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German Court Issues Injunction Against iPhone & iPad
angry tapir writes "A German court has ruled that Apple's iPhone and iPad devices infringe a Motorola patent and issued an injunction against sales of the products in Germany, in the latest move in a long series of legal battles between the companies. It's the latest stage in the international patent conflict that's been raging over mobile devices, which has included the recent Samsung victory over Apple in an Australian court and a defeat for Samsung in a Dutch court."
I'd put my cynical money on them finding some way to reform the patent system that only really benefits large companies while still screwing over individuals, small businesses, and free software developers, but I do hope you're right.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If it was not yet obvious to someone that patents and litigation do more damage to free commerce than blatant and slavish copying, the abyss of ridiculosity that ha ensued in the wake of the recent Apple vs. * and * vs. Apple cases should have proved it once and for all with vengeance. Alas, the business leaders of the world and their political clients will continue to be oblivious to the issues. In the meantime, Florian Mueller and the rest of them patent "experts" rub hands in satisfaction in the background.
The poetic part is that they fired the first shot, with Samsung. Will be fun to watch where the dominos end up.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Well, let's see, the tally so far.
Apple is blocked from selling iPad and iPhone.
Samsung is blocked selling their tablets and phones elsewhere.
Now with a little luck within a year or two no-one is allowed to sell any smartphone or tablet anywhere in the world.
The winners will be: the Chinese manufacturers who don't care about patents and copyrights, who will just continue to produce, and sell their products all over the world on the grey markets at rock-bottom prices.
Works for me.
Marconi vs Telsa was also ridiculous, as was Edison against a lot of people. The US patent system has degenerated a lot since that time instead of improving.
teach your children how the system really is, not how they want you to think it is. (note, this be challenging as everyone is going to fight you on this, schools and everyone else 'in charge').
then hope that by the time they have power and are in control of things, they remember the lessons you taught them and they can make changes.
its absolutely hopeless for our generation. but the next one, maybe. maybe. IF we teach them how bad the current one is and stop covering it up and sugarcoating (disney-ing, to so speak) it.
I was brougth up with the myth that mr policeman is there to help and mr government man is, also. both are blatant lies and it took me decades to learn the real truth. I'd like to hope that the next generation might actually learn from OUR mistakes and make things better.
but for us, right now, nothing will change. inertia is too great. big bodies in motion keep going in their same directions.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
dies by the sword.
Apple will soon learn.
Ever wonder why you see so few patent lawsuits from IBM relative to their portfolio? IBM uses their portfolio like a scalpel. Apple has uses theirs like a shotgun.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
No reform required. That's exactly how it works now. The small guy holding a patent cannot afford to enforce it against the big guys. Even a small guy that would eventually win, with damages and costs awarded, has to stump up the costs in advance from a cash flow that typically cannot sustain it.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
No, this does not serve Apple right. This doesn't even come close to the damage and harm Apple has caused through their legal actions of these sorts. For them to be served right, the public would have to stop buying iThings for at least long enough for Apple to notice.
The linked article refers to Florian Mueller as a patent expert. What exactly constitutes one?
When it comes to this particular case, this "expert" predicted Motorola's doom by fronting the ideas that it (Motorola), was suing over what he termed as "standards essential" and therefore "weak" attack or defense patents.
No wonder he sounds humbled by this development on his blog.
This is just a recapitulation of what happened when wireless tech was ramping up in the first few decades of the 20th century. The patent wars were nasty, brutal, and long enough to put an entire generation of lawyers' kids through college.
Nothing changed. It won't change this time, either, because there are more lawyers at the controls of the US government today than there ever have been.
That's basically what it is - a war, just fought in global courtrooms instead of global hills and fields, and fought with lawsuits and injunctions instead of artillery and carpet-bombing.
I have to say, I strongly prefer this kind of war.
If we wait for our children to take up the fight, we will wait forever. As children grow, our generation will replace our parents as "the ones in charge", and we will oppress them and keep them from the halls of power the same way the previous generations do now. It is a cycle without end, unless we say WE are the generation to make change, and act on it. If that isn't enough to get you active, consider this: while we wait for our children to somehow rise up, we let everyone harmed by the current state of the world suffer.
I think it's way too soon to see Apple as defeated when just yesterday there was an article about some third company suing everyone except Apple for patent infringement. This is far from over, and the way I see it, Apple will use their deep pockets to drown smaller vendors until there's no option left but to compensate Apple with their assets and declare bankruptcy. Don't forget that currently Apple has enough live money to buy 2 Nokias or 7 Samsungs.
Patents are supposed to work the same all over the world.
Why?
Because 1) they are supposed to fully and clearly describe an invention, so testing whether another machine uses a certain invention doesn't leave much grey area, and 2) they're based on international agreements.
