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Apple Must Publicly Post That Samsung Did Not Copy iPad
microcars writes "A judge in the U.K. has ordered Apple to post a notice on its website and in British newspapers alerting people to a ruling that Samsung Electronics Co. didn't copy designs for the iPad. This is the same Judge who ruled earlier that Samsung's Galaxy Tab was not as cool as Apple's iPad."
I wouldn't mind seeing this happen to a few more patent trolls. Not only should the U.S. adopt a European style "loser pays" system for cases like this, but a "loser has to publicly admit he's an ass" policy wouldn't hurt either.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
One of my biggest issues with corporate culture is the ending to so many disputes where the misbehaving corporation "admits no fault" for the situation.
They should always have to post a "we did wrong" letter after they get shown the door.
You'll find the notice right before the equivalent of the Obituary section or a couple pages from the back of the first section.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This is the Internet age, after all.
This judge is in it purely for the lulz.
I could see how Apple could turn this around to their benefit.
"Samsung did not copy design from the iPad for the Galaxy Tab. The iPad is WAY cooler! Even the judge thinks so."
I wonder what this'll do for other cases where Apple is bending Samsung over for the same exact thing.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"As required by Judge Colin Birss, we are required to inform you that the Galaxy Tab is not as cool as the iPad. Needless to say, we agree with Judge Birss."
We can expect that Apple will wriggle to avoid doing this in any meaningful way. What's the smallest size ad they can place? What's the smallest typeface? Do all elements need equal prominance?
They'd likely put a huge ad saying "Buy Apple iPad, the judge said it's cool" in a large font with the "Samsung did not copy" message in a tiny font in a corner of the ad (maybe even upside-down text). They'll go as far as they think they can while avoiding a contempt finding.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The punch line is in TFA (emphasis added):
Birss said in his July 9 ruling that Samsung’s tablets were unlikely to be confused with the iPad because they are “not as cool.” He declined today to grant Samsung’s bid for an injunction blocking Apple from making public statements that the Galaxy infringed its design rights.
“They are entitled to their opinion,” he said.
It looks like they have to run the ads, but they can still say Samsung copied them.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
It could lead in all sorts of directions.
Imagine mandatory adverts that say "When you buy this Android phone, you're helping to support Microsoft"
Or
"Using Android severely increases the risk of your phone being infected with a virus"
What's the world coming to.
How about a system something like this:
If you file a frivolous patent case against a competitor and lose, you must advertise for the said product on your website for X time period, give a public statement/apology AND you must also pay the defendant's legal expenses.
Maybe something like that would deter more patent trolling?
Put the notice in 2pt font.
At the bottom of the page.
White text on white background.
dotted font.
wingdings.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Samsung said in their statement: "Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited."
Apple is like the #1 enemy in the tech industry. I remember that ad from years ago with all those drone-like people in front of the screen obeying their overlord. Well, can't people see that that's exactly what Apple and its users are like now?
Apart from publicity/shame, nothing much. UK laws don't apply there any way, even though they should adopt a very similar approach to these mindless cases.
It would have been better if the judge could have
1. specified it to be the FRONT page (or default page) associated with the iPad.
2. made Apple disclose the many instances where their products have been "copies" (some would say refinements) of other existing products just to ram home the point of them being hypocritical asses
Samsung devices will be required to contain a warning: "This device contains technology that Her Majesty's Courts have determined is not as cool as an iPad."
And Apple will post a precise statement, "In the United Kingdom, the Court has determined that Samsung Galaxy Tab does not copy the iPad. In other jurisdictions (list), an opposing judgement has been rendered."
It will be posted publicly.
In a public cellar.
With no stairs.
In the dark.
In the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
Those samsung copied apple photos, yea photoshopped
http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Caught+Using+Photoshop+to+Fake+More+Pics+in+Lawsuits/article22500.htm
Maybe not. Citibank screwed something up in Japan -- not sure what, some violation of information disclosure laws -- and it was on the main page for three months -- you had to click a little box acknowledging you'd read it before you could access your account. Hopefully this will be something similar.
Samsung copied the PADD, not the iPad. (See: LCARS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCARS )
Indeed. Whilst obviously not a forgery there's no question that they have copied Apple.
A shame really 'cos Samsung make some great products in their own right and even more really good components for other manufacturers but I have no respect for the company and won't ever be buying anything sold under the Samsung brand.
(And as someone who is British I feel entitled to say that the judge is being an arse and Apple should just go over his head. They may still lose but at least the verdict would be delivered with less ego.)
Yes they made a rectangle without a shiny back and wrote Samsung on it just like the iPad. Then they installed Android, that well known Apple OS. Then they put an SD card slot in it just like Apple did. Oh wait.
but I always read the "cooler" as positively dripping in sarcasm.
Yes, but if you have public documentation of "No this product doesn't infringe on ours" on their website...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Oh the spin. Sure they will place that Samsung didn't copy them. I can just see the spin. It would go something like this.
