like this start fighting back now that they see they can win, the cost of legal action all over the globe will hopefully make so little financial sense Apple will stop suing others, and with them desisting the other companies can back away too.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately Apple has almost unlimited cash reserves and the stakes are very high, so I doubt they will relent. If they can kill or cripple all competing products it will have huge financial ramifications for years, and not just for tablets by all future devices they can patent. Pumping a few hundred million into open warfare via the courts is easily justifiable.

      The best solution would be for the EU to revise patent law to prevent its abuse. For that to happen some big EU companies will have to be attacked with clearly ridiculous patents, e.g. Airbus falling foul of a Boeing patent on "cylindrical flying machine with forward facing observation glass" or being forced to replace "rounded rectangular rubber rolling devices" with sled skis.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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  3. Here's the link to a non PAYWALLED news source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=468916

  4. Frivolous patents and lawsuits by waterbear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    >> "there should be stiff penalties for frivolous lawsuits"

    > There are, if you can prove that its frivolous and/or using the court systems as an anti-competitive hammer. If the court really decides that youre a nuisance, they can nail you pretty hard.

    But it's so costly and difficult to run that particular legal marathon, hardly anybody has ever completed the course. (Really, has anybody _ever_ actually completed it?)

    The problem is more fundamental: "The grant of invalid patents is a serious evil insomuch as it tends to the restraint of trade and to the embarrassment of honest traders and inventors..."
    That was the Fry Committee in 1901, recognizing that fundamental truth. The same applies, of course, to other forms of IP as well, not only patents. But which policymakers and legislators in power remember that now?

    -wb-