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Apple Loses Bid For Emergency Ban On HTC Phone Imports
New submitter tukang writes "The US International Trade Commission has rejected an emergency request by Apple to detain some HTC phones (including the One X and EVO 4G) at the border while the agency investigates Apple's claims of patent infringement. In May, HTC's phone shipment was held up at the border and was only allowed to pass after U.S. Customs and Border Protection received assurances that HTC worked around Apple patents, a claim which Apple disputes."
Apple isn't behaving well but they still have a long way to go to reach Microsoft levels of evil.
I mean, MS included a BROWSER in their OS. ...and they didn't even give you a way to uninstall it! Now THAT is pure evil.
An emergency claim of patent infringement, surely calling it an "emergency" is taking the piss. Was someone's life or health in danger or just someone's bottom line.
There should be some punishment for misusing patent law and the ITC/courts like this. Perhaps the court should ban the plaintiffs competing product for 6-12 months when an allegation is found to be false...
But if that happened, Apple would just find another legal loophole to exploit I suppose.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"The patent covers a system to detect telephone numbers in e-mails so, when the number on the screen is tapped, they can be stored in directories or called without dialing."
I can understand legitimate complaints about patent infringement. I can even almost understand some of the complaints Apple puts forth against Android devices. While I don't necessarily feel they should be winning the cases, I feel that they're at least operating within the system. My issue is with situations like this, where they're pressing for bans when the situation isn't even decided yet. They're just pressing to hurt the competitors as much as possible without actually having to prove foul play.
Smuggling phones!
It will be like Prohibition, revisited. Rich folks will have the best phones at parties, like they used to have the best booze during Prohibition.
Will Elliot Ness triumph over Al Capone this time . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Reading the list sounds pretty incredible. Given Android is based on Linux...and OSX is based on Linux so presumably iOS must have a huge slab of similar stuff inside it, isn't this all utterly ludicrous? Surely there must be a massive crossover in ideas here by pure chance in any case?
Am I the only one that wonders why no one is screaming antitrust? I guess Apple feels safe having the USPO fight their battles. I can see this ending badly for Apple down the road if they keep it up.
getting totally stupid! Patents were never meant to be used to try to kill competition. And all of the patents that (Cr)apple is suing over are invalid. There is tons (literally!) of prior art for all of them, not to mention that software patents and business method patents should not exist. (Cr)apple needs to be put out of business permantly for its extreme abuse of patents and court systems!!
That's for sure.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
I'll only spend money on a smartphone made by a company that does not litigate frivolously.
(Not holding my breath on this one.)
Well, with Jimmy Darmody gone, maybe Nucky Thompson will make it!
patents used to kill competition.
Apple is surely looking at its sales figures and is seeing them drop due to better phones than iPhone (HTC One and Samsung Galaxy series). Also the iPad, IMHO, is nothing than a BIG iPhone...
There are a lot of products out there that do the same thing and I think Apple is making claims I think are ridiculous... It would be almost like claiming I cannot a handle to open my apartment's door because someone has already patented it...
Apple is trying to do in court what it cannot do in the market...
Given the recent "1 million Android devices activated daily" statistic, I assume they're using the bathroom-related definition of "emergency"; that is to say, "we're crapping ourselves".
Try building your crap in the US. It takes a hell of a lot more effort (and actual evidence presented in a real live US court as opposed to a shadowy meeting with a "committee" of one guy) to have a domestically produced product impounded, than to convince the largely unregulated and capricious CBP to impound something ill-defined.
Domestic fireworks: Okay. Foreign candies with toys inside: Banned.
Domestic hardcore humiliation porn: Okay. Foreign Playboys: Banned.
Domestic overpriced mislabeled antidepressants marketed at kids: Okay. Foreign 100% legit heart meds for 1/10th the price: Banned.
I don't consider myself a bit "HuAH, Made in America" fan, but hey, nice to have someone employed capable of buying your crappy phones, eh?
the US government had dozens and dozens of things they could have sued Microsoft for doing, which you mentioned, but what did they actually choose as charges?
"Browser bundling". Not only can you not explain this to the ordinary person on the street ( or on a jury ) , it is actually kind of offensive to people with some experience in the technology industry. Honestly, why in the @#$ should they be banned from putting a browser on their machine - does that mean Ubuntu cant, or Apple cant?
it was a royal foul up by the Clinton administration especially Janet Reno.
Seems to me like the only real innovation at Apple is in their legal department.
They'll be back, and in greater numbers.
now claim that Apple's patents are invalid or that they do not infringe them.
