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German Appeals Court Confirms Galaxy Tab 10.1 Ban
New submitter Killer Panda sends word that a German Appeals Court has upheld the injunction prohibiting sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany. Apple convinced lower courts to issue and uphold the injunction last year by making the case that Samsung's devices "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad. "Samsung, which is Apple's supplier as well as a competitor, has been trying to have the German decision overturned while also seeking other means to fight Apple. It redesigned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for the German market only and named it Galaxy Tab 10.1N to get around the sales ban. Apple challenged the reworked version but a German court last month rejected Apple's claims in a preliminary judgment." The European Union announced some more bad news for Samsung: they'll be investigating the company to see whether its use of patent lawsuits is illegally hindering other companies' use of standardized 3G technology. "Under EU patent rules, a company that holds patents for standardized products is required to license them out indiscriminately at a fair price."
On the one hand, Samsung is getting nailed because they are using pretty standard tablet/smartphone user interfaces that Apple claims ownership of.
On the other hand, they're in trouble because they're not allowed to claim whole and full ownership of certain standard 3G technologies.
Not really... Apple's only claiming the specific design of the iPad, which the Galaxy Tab is confusingly similar to. Apple even noted that tablets could be designed in lots of non-infringing ways, and gave examples like the Archos. The Tab 10.1N was even designed to incorporate those suggestions, which is why the courts have said it doesn't infringe.
Samsung, on the other hand, apparently helped create a standard while holding back key patents from the licensing pool. That's a no-no.
The fact is, many of apple's legal claims have been upheld by a multitude of courts in all sort of jurisdictions. Perhaps it's not patent trolling after all? Perhaps Samsung is the real offender here, and is getting pwned around the world because of it.
I think at is point we can apply occham's razor.
Why is it that the most popular girl at the dance is usually the biggest douchebag?
If you're going to use that analogy, make it accurate. The most popular girl made it well known what dress she would be wearing to the dance, and then another girl blatantly and deliberately wears the same dress to the same dance. Popular girl seems justified in bitch-slapping the copycat.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
...makes it sound like Apple was trying to purposely avoid paying FRAND
Yes; this is because that is what they were trying to do.
Just like they never paid Xerox for thieving their original GUI ideas 25 years ago; now they wont pay Samsung for thieving their 3G ideas too. They prefer to pay lawyers instead of innovators.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes