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Judge Suggests Apple, Motorola Should Play Nice

Posted by samzenpus on from the keep-your-litigation-to-yourself dept.

sl4shd0rk writes "Federal Judge Richard Posner seems to be a man who gets the screwed up patent system in the U.S. As Apple pressed for more injunctions against Motorola regarding alleged patent infringement, Judge Posner has stressed the two companies should just 'get along' and pay each other royalties. A jury trial set to start last week was cancelled when Posner ruled that neither side could prove damages, and grilled Apple's legal team saying an injunction against Motorola would be 'contrary to the public interest.' Furthermore, as Apple tried to plead its injunction case concerning four patents, Posner called the U.S. patent system 'chaos' and said an order barring the sale of Motorola phones could have 'catastrophic effects.'"

2 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Catastrophe theory by blackest_k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is a massive supply chain and investment that goes into the production of these shiny toys. That is the catastrophe when all of a sudden you can't bring your product to market. That investment can become a massive loss.

    Any company that uses lawyers to ban competing products is going to get a bad reputation and damage their own sales.

    Is an iPad such a bad product that it can not compete with a Samsung tablet? If I want a Samsung tablet and I can't buy it because of Apple, I really don't think I will buy an iPad instead. I probably will buy a different tablet from a different manufacturer.

    I may well refuse to buy Apple products in general due to their interference manipulating what I can buy.

    Change the company names and the products to suit your own preferences, it doesn't really matter who's manipulating markets through court rooms. They deserve to lose sales due to their tactics.

    Products should compete on their merits not on legal technicalities where 2 engineering teams solved similar problems, independently of each other.

    --
    Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  2. Re:Finally by Merk42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Catastrophic effects are good. That will lead to changes in the patent systems which will benefit everyone...

    You're assuming that second part would happen...