Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Loses Tablet Battle In Australia

Posted by samzenpus on from the learn-to-play-nice dept.

New submitter harmic writes "The Australian Federal High Court has denied Apple's appeal against the earlier decision that overturned the ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab. The Samsung Android based tablets should be in the shops in a matter of days. Apple had attempted to appeal an earlier court ruling overturning the ban."

42 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. What an appalling title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Apple loses appeal to ban Samsung Galaxy Tab in Australia" - beyond your abilities to write that?

    Appalling title.

    1. Re:What an appalling title by errandum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How so? It's a fairly accurate description O_o.

      You're kind of nitpicking here, in my opinion.

    2. Re:What an appalling title by kno3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not in my opinion. It is an appallingly misleading title. The tablet battle definitely implies the sales battle. This title would almost always point to Apple not being as popular as another brand. Most people reading that title would not expect it to mean they loose a court ruling.

    3. Re:What an appalling title by ozbird · · Score: 2

      "Samsung p0wns Apple." FTFY.

  2. Also lost iPad trademark in China by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm surprised I've not seen this posted yet, but a few days ago Apple lost control of the iPad trademark in China after a dispute.

    http://www.macworld.com.au/news/apple-loses-trademark-in-china-no-longer-called-ipad-41378/

    1. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by horza · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's interesting. Shenzhen trademarks the iPad back in 2000, then Apple launches the iPad in 2010 and promptly tries to sue Shenzhen for trademark infringement. Apple now cannot even call their tablet the iPad in one of the world's largest markets China. Their wildly illogical lawsuits, turning them into one of the world's most hated companies, are really starting to backfire everywhere.

      Phillip.

      --
      Property for sale in Nice, France
    2. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by PaladinAlpha · · Score: 4, Informative

      Article detailing the lawsuit here. Apple did, in fact, sue the local business asserting a stronger claim to the trademark.

    3. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by Colourspace · · Score: 4, Funny

      In communist China Slashdot is powered by your submissions..

    4. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 3, Informative

      Shenzhen sold apple the international trademark to "iPad" back in 2006. That's what is up for grabs here.

      http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2011-12/09/c_131297760.htm

      Plus never mind they have no product named, "iPad" either.

      I could name dozens of companies that are more hated in this world than apple. Xe, Halliburton, BP, News Corp, etc.

      Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that it's universal.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    5. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by moronoxyd · · Score: 2

      Old news.
      Cisco used the 'iPhone' trademark before Apple: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/ciscoapple-the-dog-that-did-not-bark-in-the-night/239?tag=content;siu-container

    6. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

      Apple are so gay

      There's nothing wrong with their being gay, but increasingly they are changing from the cool, Neil Patrick Harris/John Barrowman kind of gay into the evil Saddam Hussein/Satan kind of gay.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by jrumney · · Score: 4, Informative

      Shenzhen sold apple the international trademark to "iPad" back in 2006.

      The city of Shenzhen never held the iPad trademark. Proview Technology (Taipei) sold the trademark that they held in a number of countries, but Proview Technology (Shenzhen) chose to hold onto the trademark in China.

    8. Re:Also lost iPad trademark in China by jrumney · · Score: 4, Informative

      The "fact" as quoted is incorrect, as Proview (the company) sold its rights to another company, which sold them on to Apple in 2009.

      Probably the other company didn't care that their deal excluded China as they had no intention of doing business there, and when Apple bought it, they mistakenly believed they were buying the rights for the whole world, because the company name of the holder recorded for China matched the previous owner of the trademark they were buying apart from the city in which the company was based.

  3. denied with costs? by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Googling it returns this news story, does it mean Apple will have to pay Samsungs legal costs or even what Samsung is going to claim they have lost because of it?

    Apple case isn't looking good, they are getting thrown out all over the world and the small wins are for trivial stuff Samsung can and has worked around. Meanwhile Apples reputation has taken a nosedive not being helped that Jobs epitaph seems to consist of "prick in a turtleneck". Screwing your partner out of a few hundred when he will one day make you a billionaire is just sad.

    I still wonder what Apple was thinking. Yes, the Samsung tablets and for that matter anyone elses look a lot alike. And? I tried it at a local super store. Gosh, they are indeed very similar. Then I wandered over the washing machine department. Talk about copy cats. Really, take a LOOK someday, they are ALL the same. Even the place you the soap in. I couldn't find a single model on display where the soap didn't go in on the left. Even the order of pre-wash, wash and fabric softener is like that, from left to right.

