German Appeals Court Confirms Galaxy Tab 10.1 Ban 161
New submitter Killer Panda sends word that a German Appeals Court has upheld the injunction prohibiting sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany. Apple convinced lower courts to issue and uphold the injunction last year by making the case that Samsung's devices "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad. "Samsung, which is Apple's supplier as well as a competitor, has been trying to have the German decision overturned while also seeking other means to fight Apple. It redesigned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for the German market only and named it Galaxy Tab 10.1N to get around the sales ban. Apple challenged the reworked version but a German court last month rejected Apple's claims in a preliminary judgment." The European Union announced some more bad news for Samsung: they'll be investigating the company to see whether its use of patent lawsuits is illegally hindering other companies' use of standardized 3G technology. "Under EU patent rules, a company that holds patents for standardized products is required to license them out indiscriminately at a fair price."
Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 10.1N are nearly identical (Score:5, Informative)
The 10.1 is banned while the 10.1N is allowed.
http://www.mobile88.com/gen/news/articles/2011/11/21/_11212011125638.jpg [mobile88.com]
Talk about marginal court decisions. If you put a protective case on it, no one could tell the difference. Lawyers for the win!
Re:When defending yourself... (Score:4, Informative)
Except that Apple chose to ignore licensing the 3G F/RAND patents for the first several years of the existence of the iPhone, and is now complaining to the courts that they should just be able to pay the same fees that everyone else gets.
Sort of... but not really. Almost none of the big players pay standard F/RAND patent fees. In almost all cases Samsung (or other holders of equivalent licenses) cuts a side deal where in exchange for the fees being waived or lowered Samsung gets to cross-license other patents. Nokia and Motorola do similar things with standards based on their patents. This is business as usual.
So it was a hell of shock when Apple came to market with a completely new product without having ever approached the license holders to set up this sort of agreement. It was just assumed that any company would prefer to do a licensing agreement than pay the standard fees. It had never even crossed their minds that Apple would (or could) just pay the fees up front instead. It's one of the reasons you hear people talking about Apple bringing the iPhone to market before they had negotiated the licenses. Apple didn't need to negotiate anything because standard F/RAND licenses are automatic, the same way you don't need to negotiate before accepting the GPL license on a piece of software. It's just that everyone does negotiate for a better deal in exchange for concessions. Apple didn't ignore the F/RAND licensing, they ignored Samsung's attempts to refuse payment and cut an alternate deal.
And Sumsung doesn't want the license fee. They would much rather have Apple's patent and IP concessions. So they are in the position of trying to force Apple not to accept the publicly available license terms. That's why they are getting their knuckles rapped by the courts here. No different than if a company that released their code under the GPL and then started trying to sue companies who were using it according to the license. Doesn't matter what the other company might have done to provoke them, it's still not going to fly in front of a judge.
Re:When defending yourself... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:aplle sux (Score:4, Informative)
No, Apple thinks they are special and want to pay the publicly stated license terms. Samsung wants them to do what everyone else does and cut a side deal that waives license fees in exchange for patent and IP cross-licensing.
Re:When defending yourself... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:When defending yourself... (Score:4, Informative)
Apple offered to pay FRAND licensing for only some of Samsung's patents, and only covering devices sold in the Netherlands where the case was being heard. That doesn't sound like fully prepared to me. And having made a cross licensing deal with Nokia a few months before, as well as paying Nokia a premium for access to their FRAND patents, who is being the douchebag now by refusing to do the same deal with other phone manufacturers? Cross licensing is what keeps technology moving forward. Taking your toys and going home is good for nobody in the long run.