Hear ye, Hear ye. We told you our products are the best. Sure Samsung may have tried to copy us, but we are still better. Look at the stats that say if you have an Apple product you get laid more often because your cool and women know if you have high priced equipment then your the man for her. And women you know you want a no muss no fuss electronic device like your iDildo to that is quality made and will do what you want for as long as you want. So what if we have to say Samsung may look like us we all know they are not us because the law says it "We are the cool company with the cool devices" and Samsung is like the little brother or sister trying to be cool when we all know they never will.
>>>Samsung did, in fact, copy the iPad
Provide proof please
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
not only did they not copy the ipad they doctored the photos that they showed the court
http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Caught+Using+Photoshop+to+Fake+More+Pics+in+Lawsuits/article22500.htm
I doubt he's ever heard of it. In the UK, no, and I really mean no, US car has the slightest cool factor whatsoever. The coolest judgemobile ever was Scott's bicycle at the Scott enquiry (into illegal arms sales to Iraq).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Judge: "Apologize to that lady you called fat!"
Apple: "I'm sorry you're fat."
He declined today to grant Samsung’s bid for an injunction blocking Apple from making public statements that the Galaxy infringed its design rights.
So they can still say the Galaxy infringed on their design. They only have to put it on their website for the UK only and they'll probably turn it around and say something along the lines of court confirming their product is cooler which is hardly detrimental to their image.
So I'm failing to see how they've been shamed.
In the US, so far as I know, court's can only order such punishments as they have been granted power to do through legislation by congress or a state legislature.
Congress and state legislatures are limited by the Constitution. The First Amendment of which guarantees free speech by prohibiting Congress from passing any laws which abridge the freedom of speech.
Therefor, Congress cannot pass a law granting the courts the power to compel speech, because compelling speech is equally an abridgement of free speech just as much as censoring free speech.
Also, just because a court find someone guilty, doesn't mean they are. How many people convicted for murder or rape have later been exhonerated? What if they had been compelled to make an admission of guilt by the court? Someone should always have the right to maintain their innocence.
It's easy to look at this and say, "well, this is a corporation and a patent troll to boot", but if they can do it to a patent troll, why couldn't they do it to you?
You need to get off the meds, or get on them if you are off. Samsung didn't copy Apple at all. The design pre-dates the iPad with about a decade. Only someone with their heads up Steve Jobs' ass would consider it copying the iPad.
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-apple-injunction-20120626,0,3449414.story
RTFA, apparently, they did not.
I don't believe the tablet in question had an SD card slot (in fact that was one of my reasons for not buying it)
that said, the different aspect ratio, which forced a different shape to the device, the different buttons, the different back, the word SAMSUNG on the bezel and back, the different operating system with completely different interface using a completely different home screen look sort of gave me a slight hint that it may not be an iPad...
Do they have to stand in the corner, too?
Zing! One in a row.
UK picks its judges from the pool of headmasters, do they?
Hey, what?
Apple should just post "We admit Samsung just faceplant level failed to copy the iPad." :-D
Oh, pow!
At this point a court decision is not proof of anything except having a good legal team.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Apple could just tell the UK to Fsk off. The Queen would be pissed. Or maybe she would smuggle in her gadget fix?
"We're legally obligated to inform you that the courts have found that the Galaxy Tab is not as cool as the iPad, and also found by the courts to not be an iPad substitute."
Yeah, sure. All current tablets are copied, at least in part, from the iPad. Because is someone has a successful product, you'll want to do something similar.
Apple copied from others. We all copy each other. This way, things evolve. We learn from each other.
Yes it was. It was called a Palm Pilot.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
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Sorry, it looks like your platform is not supported. Please try again with the latest version of Mac OS X or Windows.
Samsung copied the PADD, not the iPad. (See: LCARS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCARS )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad
That was a real product whereas the PADD in STNG was a prop made out of plastic and/or wood.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The Israeli edition of Swine-herders digest is a well known publication, and Chinese a popular language. How can you say we didn't follow the court order?
Honestly, other than amount of real estate, it seems to me Apple is probably more powerful and influential than the UK government. If I were Apple, (and bear in mind as I write this that I despise almost everything about Apple, especially their sycophantic cult of fan-boys and fan-girls who would buy a bag of flaming dog shit if it had a shiny Apple logo on it,) could and should tell the UK government to fuck off. Stop selling all products and stop all support for UK users, and tell them "hey, eliminate your idiotic, bullshit, anachronistic joke of a government, and we'll consider returning." The judge DID have a point that no-one who is a technology aficionado would confuse the two despite the tremendous similarity. Samsung CLEARLY copied Apple, but the fact that such a thing would give Apple cause to pursue legal remedies is the problem.
