Samsung Tablet Ban Lifted For Most of EU 137
jkcity writes "The ban on sales of Samsung's 10.1 tablet in the EU has been lifted everywhere except Germany. The new ruling is in effect until August 25th while it is decided whether the original court had the power to enforce an EU wide ban. With allegations that submitted evidence was not 100% accurate, the case could be bogged down in the court for years."
Re:Everywhere except Germany (Score:4, Interesting)
There are lots of reasons to *not* buy an iPad. The dubious recent behaviour of Apple is just one of them (and I speak as someone who only has Macs at home).
For example, I bought an EeePad Transformer yesterday.
I did not need to plug it into a computer capable of running the latest iTunes - I just turned it on and connected it to our wifi network and it updated itself. I did not need to sign up for an account and register my machine with Asus (or Google). I have a proper keyboard and USB ports. I can use a browser that is *not* based on WebKit if I want to (e.g. Opera).
The HP Touchpad has other issues though - primarily that it's a terrible clone of an iPad with an OS nobody wants except for novelty value. I can't imagine why anyone would want a Blackberry Playbook for much the same reason.
Community designs as were use for the injuntion (Score:5, Interesting)
The following article [osnews.com] has some very interesting information about Community Designs, which were used for getting the original injunction.
Community designs are basically unreviewed sketches of products which can be used to silently get an injunction for your competitors product.
No checks are done for obviousness, nor for prior art.
Why judges don't look at the products themselfs (Score:2, Interesting)
For a usual computer user, it makes perfect sense to just try out the two products and arrive at a conclusion whether they are similar or not. Why do Judges rely on printed testimony? But if you think about what a Judge really is responsible for, paper makes more sense than actual devices:
Let's look at an imperfect analogy: For a normal computer user, it makes perfect sense just to use a binary program --- it just works. But for a programmer or a systems administrator, having GPL and getting the source makes a big difference. Why? Because the programmer and the systems administrator are responsible for more than just running the program. They may need to fix bugs, add features, install the program on other machines; port it to other hardware etc. You can do this if you have the source and the GPL. With just the binary, you are often out-of-luck.
A similar argument applies to judges: They are not only responsible to get a personal opinion "I think the products are similar". They need to be able to justify, explain and analyze the details of this decision in the light of the arguments of each party. And here, testimony on paper has big advantages: You can easily copy the testimony (publicize and review it outside the court). The opposing party may check what the judge was actually looking at. The testimony doesn't change after the court session. You can easily store hundreds of pages of such testimony in folders etc.
Let's illustrate this with some hypothetical examples:
Apple claims that Android is identical to the iPhone. Apple and HTC provide two phones to let the judge try it out. The judge swears that they are **exactly** identical (not similar but identical). What happened?
Prior to the trial Apple ported the Android to run on the iPhone and installed both systems. So, when the judge compared the two phones, they indeed acted identically --- running Android. At this point of investigation, this was all that mattered. At the end of the test, an Apple engineer remotely instructs the modified phone to remove the Android install and thus remove any traces of cheating. (Of course, this thought example is exaggerated. But it highlights the point that inspecting actual products gives each party uncontrollable powers to game the cards).
On printed testimony, it is open what the judge sees: You can distribute copies of all documents to all parties --- and any cases of tampering can be brought out to the open --- just as it happened in this case. Thus for the purpose of a court case where each piece of evidence may need to be challenged and investigated, paper is far superior to actual products.
Re:Android tablets (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll see your Occam's Razor and raise you one: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds [wikipedia.org]
Given that Apple products have been found to spark a religious response in those that trumpet their benefits, I believe that Occam's Razor says that they're buying them due to a large delusional crowd movement.
Lets not forget that even with much proof to the opposite of what they claimed, snake oil salesmen could generally find someone local in a town to help them hawk their wares. These people often weren't in on the take. There is a reason selling odd concoctions was profitable.