Apple Wins EU Ban of Smaller Samsung Tablet, Demands $2.5 Billion In Damages 377
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.
Why foss patents? (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 ?
Re:Why foss patents? (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 ?
Seriously. This is *slashdot*. We should know better.
Re:Why foss patents? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why foss patents? (Score:5, Funny)
Because Florian is one of the best and most prolific law bloggers on the web today. I read his site just about every day and I haven't seen a pro Microsoft slant as yet.
Re:Why foss patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Because Florian is one of the best and most prolific law bloggers on the web today.
Florian is not a lawyer, not a patent expert, and not a good law blogger. He is a paid shill and prolific blogger. I avoid his site these days but I've read a lot of his stuff over the past few years and it is generally trash. During the Google v. Oracle case, he routinely misrepresented what was said by the judge, the attorneys, and the witnesses. His analysis was obviously shoddy to anyone not relying on FOSSpatents for 100% of their reporting. His predictions did not pan out. He is a shill paid by Microsoft and Oracle. He is an enemy of FOSS and a proponent of software patent abuse, exactly counter to what he claims. His background is in software marketing, not legal, and it shows.
Anyone quoting him or linking to his blog is demonstrating their ignorance of who he is and what he represents.
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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.
Re:Why foss patents? (Score:4, 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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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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.
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You can ask for whatever you want. You can ask for a zillion euro, a pony, a unicorn, the moon. A unicorn on the moon.
Re:I always wondered (Score:4, Funny)
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Hey Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck Off
Love
Samsung
Re:Hey Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, "make it not rectangular, or not flat, or not have rounded corners" as Apple's consultant said about possible ways to not infringe on Apple's design.
Re:Hey Apple (Score:4, 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.
Re:Hey Apple (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.
Re:Hey Apple (Score:4, 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.
Re:Hey Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously. Who would have ever thought to make a rectangualr tablet with rounded corners? [memory-alpha.org] It's not at all obvious, and there's certainly no prior art.
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Keep drinking...
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So you think that the rest of us should wait 20 years while Apple OWNS the tablet market then?
That's basically what you're saying.
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Isn't that why we have patents? To give innovators an exclusive period of time.
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Isn't that why we have patents? To give innovators an exclusive period of time.
The key word being 'innovators'.
Re:Hey Apple (Score:5, 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?
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wouldn't obviously have thought of something rectangular with rounded corners and a glass screen when designing a tablet
You just described an Etch-a-Sketch, now we know who all those different companies are copying from.
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Nope, it was evolutionary. Not revolutionary.
It's not that different to a large Palm Pilot. A bigger colour screen and a bit more CPU.
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There must be more to it than that, or else Microsoft would have reaped the tablet market ages ago.
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Marketing. They should patent that.
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The answer is most definitely: Yes. We're all saying that the iPad was NOT innovative. There are over 50 prior art examples for a tablet shaped computing device. It's pretty cool that Apple was the very first to make a soccer-mom oriented version of a tablet computer, but Apple most certainly had nothing to do with the first tablet computers, which predate the iPad by about a two decades.
Apple invented the tablet computer as much as Edison invented the light bulb.
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People haven't forgotten because they are cheap bastards and the price tag is the most important thing here. NO ONE has any clue how good or how bad Windows tablets because NO ONE was willing to spend $2000.
So trying to make claims about what they did or did not do is just moronic.
Apple is like IKEA. First they designed the price. Every thing else falls into place after that.
Re:Hey Apple (Score:4, 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.
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It does make me wonder how things would have progressed with no iPhone in the beginning though. Like I was using a Treo 680 running Palm's OS. The only real alternative was Windows mobile. Both are HORRIBLE operating systems. I also tried Symbian phones, etc at the time, and had a couple different blackberry models.
I guess I can't point to one amazing thing they innovated, but the product they put together sure seemed to totally blow everyone else out of the water. RIMs CEO was even talking about how Apple
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Seriously? How do you propose you design a flat piece of glass with a computer and battery attached to it other than slate-like?
EVen the iPad looks eerily similar to those devices used on Star Trek and other movies and TVs
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Because it's a tablet, based off a smart phone that looks pretty similar, just smaller.
Goggles are another product entirely, or do you propose that the google self-driving car is equivalent to a tablet?
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Yeah like after Ford got a big hit with the Model T, anyone else who wanted to make a car should have made motorcycles and...motorized skateboards and stuff, and left the cars to Ford, forever.
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That's why patents expire.