    And don't even get me started on fridges. white boxes the lot of them. About the only exception are the american models which ALL have the water dispenser in the LEFT door which is narrower then the right door.

    So maybe Apple was the first to copy the design from a prop maker. Was it worth it Apple? We who are not fanboys now have fresh ammo to slap your buyers around with now that the one-mouse button joke has gotten a bit stale (mind you, tablets do have only one mouse button... old jokes never die it seems, they just get re-used on slashdot). Injunctions thrown out, might have to pay whatever Samsung is going to claim as damages and you made a Korean mega-corp many times larger and closely tied to a not-so-democratic regime that has taken thousands up on thousands of western job as the sympathetic underdog.

    Maybe here is a hint for Apple, next time the lawyers suggest a strategy. Hit them!

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:denied with costs? by stainlesssteelpat · · Score: 4, Informative

      down here loser pays, they lost with costs.

      --
      War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley
    2. Re:denied with costs? by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not quite. Joo Joo was released March 25th 2010, whereas iPad was announced January 27th 2010.

      Joojoo was announced before the iPad. And it was released before the iPad. But it wasn't released before the iPad was announced.

      Note also that there's a qualitative difference between the Joojoo announcement and the iPad one. With the Joojoo announcement, there wasn't even a final look to the device for which they could show a picture. With the iPad announcement, the actual device was demonstrated live on stage.

      Joojoo was released 5 days before the iPad, but the look of it dated from after the iPad was demoed.

    3. Re:denied with costs? by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2, Funny

      MMO Quests are like orgasms:

      You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

      Hmm, maybe that's why I've always liked chain-quests.

    4. Re:denied with costs? by PaladinAlpha · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here's a JooJoo (then TechCrunch Tablet) prototype released April 9th, 2009. Take a look, and keep in mind the design patents Apple claims exclusive right to -- I would assert in public that Apple most likely copied the JooJoo, not the other way around.

    5. Re:denied with costs? by chrb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." - Bill Gates

      It wasn't that patenting wasn't allowed, it was just that nobody really understood how generic and obvious patents would be treated in the future. If I could time travel to 1995, I could tell myself to patent connecting a GPS receiver to a laptop and having it query a database running on a secondary server. That would now be called mobile geolocation services, and the patent would be worth billions of dollars. Similarly, at some point in the 90s, I had the idea of transferring executable objects as part of a client/server display. That would now be called a web applet, and again the patent would be worth billions.. If I had only known that adding the suffixes "on the web" or "on a mobile device" was a valid way to create new patents, then I would have patented "telephony... on [the web/mobile device]", "video... on [the web/mobile device]", "instant messaging... on [the web/mobile device]". But, back then, who knew that the system would turn out to be so crazy?!

    6. Re:denied with costs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Err, no, "X, but ON THE INTERNET" criticisms are directed on base claims of those patents, like "drag-n-drop slider changing program state on reaching one of the ends, but on a touchscreen"

    7. Re:denied with costs? by PaladinAlpha · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you're saying the lack of surface buttons is not significant, and that Apple should lose claims to that as a reason to sue?

      Of course it looks nothing like an iPad, because iPads didn't exist when this prototype was displayed. iPad wasn't announced until this flat, capacitive-touchscreen device, with no surface buttons and a relatively uniform bezel was announced, with an emphasis on being as thin and lightweight as possible. It was only after it was publicly demoed that Apple announced the iPad with several of the same design elements -- and a year later began suing people for using those same elements. (Oh, and falsifying legal documents.)

    8. Re:denied with costs? by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      Ah, so, the iPad doesn't have a bezel, it just has something exactly like a bezel?

      I'm not sure you understand what a bezel is. It's not the same thing as a border.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezel_setting
      Maybe if I say raised bezel, then we can communicate with clarity.

      And to claim that device is "curved" is ridiculous. Are you talking about the protrusion of the bezel?

      At that point I was talking about the curve away from the place of the screen. Though I did also refer to the fact that that picture of a Joojoo had a raised bezel and iPad doesn't have one.

      One innovated a product over the course of years with public prototypes culminating in a release.

      Well pictures of designs anyway.

      The other company demoed a derivative product two months before the first one's launch.

      iPad wasn't derivative. Joojoo in it's final incarnation was, as demonstrated by your picture and mine.