In Samsung's appeal against Apple's injunction against the Galaxy tablet: "Apple failed to provide sufficient evidence that the Galaxy Nexus caused "irreparable harm" in the form of market share lost to Samsung. The filing also suggests that such market share losses "must be substantial" and directly caused by the infringing feature, rather than the product as a whole."
So Samsung does not argue that the patents are invalid or that it violated them but rather that it doesn't hurt Apple too much.
"HTC believes that Apple's claims exceed the bounds of the original complaint. The statement by the ITC is seemingly not a denial of Apple for lack of propriety, but more a lack of information."
So HTC believes that Apple is overreaching when it says that HTC has not re-engineered it's products enough to avoid Apple's patent. It does not deny the fact that it violated Apple's patent.
It appears that Apple has a winning case when it comes to patents when they are no longer being challenged.
The best product should win by virtue of being the best product, not because it's killed all the other competition. I don't use a Samsung phone because it stole all sorts of technology from Apple, I use a Samsung phone because I like it better than the Apple alternatives. I wasn't all, "Oooh this has Apple's curved corners and it can detect a phone number in my email!" No, I went "Oooh, this has a slide out keyboard and it's on sale for $300!"
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
...until Apple tries to sue Google over its upcoming tablets / smartphones. Google will hand Apple it's own ass on a plate, and blast them back to 1995.
The day Google begins to aggressively 'defend' Android will be a very glorious day...
I can't wait!
for other patent holders to hit Apple hard. get the courts to ban the sale of iPhones/iPods/iPads/etc in the US and even better, force carriers to suspend service to people who have the devices. Let consumers go to Apple for refunds.
Told you guys years ago that Apple is worse than MS *EVER* was and you didn't believe me. How about now?
If they're soooo concerned about stopping their competition's phones, maybe they should just buy the entire shipment of phones lol.
Microsoft weren't trying to knife the baby of Photoshop. They WERE, however, wanting to smother the baby of Netscape.
Every single iTunes upgrade prompts me to restart, but I never do and have noticed no ill effects. I wonder if that's boilerplate verbiage that they include just in case.
I liked Apple because you could by a full-blown commercially supported Unix operating system. Before anyone screams desktop linux, Apple has 3d drivers that actually work, they've had MSFT office for years, and generally it was accepted as a "real" computing platform.
Apple mobile products are inferior today. I mean 5 somewhat years ago when they came with the notoriously know iPhone, they were on top. It was a great device. Now compared to Android ICS iOS is a laughing stock.
When Apple famously claimed that "1984 won't be like '1984'", everyone assumed it was because they didn't want an Orwellian situation in the computer industry.
As it turns out, Apple is totally into the idea. They just hadn't perfected the technology back then.
-Lod
A lot of people like to bring up Windows Mobile as prior art but Windows Mobile only dates back to 2000:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile
Then others try to bring up Palm but Palm OS only dates back to 1996:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_OS
But everyone seems to have forgotten about the Newton which debuted in 1993:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_(platform)
The Newton went on to be the inspiration for the iOS platform many year later.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I wish I had mod points; thanks for the laugh.
https://www.google.com/search?q=iPhone+spontaneously+combusts
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
When your in technology you have to keep moving forward, you cant release a product, then stand around with your thumb up your ass while everyone surpasses you, and THEN start crying. Yes I know they have improved the iPhone, and if you look at a model 1 vs a model 4 there is a lot of things changed, but compared to the 3 there's not that much difference.
That's what people remember, not how far have you come, but how far have you gone since the last one, and people are noticing that there's not that much distance. iPhone is slowing down, and instead of getting geared up and working hard, Apple is choosing to pursue these silly little patent lawsuits on shit they should have never been awarded in the first god damned place. Just like a child who had its toy taken away they are acing like an ass and pissing everyone off in the area at the same time.
Who makes chrome but refuses to give it the ability to reflow text. Presumably because kids at google have perfect vision.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
FUCK YOU APPLE! FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!
I will not EVER buy an Apple product! I don't care if you are the last damn company selling electronics in the world, I will NOT buy your piece of shit, locked down, walled garden, trash heap products! Your name is garbage to me!
I with that Google would grow a pair, join their Android partners in one room, and file one gigantic lawsuit the likes of which we've never seen against Apple! You want an injunction? Well here is one, on every damn Apple product in existence! Take them out! Take them out like the fucking garbage company that they are!
Apple is the scourge of the technology world and they deserve every damn bit of punishment that they have coming to them!