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For the great majority of people outside of SlashDot, they don't understand the difference between iOS and Android based devices. They see similar-looking gadgets and they hear that they can get A
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Re:Hey Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hey Apple (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hey Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
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Put them side by side and look at them. Yes, they are copying Apple.
And when I put the iPad next to Samsung's digital photo frame from 2006 (before the iPhone came out, let alone the iPad), they look remarkably similar... at least from the front, which is where the majority of Apple's claims come from.
Remind me, who is copying who?
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Put them side by side and you see the aspect ratio is different. Hell, I can tell them apart from a fair distance based on the aspect ratio if they are not tilted.
But the key thing is, both are tablet shaped. The shape of a tablet is pretty damn basic and fundamental.
It is like suing someone a tire manufacturer because someone was dumb enough to give you a patent on round wheels.
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Put them side by side and look at them. Yes, they are copying Apple.
no, they're not. logitech copying keytronic? keytronic copying ibm? ibm copying whoever? they're as easy to mistake with each other as my rog-asus is to mistake with lenovo thinkpad. they're both black and both have a touchpad and both are laptops.
but aren't the patents on the usa billions case some other bullshit patents that apply to bullshit like "ui item activated by sliding" etc bullshit you could go find plenty of prior art in pc games etc?
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And the same bunch of windows. 1 at the front, 1 at the back, and a set on each side, usually attached to the tops of doors. Bunch of lazy fuckers all copying the Model A. Notice how all the wheels are rounded too? Pathetic.
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Oh, it sounds a lot like you're saying they made their design different from Apples by "reducing the devices functionality with useless bezels or hard coded buttons".
Actually I think I said they made it more rugged. Whatever, I don't know why it is as thick as it is but even if it weren't it'd still be distinct from the iPad for reasons I've already pointed out.
I'm still not sure how any of what you've said since my previous post refutes me. Sounds like a bunch of corroborating evidence to me.
That's probably because you completely ignored the paragraph I wrote about Samsung copying the edge detailing of the iPad.
Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple now are.
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Microsoft couldnt be that evil. It didn't control the hardware. Apple owns the whole ball of wax and can swing it any way they wish. Microsoft had to do most of its evil behind the scenes via contracts and licensing. Apple can just come right and bend you over some judges desk and stick the gavel up your ass.
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
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.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha
Good one.
Wait, you were serious?
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Then you clearly haven't made any effort at looking up Microsoft's history.
The only difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple is taking it's battles head on. Microsoft prefered to do things like illegal distribution contracts (eg: if you sell a competitors products, you can't sell ours), subverting standards bodies (eg: the OOXML fiasco), etc.
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You forgot blatantly stealing a competitor product and releasing as their own whanging just the name, not even recompiling it ! That, and on many occasions!
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't remember Microsoft ever being quite as evil as Apple now are.
Loathe as I am to admit to a greater evil than Microsoft in the computing world, I must agree. Microsoft's major thing was making proprietary solutions we already had other solutions for and strong-arming everyone else out of a market via manipulation of their OS monopoly. In hindsight and in the light of Apple, there was a subtlety to Microsoft's tactics, still allowing even the illusion of competition (and some cases where they failed in their tactics and were forced to compete). You could almost be convinced that Microsoft wasn't just bludgeoning everyone else into submission by coasting in on a substandard, nonstandard OS that everyone used at the time. Almost.
Apple, on the other hand, straight-up refuses to compete. At all. A threat in one of their markets? Sue them out of existence. A better product shows up outside of their precious pre-ordained release/marketing schedule and threatens their bottom lines? Sue them out of existence. Someone else beats them to the punch on a technology? Get really, really bitter and sue them out of existence with obscure, obvious patents. Microsoft didn't go straight to the courts when they were threatened. Sure, they came back with either substandard or trivially improved products inextricably linked to their OS, or they bought the company out and absorbed the products, but they only went to the courts when there was actually a case to be made. Apple's very clearly on a slash-and-burn strategy, hell-bent on destroying the entire industry if they have to just to avoid any competition.
I tried a MacBook once a few years back (before Apple went apeshit). I thought it was cute, but didn't see the whole obsession angle, and my next laptop was a ThinkPad. Now I'm glad I made that choice. Shame I'll never be able to sell the MacBook, owing to Apple's not only planned, but FORCED obsolescence...
I read once before that there was a time when IBM was the Evil Empire(tm). It was then mentioned, by someone who was there for both, that in light of Microsoft, the old-timers never knew how good they had it with IBM in charge. I guess history's repeated itself once again.