      Yet you seem to think it's more likely that the first company, after years of development, suddenly completely redid it's supply, production, and assembly in two months

      To tool up for mass manufacture of a product with custom components takes a long time. To create a small production with off the shelf components in a plastic case can take as little as 2-3 weeks. And Joojoo was a small production run.

      It's not that I seem to think it. The very series of prototypes of the Crunchpad/Joojoo proves it. You just don't want to believe it.

      Apple was no doubt 'inspired' by the Crunch Tablet

      You're either a fool or you're playing one.

      Oh, and regarding Apple's falsification of legal documents:
      Here, and here.

      Right, so out of a 44 page document featuring multiple images of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, one was in the wrong aspect ratio. And the one immediately following it showed the iPad and the Galaxy Tab side by side, with different aspect ratios.

      And you think that's a deliberate attempt at deception? You are playing the fool. As it says at the end of your first link:
      "Patent law blogger Florian Mueller told BBC News that attempting to deliberately mislead the court would have been extremely foolish, given possible criminal penalties.

      "I cannot imagine that any sane person would take a risk and intentionally manipulate evidence in this context.

      "With different product versions being sold on different continents, and different pictures showing up at different points in time, someone may have been confused, but that's the worst-case scenario I can realistically imagine here," he said.

      But thanks, observing the depths of desperation to which you will sink was indeed amusing.

  4. Would be funny if by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apple wastes a gazillion dollars trying to get the Galaxy tablet banned, and fail... only to find out later that Samsung kills the product themselves due to slow sales, a la HP Touchpad and RIM whatever

    1. Re:Would be funny if by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It'd be even more funny if that happened after Apple had been made to pay for millions in lost sales caused by the ban they requested.

    2. Re:Would be funny if by itsdapead · · Score: 2

      Apple wastes a gazillion dollars trying to get the Galaxy tablet banned, and fail... only to find out later that Samsung kills the product themselves due to slow sales, a la HP Touchpad and RIM whatever

      In that case, as long as Apple have already done enough to postpone the Touchpad-esque below-cost firesale until after Christmas, or maybe even until the iPad 3 appears, they can probably chalk up a net win.

      --
      In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  5. Tough break Apple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I guess you'll have to compete on quality product attributes now like features, support and other factors... You know... Fairly...

    Or maybe you still don't get it.

  6. Isn't it about time Xerox sued Apple? by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Lisa & Mac were total ripoffs of the stuff Jobs saw at Parc. How come Apple seem to think the rules on stealing ideas apply to everyone except themselves? Does being (allegedly) "cool" somehow make hypocrisy ok?

    1. Re:Isn't it about time Xerox sued Apple? by jo_ham · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nice rewrite of history.

      Apple paid for the use of Parc's innovations. They later had "seller's remorse" when they decided they should have asked Apple for more than what they got, but in classic style they didn't see the value in what they had, but felt entitled to try and change the terms of the deal afterwards.

      There was no "ripping off" of Parc technology - it was all shared in exchange for money/shares/compensation.

    2. Re:Isn't it about time Xerox sued Apple? by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "PARC was a ripoff of Engelbart's demo at SRI. "

      Englebert didn't invent the GUI and his demo didn't have one. Just the mouse. Which is hardware, not software.

      No idea. I don't know anything about that demo.

      "Linux is a ripoff of UNIX."

      Thats exactly what it is and its the reason I use it.

      "GNOME is a ripoff of Windows."

      Pretty much. So is KDE.

      "Nearly everything in computing is an incremental improvement from something else"

      There's incremental improvement and then there's direct copying. Its not the same.

      "Apple massively improved the desktop metaphor with the Lisa and Mac."

      Did they? Have you seen any Xerox Star demos? They're on youtube if you're interetsed.

      "WHICH APPLE PAID XEROX TO USE."

      NO THEY DIDN'T. Xerox *PAID* apple to buy apple stock. BIG difference.

      "This historical rewriting that occurs amongst Apple-haters"

      Ah , you're a fanboi. That explains the blinkers.

      "It paints you as a blinded zealot."

      Now there's a nice bit of irony. Perhaps the turtleneck is too tight and is cutting off blood to your brain so you can't see it.

    3. Re:Isn't it about time Xerox sued Apple? by khipu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How come Apple seem to think the rules on stealing ideas apply to everyone except themselves?