For Apple to be able to claim something like "we invented the finger swipe, so no one else can use it," would be rather like one car maker suing another for copying their "control direction with a wheel" interface, or insisting no one else can put the throttle control on a spring, or locate it in front of the feet, or that no one else can place the gas on the right, brake in the center, clutch on the left... competition is AIDED by standardization of interface, so you DON'T have to learn each different device's control layout... imagine if every car that wasn't say... a Ford had a gas pedal that had no spring, (because FMC had patented a spring-return variable throttle control,) so you had to put your foot in a stirrup so when you want to slow down, you have to pull the fuel-flow-control lever BACK using your foot.
That's the world Apple wants. If they add a third headphone jack to the iPad, they don't want anyone else to be able to do it, not realizing that they should just be content leading the pack. They don't realize that the reality is, that you may just not be able to recoup your investment in making an ultra slick interface, no matter what you do, so rather than try to bludgeon people with the legal system, you simply acknowledge that you can only afford to make the interface so slick, orrrr... reconcile yourself to having people avail themselves of your interface. Apple's approach of course has been, and will probably remain bludgeoning. That's sad. There are better uses for the court's time, whatever court that is.
How does that work, exactly? Can you legally force somebody to publicly state something that, to the best of their knowledge and understanding, is not true?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So you let Samsung know the ruling bothers you, they come back and tell the judge. THe judge then come back with an order that they put on the top of every web page they put up in bold black 30 pt letters on white background the phrase "We are big weinies for suing Samsung for copying iPad when they didn't."
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The ruling is wrong and I would appeal if I was Apple. Even if they can not prove that Samsung copied their designs, that doesn't imply they didn't. The judge is simply incompetent.
Finally, Apple has a reason for using Adobe Flash.
Translation: In a society where there are private institutions which wield enormous power and influence—vastly more than any person, and increasingly exceeding that of even the most organized public institutions—and they use that power and influence to ends that are harmful, whether objectively or subjectively, the people who are affected should refrain from comment which might besmirch these powerful institutions, and should instead volunteer to suffer a life of arbitrary self-denial and misery. It is inappropriate for a person to present their thoughts to others about undesired attributes of this mode of commerce; it is, after all, an arrangement which those people are evicted from by virtue of having such thoughts. We must pay fealty, stay silent, or become unpersons.
There was a time Apple ran an ad campaign anchored on the slogan "Think Different". The irony, even then, was that Apple systems tended to be less configurable than mass market computers produced by the partners of the Wintel duopoly. So Apple users tended to Think Alike.
It's important to note that the rip-offs are uniformly of excellent quality and generally are much better value for money than the originals. Jeremy Clarkson, famously derisive of all things automotive, had several nice things to say about the Hyundai Tiburon. I don't know about the camera optics, but I'd take a Hyundai car over the European style-donor any day of the week.
(show ipad)
iPad
(show Chinese mob waiting in front of Apple Store to open)
Want
(show samsung tablet, it looks exactly the same)
Not a copy. Somebody forgot the cool.
Again.
(show deserted generic electronics store)
Do not want
(show ipad)
iPad
You do realise that Top Gear is aimed at skilled working/lower middle class don't you? The only lawyer I know who drives a Ford (for the rest think Audi/BMW/Merc/Porsche/Aston Martin/Lexus) is one of my kids, and that's because they live in an area of London which, while very fashionable, is a target for thieves of up-market cars, and the Ford garage is a few hundred metres away.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Yeah, just like all current books are copied, at least in part, from the Bible.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
To make the experience of "A tablet that doesn't have sharp corners and is in a pad-of-paper-like format" that nobody ever had.
Please.
Show us where the engineering to produce this experience is and how hard that work was.
Uhm.. No. Because they're not.
But most books are inspired by earlier books. Robinson Crusoe is probably a better contender for a book that all books are copied from, since the concept of realistic fiction didn't really exist before then
whilst others are distinct and infringing?
In fact, and this is where I have a problem with patents including prior art: where in the patent does it say why that prior art is not covered by this patent and where this patent is covering something different and not covered by that prior art?
NOWHERE, that's where.
So the prior art is not infringing because despite being rectancular with rounded corners, it's not. And the Samsung is because it's got rounded corners and a rectancular shape.
I'm sure the response will scope to the countries covered as not to screw up lawsuits in other countries.
Don't you mean, Global Climate Disruptive Uncertainty Heisenberg Principle of Precautionary Direct Action for the Projection of Greed and Sin on Human Species by Modelling of Chaos within Envelope of Creative Statistical Subjective Robust Confidence of Future Scenario-as-Predicion Caveat Reality?
ok I actually bored myself writing that. you point stands, it's already politically dead, the rest is just slow backtracking.
Err... 2012 is the hottest year (so far) on record. Again. Well, ok... 2010 was the hottest on record, globally... tied with 2005. Also the 34th consecutive year with temps above the 20th century average. 2011 was 0.12C cooler, so yeah, in a very small and statistically meaningless way, things are getting cooler -- if you're writing this from 2011.
-Dave Haynie
Forget the company itself apologizing. I want the Apple "geniuses" to publicly apologize for being pompous asses. Seeing tears would be a bonus.
You're wasting time quoting facts to denialists, they are faith based idiots who no amount of evidence will convince.