Note that I say "supposed", I know it's idealising and that practice leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Yet in practice if a patent is found to be infringed upon in one country, very likely other countries' courts will come to the same conclusion.
WWII destroyed the British Empire, handed about half the human race over to communists where they couldn't compete with Western manufacturers and destroyed most of Europe's industrial production capacity. America benefited massively from the war because it was left with no real competition and the only large-scale manufacturing capacity in the West.
America was a remote party of the war, like they are now in Iraq and Afghanistan. It costs heaps of money, leaves the target in tatters, but nothing much happens on home soil. Same for WWII: there were no bombardments of US cities, no US bridges blown up, few US merchant vessels sunk. Compare that to the European countries.
Like now if Samsung and Apple (aka Germany and the other European countries) kill off each other, Google (aka US) maybe chipping in as secondary party getting hurt on the sidelines but not in their cores, parties like Google and of course all other manufacturers see two major competitors gone, opening up a huge market potential for them.
Most of the people in power are those that vigorously sought it out.
Those people are almost always those who want power to have power, not to wield it for the greater good, justice, or compassion.
These, of course, are the worst people to have that power.
So even if you raise a generation of 99.9% kind and caring people, 90% of the positions of power will belong to that power grubbing remainder.
The only way to change that is either eliminate all positions of power, find a means to ensure that would be power mongers can never attain it, or somehow alter humanity itself so there is no such thing as a desire for power. Honestly, I don't think any of those will ever happen, though I can imagine a dictatorial situation where all the power is held by one small group so no-one else can attain any power, but that just eliminates competition, not the problem.
(And yes, I dream of a utopia where the would be politicians and such can never obtain the power they crave because they are considered unfit for the job, but the problem with utopians is that even science fiction writers don't believe in the possibility of a utopia being real.)
Of course this whole thing with Apple is the result of a pissing contest it looks like they started. Guess they are going to have much bigger problems if the wind keeps shifting direction. (Patenting a flat rectangle that's black with beveled edges. What moron let that through?)
My colleague always says: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."
-- Cheers!
That's mostly because Apple filed suit having never paid for a license in the first place. Seems reasonable to me, I'm not sure how precisely making somebody pay above and beyond the standard royalties in a case like this isn't fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory. Apple could have avoided it by paying the licensing fee at the time or by not suing.
I'm not personally sure I understand how charging somebody that just filed suit against oneself isn't fair or reasonable.
And again Apple fanboys come up with stupid "they're FRAND, that means Apple can do whatever it wants with them".
Nope, Apple should have secured the license before starting to produce iPhone. Instead they said "Screw it" and later proposed to Motorola "We'll generously pay you standard rate and in exchange you don't sue us for past offense".
When you see "expert" where you expect "lawyer", "engineer", "doctor" and so on, it's a sure sign of incoming bullshit.
> The dimensions are the same
Yeah, after Apple lawyers photoshopped them to match, not in real life.
> the look is the same
Except for all the parts that aren't.
> the chargers and cables are the same
Now after previous two these is just straw-grabbing.
> the packaging is the same
Or as it says in that original pic "You open the box, and you see... [the product front]". Shocking. No one thought about it before.
> They even stole Apple artwork and used it on the walls of their retail stores
You mean "Some electronics retail shop in Italy, which has Samsung section, decorated walls with all kind of icons, including Google's and Apple's"
I didn't think there were still Apple apologists who still hang on to that "OMG DEFINITE PROOF" pic.
> that Google's patent acquisitions were purely for defensive purposes. Well, Motorola is now seeking injunctions
How's countersuing is not defensive? What constitutes "defensive purposes" then?
Slashdot historically has had a bias against things that are popular...
Not really. It is more a bias against evil.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Because Apple is a huge, influential player now after the success of the iPhone, Slashdot has decided that they don't like Apple anymore
No, I think most people here have always hated Apple - they are the Fisher-Price of consumer electronics. We do not hate them because they are popular, we hate them because their products are garbage yet they market them as if they are gold, and some people buy into it.
AccountKiller
In his defense, the LCD's, nand, and processors are the same. Of course that's because they are all made by Samsung.
Slashdot has decided that they don't like Apple
Yes everyone but you.
Slashdot discussion has become so boring in the last few years. Even the trolls used to be more interesting. Unfortunately, because Slashdot's news posting is so behind everyone else's
But here you'll stay, continually posting because the reality is that you don't really believe what you wrote there, if you did then that would mean you believe the whole community is trolling you but you just don't have the mental ability to resist responding and continually posting. So we will keep seeing posts from bonch because he just can't leave, even though he believes he's being trolled he just can't help but respond.