      Group think: if you talk to Apple employees, they really firmly believe that Apple invented it all. Steve Jobs's reality distortion field also applied to himself, as you can see from his over-the-top remarks on a "thermonuclear war on Android" (ironic given how much iPhone rips off from the people who created Android).

      And it's self-reinforcing because they keep getting away with it.

    4. Re:Isn't it about time Xerox sued Apple? by khipu · · Score: 2

      It's ok though -- no irony or hypocrisy. Since Android ripped off iOS, then any innovations that Android came up with only came about because the whole system was ripped off from iOS first,

      I can't tell, are you trying to be sarcastic or funny?

      For the record, Android did not rip off iOS. iOS ripped off Danger, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft, and a bunch of others. The AppStore, desktop sync for media and PIM data, the launcher, iCloud, notification bars, error correcting touch screen keyboards, mobile web browsing and highlighting of phone numbers, you name it, other phones and PDAs had it before Apple, often years earlier. In fact, several of the major features of the iPhone were pioneered by Android developers when they were at Palm and Danger. I can't think of any significant feature of iOS that Apple actually invented themselves. (They didn't even develop multitouch, although at least they paid for that one.)

  7. All this sillyness... by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IS caused by the Patent system.

    Honestly, all it does is stifle creativity. I made a square, you cant make a square too!

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  8. Re:Its not me rewriting history by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Xerox were "kindly" allowed to buy apple stock in return for letting apple engineers visit their research centre. Apple never directly paid for any of the innovations they used.

    Kindly allowed to buy at a reduced price. And if they hadn't sold the stock, it would be worth several billion dollars today.

  9. Re:Fr1st p0St by Mitchell314 · · Score: 2

    Frist Prost is actually an english phrase that means "I'm stupid" too. :P
    Stupid like the legal warfare shenanigans between idevice companies. And the companies themselves.

    --
    I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
  10. Re:Over in France by Mark19960 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because it's Florian, and yes - he is a troll.

  11. Misleading headline - not a total loss by Theaetetus · · Score: 2
    This was just Apple appealing the removal of the injunction against Samsung selling their tablets. The infringement case is still going on, however. The court merely ruled that if Samsung is found to infringe, monetary damages would be an appropriate remedy, so a total and preemptive ban on sales is unnecessary.

    Really, injunctions are - and should be - rare. This was not unexpected, and really doesn't affect the infringement suit much.

  12. FFS, is this idiot week? by Viol8 · · Score: 2

    The shares cost Apple NOTHING to hand over. And for that NOTHING they got *paid* AND got access to Xerox's research! Whether the shares would be worth a billion by now is irrelevant, they still cost apple NOTHING.

    It was a typical Jobs style business deal:

    "You give me money and access to all your research and I'll give you this bit of paper which might or might not be worth something in the future".

    1. Re:FFS, is this idiot week? by Raenex · · Score: 2

      The shares cost Apple NOTHING to hand over.

      Do you understand how shares work? They are a percentage of the company. Every percentage you give away is less you own yourself. You said Jobs stole from Xerox, but the facts are Xerox willingly entered a business deal. That Xerox couldn't profit from their own technology and gave the store away is their fault.

  13. not funny at all by khipu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given how fast the Android market is evolving, Samsung only had a few months to make a profit on the 10.1. Apple killed that window of opportunity with their injunction. Now, newer and better tablets are already out.

    Apple lost the case but they hurt Samsung badly. Apple should be made to pay for the harm they did to Samsung. And Apple may have opened themselves up to similar claims against them in the future, as other companies will now start to take out silly design patents as well and use them against Apple product launches.

  14. Re:Samsung Loses Phone Battle in France, Italy Nex by dell623 · · Score: 2

    That was expected though, it was a nothing to lose shot from Samsung.

  15. Re:Over in France by dell623 · · Score: 2

    Florian Muller unapologetically pushes his agenda, and makes no attempt to be fair and unbiased. Which wouldn't be an issue if his views weren't so widely aired, because he is a self proclaimed expert who sends his blog entries to hundreds of media outlets and websites.

    Some examples of how he bends the truth: http://twitter.com/#!/FLOGSPatents

  16. Enjoy your Striesand Effect, Apple by Rogerborg · · Score: 2

    Look, Sheila, that's one of those Samsung doodads that's so good that Apple tried to have it banned.

    You can't buy that kind of publicity.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.