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Forced obsolescence? I own a Macbook that I bought in 2005. Only now, with the upcoming release of Mountain Lion, will it be unsupported. That's a hell of a lot longer than most companies support their hardware. Try installing Windows 8 on a 2005 Thinkpad. Let me know how well it works for you.
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
Try installing Windows 8 on a 2005 Thinkpad. Let me know how well it works for you.
I have a 2005 Thinkpad running Win7 just fine. I haven't tried Win8 yet, but given that it has lower hardware requirements, I don't see a problem there.
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Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
What would you suggest Apple do?
Yes. Show some fucking integrity. Display some ethics. Hell, even market the shit out of their products so that hip people buy them.
Oh, they did that one.
Try competing on merits, not on arbitrary and bullshit legalised monopolistic predation. Try fucking innovating and being better than the competition. And no, don't even fucking pretend the Apple design patent represents innovation. Don't fucking insult me by suggesting the iPad is better than the Asus Transformer tablets.
Shit, how about even undercutting the competition. Apple can afford it, but they're too happy leeching cash off their loyal fanbase and racking up genuinely astonishing amounts of liquid assets. Sell iPads for $250 each and watch Samsung's sales plummet.
Could you propose an alternative to the course of action that Apple are taking?
Hmm, looks like I proposed several. Why did Apple pick the box marked "Act like cunts"?
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (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.
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it evil to defend your intellectual property?
If your intellectual property includes stuff like "a rectangle with rounded corners" the, yes--yes it is.
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In the early 00s there certainly were rectangle with rounded corner tablets.
Checkout Electrovaya Scribbler SC-2000 for example
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Hey, guess who else had a rectangle with rounded corner tablet in the early 00s?
Apple.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/the-original-ipad-was-gigantic [buzzfeed.com]
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
with all due respect, a simple design is tough to come up with, but easy to steal. Gene Roddenberry has every right to defend the product line he surely agonized to invent and promote. now Apple and others are reaping what someone else sown
Fixed that for you. For fuck's sake, the "flat, rounded rectangle" thing predates Apple Computer by like, a decade at least.
(Yeah, Gene probably wasn't the first either, but I think the point is clear.)
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An Etch-a-Sketch is a rectangular tablet with rounded corner.
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A rectangle with rounded corners is intellectual property?
I like to see the pay offs at the patent office. A rectangle with rounded corners has been around for decades if not longer. Look at furniture tables. Monitors have been in a rectangle shape with rounded corners long before tablet computers existed. Those are displaying things. They are not hand held. Laptops themselves are rectangle shaped with rounded corners. Three examples of prior art right there. Two of them are in the computing field. How agai
Re:Apple is the new Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
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Apple is far away from having a majority.
It just happens that they make all the money.
Question to Apple (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!
Its getting stupid now. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Its getting stupid now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Half a penny per unit? (Score:2)
If Samsung got their way, they'd pay very little in damages.
even less (Score:2)
7.7 (Score:2)
Are they phones or tablets? (Score:3)
I thought the Galaxy Tab 10 and 7.7 were tablets, but Apple was quoted saying:
"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."
Why does Samsung's status as a smartphone manufacturer have anything to do with tablets?
And why is Apple suing for $2.5B in damages when by their own admission, they lost only "hundreds of millions of dollars"?
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And why is Apple suing for $2.5B in damages when by their own admission, they lost only "hundreds of millions of dollars"?
Lawyers... they use fuzzy math.
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Oh Apple, Apple, Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sadly, 99% of consumers don't give a damn about this issue, and just buys iPads because they're shinier and easier to use.
If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em! (Score:3)
Looks like Apple has a new business model.
$2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle (Score:4, Funny)
Re: $2.5 billion a pittance to use rectangle (Score:4, Funny)
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A squircle perhaps?
I'm starting to notice a pattern... (Score:2)
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You know, if it was just a one off that's one thing. But if Apple is *consistently* winning against Samsung across different countries around the world.... they maybe... just MAYBE.... there's more to this than just some box with rounded corners.
Not that I don't agree that it just stifles innovation and competition, I'm just saying that maybe Samsung really did get caught with it's hand in the cookie jar.
Evolving the Language (Score:2)
Loving the MS vs Apple comparisons (Score:2)
Re:Seems fair.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And 7 inch tablets at that! Because it's so similar to the 7" iPad
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" If Apple was a serious competitor, they would be able to compete on value and price"
You're joking, right?
Re:Everywhere in the UE ? (Score:5, 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.