You seem to have strange ideas about very large parts of the European economy.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Won't happen and here is why: cross licensing. Look at AMD and Nvidia, or Intel and AMD for examples. even when they are at each others throats they never revoked their cross licenses and you know why? Because it makes a hellish barrier of entry for everybody else. imagine if anybody could make an X86 CPU, or a GPU for that matter, you'd probably go back to the days of WinChip and Cyrix and having tons of free choice. but of course that would mean the two or three competitors we have now wouldn't be splitting the pie between themselves and a two way pie is a hell of a lot bigger than a five way pie, so they'll just sit their lawyers down at a table and cross license.
Mark my words Apple will play their "look and feel" game for awhile longer and then they'll finally, after a couple of legal spankings, sit down and cross license. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if you see Apple and MSFT get together with a cross license to 'fucking kill Google" as that is one thing they both seem to agree on if Jobs rants were true. But you get the big players to cross license you have put up a toll booth so expensive nobody with less than Warren Buffet money has a prayer in hell, and even if they take a shot they'll be tied up in court for a decade or maybe two because it doesn't really cost MSFT nor Apple squat. Any fines they get could be payed with the change in the couch compared to how much they make owning the market..
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The ball on this started rolling BECAUSE of Steve Jobs
Exactly. Instead of pissing away millions of dollars on legal fees and douche bag lawyers, Apple should put the money towards improving their products and getting even farther ahead of the "we're all copying Apple anyway" competition.
Motorola successfully argued that they did not have to license a FRAND patent to Apple unless Apple paid damages above and beyond the cost of the standard FRAND license rate issued to everyone else for 'past' infringement
That seems eminently sensible to me. Otherwise, what would be the disincentive for ignoring FRAND licenses? If what you seem to endorse was the case, and I was a new startup, I'd just ignore FRAND patents for as long as I could. When I finally got called on it, it'd be no worse for me - and I'd have had all those years longer with my money, and kept costs down during the delicate phase of launching a new product.
If all the courts could do was require standard payment, why would anyone, ever pay for FRAND patents without being compelled to by the court?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
The police, in 99% of cases, ARE there to help. Just like in any profession, there are bad apples, and they spoil the bunch.
They'd also be a lot less paranoid and twitchy if there weren't so many of you "fuck the police" assholes.
There are so many "fuck the police" rationalists, because:
And finally, even if you were wholly right, and it's standoff between assholes and a police force with a few bad apples, it's the police who have power, so it is incumbent upon them to make the first step to change the situation.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
astroturfer, and troll tied into one? Come on, Phanboi - how long has Motorola been around? How long has Motorola been making radio devices? Go on, look at their history - then come back and tell us that Apple hasn't intentionally aped a single Motorola feature.
Oh, as for those "industry trends" that you cite? The trends these day favor Asian manufacturers. Blame Apple, among hundreds of other major US corporations, for having outsourced everything they could outsource. Face it, if you're training Asians to do all your work, and you're NOT training any Americans or Europeans, then you're actively promoting Asian growth while inhibiting American and European growth.
I don't feel sorry for Apple, or any other company that has been exploiting Asian labor markets. Fuck 'em all.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Thickness, bezel size, screen size, etc. are determined by available technology, but within that range, Samsung has made different choices (7" tablets, 4.5" and 5" phones, wide screen, horizontal setup, front cameras, etc.). Low-waste packaging was an upcoming trend. The appearance of innovation in those areas results from Apple being able to beat other companies to market by a few months, mainly because of better supply chain management, because of excellent execution, and because they charge a premium.
You are right that Apple's success with touch-only phones made those kinds of devices much more popular than they would otherwise have been, and other manufacturers have responded. But no company should be able to own a fad. In fact, I find it annoying that there aren't more hardware designs. And most of the design aspect that were not driven by technology or environment are aspects that Apple ripped off from others. There is almost nothing original in either the iPhone or the iPad.
And we have reason to be as far as Apple is concerned: the company has ripped off the tech community for 30 years, claiming ideas and technologies as their own that they didn't invest a cent in developing. They have ripped off their partners and their software developers, they have made DRM widespread not just for music but for apps, and they outsource almost everything to low-cost labor in Asia. And now they are trying to monopolize the market further by using sleazy patent tactics in order to prevent others from doing what they have been doing for decades.
Yes, we're bitter as far as Apple is concerned: the company needs to be stopped, or the US computer industry and US computer nerds are in big trouble. And anybody who takes them on in court and fights them gets my cheers and my support.
disagree (and I'm not an Apple fanboi BTW). I think people here hate Apple becuase of their closed-in attitude. You buy an iPod and you only (effectively) can access it with approved Apple stuff. You buy a iPhone and you're locked into their store, etc etc etc.
We have to give Apple credit for kickstarting the whole smartphone industry and changing the world. You have to give them credit for popularising GUI interfaces and similar.
You also have to criticise them for the lock in and overpricing though, but their products aren't garbage (or no-one would keep buying them).