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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."
Why is it that the most popular girl at the dance is usually the biggest douchebag?
I've seen this behaviour time and again, if it's pretty or popular, it's easier to let all manner of misdeeds slide.
Apple begins a very anti-competitive, design infringement lawsuit against everyone. Samsung fights back to try and protect it's market share. Samsung gets investigated for anti-competitive behaviour.
Popular kid abuses geek, geek fights back, geek gets sent to the principals office. WTF!?
I expected (not accepted) this sort of blatant ignorance then, but when it comes to an entire governing body (excuse my ignorance of EU policy) this sort of nonsense should not be tolerated.
Isn't there some manner of oversight for something like this.
If my son were to insult another student repeatedly, without offending the teacher, that later resulted in said student having a violent outburst, not only would my son be brought up on bullying charges (legit in my state), but so would the teacher for ignoring the bullying.
But corporations are fully allowed to do this without repercussion.
That upsets me.
Shame on them.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
Galaxy Tab 10.1 is slimmer, lighter, has a higher res camera, a better screen and longer battery life than IPad 2. Oh, its also cheaper, and unlike iPad 2, can be bought "as is", without being tied to a mandatory 12/24 month dataplan, as is the case with iPad 2 where I live. I don't think Galaxy Tab is a shameless copy of iPad 2. I think that it is a significantly BETTER product that happens to look somewhat similar to iPad 2 (then again, all tablet computers look a lot like each other). Apple is suing because Samsung has produced a superior Tablet Computer. And some crappy court in Germany has decided to uphold this stupid claim. Galaxy Tab is the better tablet of the two, and Apple - being its typical agressive, domineering self - is suing to keep Korean Samsung's superior product out of people's hands, so they have have to go and buy an iPad 2 instead.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
The 10.1 is banned while the 10.1N is allowed.
http://www.mobile88.com/gen/news/articles/2011/11/21/_11212011125638.jpg
Talk about marginal court decisions. If you put a protective case on it, no one could tell the difference. Lawyers for the win!
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
all energy left my body in an instant.
Wow, that means you must be a really cool guy.
Ezekiel 23:20
Tablet nothing, they invented the rectangular computing device. No computing device from here on may be rectangular in shape for that shape is owned by Apple.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Except that Apple chose to ignore licensing the 3G F/RAND patents for the first several years of the existence of the iPhone, and is now complaining to the courts that they should just be able to pay the same fees that everyone else gets.
So, if this plays out in Apple's favor, the logical end result is that it's the wiser thing for everybody to NEVER license F/RAND patents; worst case for them is that years down the road they might get sued and have to pay the same thing they would have paid anyway, best case is that nobody notices/bothers to take them to court and they get away with it without paying anything.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Apple was fully prepared to pay FRAND licensing. Samsung was being the douchebag by trying to essentially extort a cross licensing agreement with Apple to use patents covered under FRAND. Apple rightfully refused to bend over. Samsung had ZERO right to change the rules. Apple let the case run its course through the court system until it was agreed that Samsung was in the wrong for pulling such a stunt.
So don't try to spin this story in a way that makes it sound like Apple was trying to purposely avoid paying FRAND. They were fully prepared to pay since day one. Samsung was just being a whiny little bitch that thought it could get ahead by extortion.
Except that Apple chose to ignore licensing the 3G F/RAND patents for the first several years of the existence of the iPhone, and is now complaining to the courts that they should just be able to pay the same fees that everyone else gets.
Sort of... but not really. Almost none of the big players pay standard F/RAND patent fees. In almost all cases Samsung (or other holders of equivalent licenses) cuts a side deal where in exchange for the fees being waived or lowered Samsung gets to cross-license other patents. Nokia and Motorola do similar things with standards based on their patents. This is business as usual.
So it was a hell of shock when Apple came to market with a completely new product without having ever approached the license holders to set up this sort of agreement. It was just assumed that any company would prefer to do a licensing agreement than pay the standard fees. It had never even crossed their minds that Apple would (or could) just pay the fees up front instead. It's one of the reasons you hear people talking about Apple bringing the iPhone to market before they had negotiated the licenses. Apple didn't need to negotiate anything because standard F/RAND licenses are automatic, the same way you don't need to negotiate before accepting the GPL license on a piece of software. It's just that everyone does negotiate for a better deal in exchange for concessions. Apple didn't ignore the F/RAND licensing, they ignored Samsung's attempts to refuse payment and cut an alternate deal.
And Sumsung doesn't want the license fee. They would much rather have Apple's patent and IP concessions. So they are in the position of trying to force Apple not to accept the publicly available license terms. That's why they are getting their knuckles rapped by the courts here. No different than if a company that released their code under the GPL and then started trying to sue companies who were using it according to the license. Doesn't matter what the other company might have done to provoke them, it's still not going to fly in front of a judge.
Except they did pay Xerox, and even hired some of the engineers who led the way on PARC's GUI initiatives. Don't reinvent history.
The CB App. What's your 20?
No, Apple thinks they are special and want to pay the publicly stated license terms. Samsung wants them to do what everyone else does and cut a side deal that waives license fees in exchange for patent and IP cross-licensing.
Take a look at this Samsung product. Obviously a rip-off of the iPad, right? Except Samsung released it in 2006, four years before the iPad.
There are certain basic concepts which recur over and over in product designs. Black looks good, certain things look better flat rather than curved, make the flat thing shiny for bonus points, a border around the main area of focus (screen/photo) helps isolate it from the background, a chrome/metal trim along the edge makes a good highlight. The only thing that's changed is that suddenly Apple is claiming that they own these basic age-old design concepts and nobody else is allowed to use them in certain types of new products.
Whats the matter? You stiff?
NO SIG
That's the rear of a different Samsung digital picture frame. I wasn't able to find pictures of the rear of the 2006 model, but here's the rear of the 2008 version (in white). As you can see, aside from the stand poking out the back, the relative thickness, and radius of the curvature, it looks very much like the original iPad.
Anyhow, the point wasn't that Samsung had released an iPad before the iPad. The point was that the design elements Apple is claiming ownership of in tablet-space were widely used long before the iPad existed.
What is a tablet supposed to look like? A tire iron? I can easilly tell the difference between a galaxy, and an ipad, with my eyes closed.
Furthermore, Apple did not "invent" rectangles, icons, or rounded corners.
Apple offered to pay FRAND licensing for only some of Samsung's patents, and only covering devices sold in the Netherlands where the case was being heard. That doesn't sound like fully prepared to me. And having made a cross licensing deal with Nokia a few months before, as well as paying Nokia a premium for access to their FRAND patents, who is being the douchebag now by refusing to do the same deal with other phone manufacturers? Cross licensing is what keeps technology moving forward. Taking your toys and going home is good for nobody in the long run.