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In UK, Apple Must Run Ad Apologizing to Samsung
sfcrazy writes "Apple has lost is appeal in a UK court against Samsung's Galaxy Tab. The court of appeals has upheld its previous judgment that Samsung did not infringe on any Apple design. According to the order Apple will have to run an ads in leading UK newspapers as well its own website stating that Samsung did not infringes its products. To ensure that the ad is visible the court also ordered that the text of the ad must not be in a font size smaller than Ariel 14. Apple will have to run the ad on its site for a period of one month."
Britannia rules!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
This is awesome, but I'd never expect this in a million years
this needs to happen in the US as well.
Next Steve Ballmer needs to apologize to Linux Tovalds for calling his works a "virus"
Crap, it ate my first comment.... ok, trying again.
I am curious, if anyone knows, how common of a stipulation is this in the UK? This is the first I have heard about such a thing. If it is not common (which I suspect) I wonder what made this particular case worthy of it... did the judge hate Apple? Did Samsung have someone with political clout in their pocket?
While it was high profile and fed into the technie anti-Apple attitude, this really was not an outrageous case by a long shot. If nothing else it was a trial between equals, two companies that had the experience and resources to go through with it.. neither is really all that deserving of a special apology or shaming. Where are the court mandated apologies from transnationals that use their armies of lawyers to crush smaller opponents by bankrupting them with legal costs? Where are the court mandated apologies from patent trolls that prey on companies too small to even have a legal team and have to 'settle' to be left alone? Where are the apologies from companies that use local political leverage to twist the laws around their business and make the environment inhospitable to competition? Seems there is a long list of apologies that should happen before this joke.
The court should have specified the size in relation to other important elements on the web page.
It must be the larger of:
1. at least half the size of the largest headlines, Apple branding, or product names
2. twice the size of the smallest headlines, Apple branding, or product names
That sort of specification helps eliminate creative interpretations of the court's order.
Of course if the court considers its order to have been violated, there can always be sanctions. A just sanction would be to re-impose the requirement of running the ad, all over again from the start, with new conditions attached. Oh, and pay the court a fine that doubles each day until the new ad meets the court's orders. Now how long do you want to play creative interpretation with the court's orders?
In short, courts don't generally take kindly to creative interpretation of their orders. We'll see how creative Apple wants to be with the "Aerial 14 point font". Just run the ad and get it over with.
Yes, your honor, but that DIV element had a zoom CSS rule applied. I hope that would go about as well as: Your honor! I wasn't texting while driving, I was updating my facebook status about these new shoes I just bought!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
"The judge actually criticized Samsung's design by stating that they 'do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design.'"
Ever since the first iPods became popular I haven't understood this obsession with simplicity. I do get it that there are more non-geeks than geeks out there and that the non-geeks don't want to have to work to learn how to use anything. Still.. I want my stuff to actually do something, doesn't everyone? How can it be easier to accomplish a task of a certain complexity with fewer and fewer controls? For example, going back to MP3 players, if I want to pick a playlist from my music collection of just the songs I am in the mood for at this time how do I do this with just one rotating control? I'm guessing what is really happening is that people have a low expectation of what their devices should do but also don't have the imagination to realize that expectation is low
What I really don't get is that the rest of the industry just tries to copy it rather than attack it. Yes, Apple has a huge market of simplicity hungry people with money to spend. Guess what... imitate that simplicity, through copying or through your own desings and you still aren't Apple! Nobody is going to out Apple Apple because even if you do the inertia is all Apple's anyway.
Instead, why hasn't anybody tried building the market for non simlistic devices? I can imagine there being some pretty great marketing campaign opportunities in that. For example.. how about a commercial where a hipster looking guy is showing off his shiny new car with it's sexy extreme simplicity elegance to his friends and the girl he obviously wants to impress. It's so simple, there is just one button. He presses the button and the car promply crashes because there is no wheel to steer it! At the end you hear an announcer say "Android - because it's not TOO simple" or some similar but more polished tag line.
"We're Sorry. We thought that Samsung had copied our patented design, but according to a ruling by a court of law, Samsung's devices have been found to not be cool enough to be considered copies of ours. We sincerely apologize to Samsung and their uncool products." In 32 point font on the front page.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Apple will definitely go down this road.
The judge gave clear language on how to display the apology, but not on what the apology should entail.
Something like:
"We apologize for implying that any Samsung product was as sleek or as easy to use as the (link to ipad page)Apple iPad.(\link)"
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Actually it's worth bearing in mind that the Apple product is also substantially from Samsung. Many of the components come from Samsung and Apple could never have achieved their form factor if not for Samsung's technology. However, there is nothing made by Apple in any Samsung product. Now... who's the innovator ?
And then get fined 10% of EU revenue for contempt of court and continuing to traduce the good name of Samsung that they were ordered to reverse earlier.
This would not be a good move.
Lets not forget which party started the lawsuit here. You think it'd be fair for Apple to just be able to walk away after falsely (proven in court) accusing Samsung of patent infringement and causing negative publicity for Samsung?
Except that they successfully (proven in court) accused Samsung of patent infringement in Germany. That's why this ruling is a little odd. Sure, jurisdictions have different standards and the patents involved here are slightly different, but requiring a public statement that can be interpreted to be cross-jurisdictional is unusual.
Neither is Apple. They take other people's ideas and put them into a shiny little toy that they patent and market as innovation.