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Apple Posts Non-Apology To Samsung
We recently discussed news of a UK court ruling in which the judge decided Apple must publicly acknowledge that Samsung's Galaxy Tab did not infringe upon the iPad's design, both on the Apple website and in several publications. The acknowledgement has now been posted, and it's anything but apologetic. It states the court's ruling, helpfully referring to "Apple's registered design No. 000018607-0001," and quotes the judges words as an advertisement. The judge wrote, "The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool." They go on to mention German and U.S. cases which found in Apple's favor. Apple's statement concludes, "So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad."
I really hope the UK has the equivalent of 'contempt of court' and throws the book at those arrogant jerks at Apple.
I further hope the blowback from their attempted patent-armageddon against the rest of the smartphone industry costs them manyfold what they've attempted to extort from others. I only wish I'd never introduced my wife to Apple, and helped her climb the Linux learning curve instead. I hate the idea of giving those would-be monopolists a single penny.
Judges generally don't like it at all when people try to skirt around their rulings by barely acknowledging the letter while flagrantly disregarding the spirit.
Apple is just begging for a contempt citation here.
Well nice to know that Apple is still behaving like a spoiled child. It isn't enough to dominate the market, it is important to be unrepentant bully.
It was three Appeal judges. This sort of thing really is a mistake where they are concerned, and I imagine they will be contacting one another about it on their Blackberries. If Apple now goes to the UK Supreme Court, they will not be very popular.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Sure, this looks like mockery to us unrobed and unwigged. But look at it from the Judges PoV: they know that one or both litigants will hate them. Part of the job. What judges dislike is being overturned on appeal -- especially if they've "gone too far" (rather than missing facts).
Apple has just seriously impaired any appeal: They've spent alot of money to voluntarily quote the ruling -- they must agree with it, or at least that [foundational] part. Apple can plead compliance with the order, but not with respect to the material chosen. That was entirely their own choosing.
The law grinds fine, and it is not unusual to have things work out completely the opposite of knee-jerk first appearances. Life, too. I expect the UK justices will close ranks and not reward bad behaviour.
Not to mention their libelous assertions that the US case found the Galaxy Tab had infringed when it was specifically specified by the jury that it didn't.
What is wrong with apologizing to the wronged party? This is how disputes are resolved in a civilized society. Do you think that a huge fine for slandering their opponent would be a more appropriate response?
Samsung should thank Apple for assuming Apple's customers are so retarded as to mistake an Android phone or tablet for an iPhone or iPad.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I worked for Apple a couple years ago. While my experience was generally positive, I can say without hesitation that Apple denies everything until it is absolutely not possible to deny it anymore. Then they turn their back and walk away.
The arrogance at Apple at anything above a director level is astounding. I remember when the Mac Malware stuff first hit and little old ladies were getting gay pron popping up on their screen. Apple's officlal policy was that it wasn't their problem and no Applecare reps were allowed to even confirm the problem existed or help get rid of it. It took over a month for them to release a software update to scan and remove it and even after that they wouldn't publicly take responsibility for Safari automatically opening "safe" files.
Apple is their own worst enemy in this regard.
They've been arseholes. I'm pretty sure the reason the court ruled that they had to make an apology was because they've been arseholes. In fact, Apple are such arseholes that when the court first ruled against them in this case, before the court further forced them to apologize to Samsung, they released a statement to the press which basically made it sound like the court had ruled in their favour
Indeed, you are quite right! Thanks for the correction.
To quickly go into what difference that makes for anyone else reading along, the text I incorrectly attributed to the judge up above is actually Samsung's request for what Apple should be asked to do. If you read through the ruling, the judge says:
I am not persuaded that the list of websites in Schedule 1, other than the United Kingdom website, would be fair or appropriate. I am also not persuaded that the statement needs to be on the websites for one year. This is a very fast moving industry and I bear in mind the risk of prejudice to Apple and I will require the statement to be on the United Kingdom website of Apple corporation for six months.
So, towards that, Apple likely is not breaking the ruling by only linking the text from their front page, rather than putting it on their front page proper.
Interestingly, the judge also addresses the topic many people here are bringing up about how Apple is insinuating that infringement occurred, despite having to cite the ruling:
In my judgment, Apple are carefully trying to say something which contains an innuendo that Samsung infringe without actually saying it. [... T]o many people outside the circles of intellectual property law to say something infringes a Registered Community Design and to say someone copied your design or your product is to say the same thing.
But then he later goes on to basically say that he feels as if Samsung's and Apple's comments on that topic balance each other out, so it doesn't matter.