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."

Comments

sudden outbreak of common sense

[mjwx]

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.

Re:sudden outbreak of common sense

[c]

> Perhaps the court should ban the plaintiffs competing product for 6-12
> months when an allegation is found to be false...

I take these kinds of shenanigans as an admission that they don't have a product that they think can compete.

Re:sudden outbreak of common sense

[realityimpaired]

Even when the cheap ones are functionally identical to the high end ones.

Seriously... that phone right there, and the fact that Apple has never sued over it, makes it quite obvious that this has nothing to do with them trying to protect their intellectual property. It is functionally identical to the Galaxy SII that they threw a shitfit over and it came out a month before the SII... the front face and UI have the same basic design: the only real differences are that it's slightly thicker, it has a slightly slower processor, and the screen is a lower resolution and slightly smaller. The software at launch time was nearly identical (and *was* identical on the points Apple sued over).

If this was *really* about their software patents, they would have sued over that one, too, but since you can get an Ace for $100 new without a contract ($225 at launch time), they didn't sue.

btw -- if you don't do any gaming on your phone, that phone is quite adequate. The UI is zippy enough, has the same hardware-accelerated bling from a higher end phone, and you can buy it without a contract and not break the bank. I have one, and I am happy with it. There's no ICS update for it, but Gingerbread supports all the features I want out of a phone. :)

Re:Only a little evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what Apple is doing ?

And this is why Apple sucks...

[Xenx]

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.

Re:And this is why Apple sucks...

[gnasher719]

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.

Pressing for bans is what everybody else does as well. Like Samsung, HTC, Motorola.

I steal your car. Should I be allowed to drive it until I am convicted in a court? That would obviously be unfair towards you. But for example in the Apple vs. Samsung case, Apple got an injunction but if they lost the case in the end, they would have to pay damages. And they had to pay a bond so that it is guaranteed that the money for paying damages is there if needed.

Re:And this is why Apple sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I say you stole my car. should you be allowed to drive the car I say is mine and you stole it until I prove myself right?
That's closer to what this is about.

Antitrust Anyone

[zippo01]

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.

Re:Antitrust Anyone

[oztiks]

On last thing there is no "sent from my iPhone/HTC/Samsung" defaulted in my email sigs like a pompous fuck.

Re:Only a little evil

[bky1701]

Yeah, well, Microsoft lets you do things with your computer that are UNSAFE, like install software NOT APPROVED by them. Can you believe how evil Microsoft is? And Google actually helps these "open source" pirates to steal our great ideas! Obviously, Apple is the good guy here. They're not anti-competitive - just innovative, trendy, and easy to use! None of that "freedom" nonsense. You'll use Apple and you'll like it. Trust us!

Fully prepared to be accused of being an "Apple hater" for not buying the Apple agenda, and being modded down by some people who probably are making use of not-so-above-board mod points. But hey, karma to burn.

Re:Only a little evil

[ajo_arctus]

It wasn't the way they 'included a browser', it was they way they attempted (and succeeded) to entirely destroy a competitive market by using the thermo-nuclear option of abusing their Windows monopoly.

And it wasn't the way they did it with the web browser, it was the way they did it time and time again (Dr-Dos, OS/2, DiskStacker, WordPerfect, Netware, Netscape, DirectX) and certainly more than that. They even tried to create a proprietary internet (and thankfully failed).

They don't seem so evil these days, but I'm sure they would if they could. Or maybe Ballmer's just a big softy compared to Gates? I don't know, I suspect that the competition in mobile and from Google has really dented their ability to be really evil.

Re:Only a little evil

[Dog-Cow]

If you think that pushing a piece of software that doesn't follow some arbitrary standard is evil, you have a perspective warped beyond imagining.

Re:Only a little evil

[Entrope]

That's a load of bollocks. If the computer can automatically reboot itself, it can automatically log everyone out and restart background services as needed.

Re:Only a little evil

[humanrev]

Netscape

I'm sorry but I have to call you out there. The browser war involving IE vs Netscape was partially won by IE being bundled with Windows making the downloading of Netscape redundant. I'd wager another big reason for Netscape losing the war simply was because it was SHIT compared to IE 4. I distinctly remember switcing from Netscape to IE 4 and then IE 5 because IE was, believe it or not, fast and snappy whereas Netscape had degraded into a bloated, crappy shell of its former self. Making the effort to download a browser which was worse than that supplied by the operating system didn't make sense. It was only until better browsers like Firefox came on the scene that IE finally lost its dominance - proving that people WILL use something superior to a bundled application if it's better.

Re:Only a little evil

[drdaz]

Which you were fully aware of when you bought it.

Re:Only a little evil

[cygnwolf]

Well, Galaxy Nexus has an injunction, they're trying to get a block on HTC One and EVO 4g, and not mentioned here but they're also going after the Galaxy S III While that's only two manufacturers really, it is for of the best android handsets available right now. While it's not a blanket 'all' it certainly shows a pattern....

Re:Only a little evil

[fredprado]

No, they are just trying to sue their way into market monopoly, with mixed results...