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Apple Wins EU Ban of Smaller Samsung Tablet, Demands $2.5 Billion In Damages
walterbyrd writes with news that Apple has won a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 across the European Union, thanks to a decision in a German regional court today. At the same time, the court re-affirmed the denial of an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a version of Samsung's 10.1" tablet that was modified to avoid infringing upon the same patents Apple had asserted earlier. The two companies are still fighting on the other side of the Atlantic as well. In a filing today in a San Diego, California court, Apple is claiming $2.5 billion in damages. "Samsung's infringing sales have enabled Samsung to overtake Apple as the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property." Samsung, of course, thinks it should owe much less — $0.0049 per unit per patent — if anything.
I think that you are mistaken, or perhaps young. Microsoft had restrictive licensing agreements that stated you could not install other operating systems if you used MS-DOS / Windows preinstalled. This essentially killed IBMs OS/2. At the same time, other DOS vendors were pushed out. Some were even a multi-tasking version of DOS. I guess that is all history now. The main reason to the rise of Linux is that it was free. How can you compete with free? No one would want to pay extra for an operating system, such as IBM OS/2, when the computer was already installed with Microsoft MS-DOS/Windows or latter Windows 95. Consider yourself schooled.
Seriously. Who would have ever thought to make a rectangualr tablet with rounded corners? It's not at all obvious, and there's certainly no prior art.
Because Florian is one of the best and most prolific law bloggers on the web today.
Florian is not a lawyer, not a patent expert, and not a good law blogger. He is a paid shill and prolific blogger. I avoid his site these days but I've read a lot of his stuff over the past few years and it is generally trash. During the Google v. Oracle case, he routinely misrepresented what was said by the judge, the attorneys, and the witnesses. His analysis was obviously shoddy to anyone not relying on FOSSpatents for 100% of their reporting. His predictions did not pan out. He is a shill paid by Microsoft and Oracle. He is an enemy of FOSS and a proponent of software patent abuse, exactly counter to what he claims. His background is in software marketing, not legal, and it shows.
Anyone quoting him or linking to his blog is demonstrating their ignorance of who he is and what he represents.