Apple Wins EU Ban of Smaller Samsung Tablet, Demands $2.5 Billion In Damages

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Apple Wins EU Ban of Smaller Samsung Tablet, Demands $2.5 Billion In Damages

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 24, 2012 @05:32AM from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

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.

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Why foss patents? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-24 05:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

The story links almost entirely to FOSS Patents, which is the Microsoft-paid Florian Schillers website. Did no one else report this story ?
1. Re:Why foss patents? by RanCossack · 2012-07-24 05:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The story links almost entirely to FOSS Patents, which is the Microsoft-paid Florian Schillers website. Did no one else report this story ?
  Seriously. This is *slashdot*. We should know better.
2. Re:Why foss patents? by kervin · 2012-07-24 11:12 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Anyone quoting him or linking to his blog is demonstrating their ignorance of who he is and what he represents.
  That or maybe they simply disagree with you on the subject of his bias.
  Not everyone that disagrees with you is dishonest or bought and paid for.
  Some opinions I agree with, some I don't. I just factor those as someone elses opinion. Who knows, I could be wrong. It's known to happen.
3. Re:Why foss patents? by CowTipperGore · 2012-07-24 14:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Not everyone that disagrees with you is dishonest or bought and paid for.
  Absolutely, but Florian is. I'm sorry if you are somehow completely unaware of Florian's status as a paid shill who is terrible at his supposed job. That doesn't mean everything he says is wrong, but his well-funded bias makes him a worthless source of actual information. It is public information that he is paid by Microsoft and Oracle. It is relatively simple to read his blog for any amount of time and see that his opinions driving his analysis do not square with his claimed support of FOSS and opposition to software patents. You can review his history and see that he moved from marketing and PR to a well-placed position as an analyst and blogger in the software patent world.
I always wondered by zero.kalvin · 2012-07-24 05:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

How high these people have to be to demande few billions in damages ? Remember Oracle and Google ?
1. Re:I always wondered by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-24 06:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I think that the number is based on the profit Samsung made from these devices, Apple's alleged "losses" due to these products, and some punitive amount added in for good measure.
  Just goes to show how much is at stake.
Hey Apple by Nyder · 2012-07-24 05:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Fuck Off
Love
Samsung

--
Be seeing you...
1. Re:Hey Apple by 0123456 · 2012-07-24 05:58 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Isn't that why we have patents? To give innovators an exclusive period of time.
  The key word being 'innovators'.
2. Re:Hey Apple by 0123456 · 2012-07-24 06:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  So you're saying the iPad was not innovative?
  Yes. At least in the patent sense. Certainly in the design sense. If there was any innovation it was in removing the desktop user interface in favor of something that worked better on a tablet.
  Or would you seriously argue that someone skilled in the arts of electronics design wouldn't obviously have thought of something rectangular with rounded corners and a glass screen when designing a tablet?
3. Re:Hey Apple by HexaByte · 2012-07-24 06:07 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I just went back into my parents box of save school papers from long ago, I was drawing rectangles with rounded corners when I was still wearing short-pant.
  I wonder how many billion I can sue Apple for for stealing my design.
  This whole "it looks too much like mine" crap has got to stop. If you make it with sharp corners, you get sued when it pokes out someone's eye. If you make it round corners, you get sued because it looks too much like Apple's.
  And how can they assume that Samsung's profits are their losses? Maybe people were just too smart to get locked into a closed system.
  
  --
  HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
4. Re:Hey Apple by amRadioHed · 2012-07-24 06:53 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The system is *a* problem, but it's not the only one. Not every company abuses the system the way Apple does. Google has never initiated a patent lawsuit against anyone, they have only used their patents defensively. While the patent system is plenty deserving of any criticism it gets, the companies taking advantage of it are equally to blame.
  
  --
  We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
5. Re:Hey Apple by bennomatic · 2012-07-24 07:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  She knew one was $100 cheaper. That was all.
  
