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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."
Maybe if _all_ the big players suffer enough then there will actually be some support for real patent reform.
(Not to mention of course that it's nice to see Apple get nailed after all the patent crap they've pulled on others.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
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.
Will be fun to watch where the dominos end up.
fallen....like a house of cards....checkmate.
Slammed ...
Even better considering that apple was caught flogging off their patents to a patent troll, hoping to hurt as many "competitors" as possible.
Every article written will hopefully include all the stories together to paint the apple darling in a new light.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/09/apple-made-a-deal-with-the-devil-no-worse-a-patent-troll/
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. "
Won't work. Apple will sue as they own the colour white as well.
Begun, the phone wars have.
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.
I thought the poetic part was that the German economy was the only one in the Euro where people might actually be able to afford an iPhone/Pad.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
the article is idiocy and so is your comment.
We have the fact that apple already tried to sue Motorola over the xoom. This is just the response, which was done well before google acquired motorola.
The "Google" Action will be if/what we see from google as a result of this reflecting on them going forward, which could be entirely nothing.
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.
It's obvious to anyone with common sense viewing Samsung's designs that Samsung is deliberately aping Apple's designs.
oh yes because this design of Samsung's from 2006, before the ipad, looks nothing like this, you'd have to be an idiot to think those look the same wouldn't you :P
At this rate, nobody will be able to buy a handheld tablet until sometime the 22nd century, and then it will have to be trapezoidal in shape, no multi-touch and nothing resembling a screen on one side and a back on the other.
But at least by then it will almost certainly be all open source, hardware and software, because if the human race is going to survive to the 22nd century, it will only be because we've finally jettisoned the obsolete notion of patents and copyrights.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> 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?
"Patent troll" usually means "non-practicing entity", not "anyone who sues on patent grounds".
Like, you know, that Digitude Innovation who recently got some patents from Apple to sue everyone with.
Unlike Motorola, who got sued for Xoom, and now sues Apple in retaliation.
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.
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.
Not to mention we already went through this in the states with them over 20+ years ago. Anybody remember "look and feel"? because that is pretty much EXACTLY what we are talking about here. Just as with look and feel Apple is claiming that generic thing A plus generic thing B equals patentable and makes about as much sense as saying "Well you can build a car with square wheels, or motorcycle handlebars, but you build a car with round wheels and a steering wheel that's mine". There isn't a damned thing on the iPad that wasn't done somewhere else first. grid of iCons? Palm. Squarish tablet? Samsung and Sony and Toshiba ALL had WinTablets with the same dimensions they just weighed more. Touch screens? older than dirt. the only thing I'd give Apple is the gestures although even with those i'd want to compare them to the gestures Opera had back in the day before i'd issue a patent.
Personally I predicted this would happen when Jobs died. like it or not apple has always been "The house that Jobs built" and just like before without a dictator running the shop and putting their foot down things break down over there. I predict they'll file more lawsuits trying to hang onto what they have, but there won't be anymore of those "holy shit, where'd THAT come from?" brand new hot products just popping out of Apple. Again like him or not you had to give the man credit, as Jobs had a vision of what he wanted and stuck with it, but I just haven't seen anything from Cook to make me think he has that same overarching vision. Instead just like under the pepsi guy they'll just be updating existing lines while suing like crazy trying to hold onto share.
They probably have one or two at the max products left in the wings from Jobs tenure, after that I bet the well runs dry.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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 AND part means that Apple, if they were to licence it, should pay exactly the same amount as HTC, Nokia, etc.
Basically, what happened is this: Motorola found out Apple has not licensed this patent. As this is a FRAND patent, Apple could avoid the suit if they tried to negotiate a fair deal to license the patent.
Apple said "OK, but you can't sue us for damages from past infringement, we're gonna pay same rate for past".
Motorola said "Na-ah" and went to court.
Judge said "You've got caught infringing, so it's fair to demand extra for the time when you was breaking the law" and decided that was not a fair deal, so FRAND defense didn't work.
I think it was even done by ancient greek : democraty by lottery. Any adult at 20 is forced to pass a small test (nothing great, and certainly the test must not be allowed to filter out the population majority, only that you can count, basic litteracy stuff, and mental healthy, aka no life breaking psychose). Once the test is good, you are OK for the next 40 years to be in the lottery (forced in the lottery). Then each 4 or 5 years at election, a college of people is elected at random under hefty surveillance that no cheating happen with sheets of paper thrown at random and taken out for each seats of representative. Then those people are given a 2 or 3 hours refresher on constitutionality of law, the constitution , bill of rights etc... After that they are thrown in to vote for laws. For the next 30 years after their investiture they are looked at by tax, law representative, anti corruption team, whatnot to make sure there is no "gift" coming after their investiture.
There would still be cheating and corruption, but it would be a tad bit more difficult than with the elected pigs aristocraty we have right now.
Another solution would be that laws are not anymore voted by representative, but open for the whole folk to vote for/against electronically.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
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).
Cars are not allowed design patents or copyrights; Neither does the fashion industry. Transportation & Clothing are "too utilitarian". I'm having a hard time in this day and age NOT classifying computing devices as utilitarian.
I mean: I wan REQUIRED to use a computer to get tax forms -- They were out of stock. I could have filed an extension, but now you're just being silly. College kids are REQUIRED to use computers for learning -- In fact, I had to repair my 12 year old nephew's computer SO HE COULD DO HOMEWORK (he attends US public school). There are no pay phones in a 10 mile radius of my home (where most accidents are said to occur), I must have a mobile cellular computing device (even feature phones run Java!). I've seen government subsidization for cellular phones, and talk of Internet access being a "human right" akin to having access to water. Even if you do not argee today that computing devices are utilitarian, you will soon (this, or you'll be too dead to care).
Before you point out the fallacy that access to this technology is not NEEDED to live, I would direct you to examine 3rd world countries which are rapidly adopting my views. Furthermore, You could live without toothpaste, agriculture, CLOTHING, or AUTOMOBILES as well, this does not mean these things are not utilitarian.
We don't have to get rid of technology design, hardware & software copyright & patents altogether, just do so for consumer electronics -- People need to be free. The market will survive, indeed the fashion industry and automotive industries are some of the most successful yet least protected by copyright & patents. Trademark law still applies, which is just enough to keep counterfeit knockoffs off the shelves.
THIS IS THE INFORMATION AGE. Would you not agree stone tools were utilitarian in the stone age? Would you not agree iron tools were also in the iron age? Automobiles were revolutionary once, and are utilitarian now. Computing was revolutionary once, and now is as commonplace as any essential advancement has become in the past.