  --
  The CB App. What's your 20?
6. Re:Hey Apple by atriusofbricia · 2012-07-24 07:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  1) Marketing. Denying the brand loyalty Apple buyers have would be foolish. Lots of people buy the iPad not because it is the best device for their goals but because it's cool. That is a function of marketing. Building on the iPhone, and iPod's popularity (also a function of marketing) helped a lot.
  2) The technology available as short as three years prior to the iPad wouldn't have supported the device. That doesn't mean that others didn't have the ideas nor want to implement them. Without the capacitive touchscreen at a reasonable price and quality, you have no iPad. Apple's great innovation was applying the technology a bit faster than everyone else. Everything from the physical design of the device to the interface of the OS is driven by that single piece of tech.
  3) They came out about a year prior to everyone else adopting the tech. Apple must be given credit for that, but it isn't innovation. It is market strategy and market vision.
  But no, rounded corners and a simple physical design could only have been created by the geniuses of industrial design at Apple. No one else could possibly have come up with the same thing given the same available technology and design goals. Or else they did and that is why all tablets have rounded corners and few physical buttons.
  
  --
  I was raised on the command line, bitch
  "Nemo me impune lacesset"
7. Re:Hey Apple by spire3661 · 2012-07-24 07:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Actually, this is exactly where we want it to be. For the average consumer, both tablets are identical. Email, web browsing, light gaming, communications are all covered along with robust marketplaces. Sort of like Xbox360 vs PS3, both have their strengths and weaknesses, but at the end of the day its hard to find one that is universally better then the other and choosing either will provide a premium experience.
  
  --
  Good-bye
8. Re:Hey Apple by Vancorps · 2012-07-24 09:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Everytime I see that it makes me cringe. Corporations are collections of people, people can be immoral and so can corporations. Do you believe widespread genecide to be immoral or amoral just because it's a collection of people doing it instead of an individual? The action is immoral, not the actor. An actor is believe to be immoral when the sum of his or her actions are immoral. It works the same whether it's some guy named Victor or Apple. Of course Apple is far from the only immoral actor in this business.
Apple is the new Microsoft by cyberspittle · 2012-07-24 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

When Microsoft had a majority in the PC market they behaved just as badly. With Apple have their lead in tablets, looks like they are now the new Microsoft.
1. Re:Apple is the new Microsoft by 0123456 · 2012-07-24 05:47 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple now are.
2. Re:Apple is the new Microsoft by jedidiah · 2012-07-24 05:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What property?
  These are a bunch of bogus patents that amount to going down to city hall and declaring it your personal mansion. At least with copyright, I can write my own kernel or my own web browser.
  A patent is not "Apple's property". It's their license to steal mine. I can't write a kernel or a web browser any more because they "own" that.
  > Is it evil to defend your intellectual property?
  If you're the British East India Company? Probably so.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
3. Re:Apple is the new Microsoft by spidercoz · 2012-07-24 06:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  How? Simple. The PTO is staffed by incompetent nitwits.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Question to Apple by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-24 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Of all those people that bought the Galaxy Tab would had bought the iPad if the Galaxy Tab didn't have round corners? Hmm.. All of them? Your damage claim is bull shit. Stop looking at the Movie and Music industry for business tactics. You are being insane!
Re:Seems fair.... by jaymz666 · 2012-07-24 05:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

And 7 inch tablets at that! Because it's so similar to the 7" iPad
Oh Apple, Apple, Apple by sandytaru · 2012-07-24 05:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't use Samsung products because they borrowed Apple's intellectual property without permission. I use Samsung products because they are not Apple iOS products. If it wasn't Apple, it'd be HTC, LG, or any other provider of Android based hardware. Your suing Samsung into oblivion and killing market choice is not going to endear me to your products in the future. Frankly, I'd rather just do without. No one needs a tablet.

--
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:Its getting stupid now. by spikestabber · 2012-07-24 06:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sorry but this crap is happening in the US as well. Apple is an American company, Samsung A5 CPU's are used in Apple devices, my comment applies.
Re:Everywhere in the UE ? by Grumbleduke · 2012-07-24 06:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

I was talking to a (UK-based) trade mark attorney about this sort of thing last week; basically German courts are designed to give quick, cheap decisions, which is why they tend to be the first to issue judgments and injunctions in these sorts of cases. However, what they make up in speed and expense they lose in accuracy.
Contrast that with the English cases (such as the Apple v Samsung and Apple v HTC ones over the last two weeks) which can take a lot longer to reach a final decision, and cost a lot more (€100,000+), but tend to be very thorough. Sadly law tends to be that way; either fast and cheap, or thorough.
The EU-wide injunction was granted (probably) because this case involved an EU right (such as a Community Design Right), rather than a national one. Certain national courts across the EU are given special powers to rule on these issues (to save the CJEU having to get involved all the time), so their rulings are binding across the EU. However, that also means that if another court somewhere else issues a final ruling (rather than just an interim injunction) that goes the other way, the German court's decision will be set aside.