I don't really see this as a big issue, lawsuits is part of the lifestyle of being on top or anywhere near it. Microsoft was also involved with some really stupid ones, Intel tried to patent the letter "i" and was shot down, I believe Apple's stance against the Xoom tablet is no different. The Xoom other than being rectangular shaped, doesn't share anything similar to any iPad model, the OS are nothing alike, etc.
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Apple Suing Motorola Over Design of Xoom Tablet
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The lawsuit isn't the issue, it's the injunction that could result because of Apple's choice of germany.
No my example is not flawed, your understanding of the purpose of my post is however.
The OP said the following
parapup said:
Perhaps an accidental blanket statement, but a blanket statement none the less. From which I replied.
840quadra said:
Yes the type of lawsuit is different, but that is not the point I was addressing. There is no context to adhere to when a blanket statement is used, Ford issues lawsuits to protect it's interests, as Apple does.
Not scary! Apple will be held liable for Samsung's losses if they should lose the following court trial over this injunction (which could become expensive!).
The mechanism (and why Samsung was not put on notice / got no chance for defense beforehand) is explained in detail here.
... but probably only due to the fact that no-one thought of patenting a 4-wheel vehicle back when they had been invented (now it is common knowledge with sufficient "prior art" to prevent getting a patent on that).
A 4-wheel vehicle is not all that natural - world's first "motor-car" was a three-wheeler and there are many examples for vehicles with a number of wheels <> 4.
And to close with an absurd example: Why do the 4 wheels have to sit basically at the 4 corners of a car? Competition could arrange them in form of a cross with two wheels at the sides and one each at the very front and back (think of a three-wheeler with an additional wheelie bar at the back)?
Hopefully i did not give patent lawyers another idea now...
Someone should sue apple for making laptops... if you take any laptop that was before apples, it will be just as alike as the xoom and ipad.
they got a screen, keyboard, attachable mouse, you open it the same way. there are icons on the desktop, they have a "start" bar.
they got a screen, keyboard, attachable mouse, you open it the same way. there are icons on the desktop, they have a "start" bar.
After having read Apple's official filing for the injunction (in German), I am flabbergasted.
Has our legal system really sunken to such depths? Those lawyers are basically copying the wording of Apple's marketing brochures 1:1 in an official legal document as evidence? Is this what people go to law school for nowadays? I never would have expected to find phrases like the "famous iPad" and "Apple revolutionized..." in a LEGAL document. Wow, just wow. I always knew that corporate lawyers are full of **** by definition, but this sure bottoms even my low opinion of that profession.
Apple doesn't have a patent on a rectangle with rounded corners nor are they suing over a patent. They are suing over a Community Design registration :
http://es.scribd.com/doc/61944044/Community-Design-000181607-0001
While there are vehicules without 4 wheels, the 4 wheel vehicule is quite normal and natural and pre-dates the motor-car.
Stability and space. 4 wheels, one of each corner is the most stable configuration that provides the most load bearing and interior space.
It's flawed in that the OP probably meant "doesn't sue over things as ridiculous as a community design registration for a rectangle with 4 rounded corners".
You took his post quite too literally I believe. Nonetheless, while auto makers due sue each other over intellectual property, they don't have ridiculously broad and generic IP or if they do, don't sue each other over it.
If he thought there was 0 lawsuits going on in the auto-industry, then of course you're right. Though it doesn't excuse this mummer's farce of lawsuits Apple has just thrown in the EU.
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Without context everything can be blanket. Was there a particular reason to assume I was implying Ford does not sue others for anything? Sure they do but in this context they don't sue others for making cars with 4 wheels and a steering like Apple is doing.
It's flawed in that the OP probably meant "doesn't sue over things as ridiculous as a community design registration for a rectangle with 4 rounded corners".
You took his post quite too literally I believe. Nonetheless, while auto makers due sue each other over intellectual property, they don't have ridiculously broad and generic IP or if they do, don't sue each other over it.
So you are granting them the benefit of the doubt, but attacking my post just for sport?
I addressed a clear point, with a clear reply, that for some unknown / strange reason you took issue with.And For the record, I am not defending Apple's actions in this latest lawsuit. I am (like I said in my first reply in this tread) curious to see how it pans out considering these are 2 American companies going after each other in a foreign court. I agree that the basic design defense in this case is way too generic to protect in the way Apple is trying to do.
Sorry but you didn't specify exactly what you were talking about. You simply said what I bolded once, and quoted a second time.
That is both a clear and direct statement, that I simply commented on.
I don't come onto MacRumors to begin or get involved with power trips, pissing matches or otherwhise. Think of my response as coming from someone sitting at the same lunch table, and in a regular voice, contributing to the conversation. Not as if I stood up, with a megaphone and started yelling at everyone.
I am happy to stand corrected by parapup's clarification of what they were getting at.
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Yes, even the Asus Transformer is an iPad clone.
and the Crunchpad and the HP Slate
Apple does that in every court document. First they brag in a very TV-ad-like way about how well their products sell, then they complain that others are copying them and that they're losing sales. I think it actually hurts their case to always try to cast themselves as both a huge successful company and a poor underdog.
Reminds me of the Excedrin PM and Tylenol PM case -- similar names and box look. The US court held that, even in the face of clear evidence of intentional copying, the prominent use of famous marks on the packaging prevents any ultimate consumer confusion. In other words, the large SAMSUNG on the product tells anyone, even Grandma, that it's not made by Apple.
That JayTech tablet really points out the difference between blatant visual copying and not. JayTech copied; the Tab and Xoom did not.
(Sidenote to those who don't know: the rounded box on the iPhone Home button is a blank app icon. It's supposed to indicate that the Home button will take us back to a page full of apps.)
Apple doesn't even claim a dark bezel in this case. They hardly claim anything specific, in fact. Which is why so many ordinary people have a problem with it:
IF Apple was claiming that a tablet copied the iPad right down to the Home button, then we can all sympathize with that. See JayTech above.
The problem with the EU case is that Apple's design registration doesn't specifically look like an iPad. Instead, it's a generic shape that many monitors, digital picture frames, etc might look like.
Compare the more detailed US iPad design patent (which also includes pictures of a curved back and specific dock connector and switch locations):
With the very generic EU design registration, which doesn't even show a Home button, much less any connectors. It could be almost anything:
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Great points in your full post,
As has been said here before, it is a wonder how or why these types of generic, obvious prior-art submissions are protected by any government entity to begin with.
The picture your submitted may as well be the iMac G4 LCD screen.
So you are granting them the benefit of the doubt, but attacking my post just for sport?
Why did you remove my last paragraph from your quote ? I think that mischaracterizes my post a great deal. Or are you just attacking my post for sport ?
Why did you remove my last paragraph from your quote ? I think that mischaracterizes my post a great deal. Or are you just attacking my post for sport ?
Because you edited your post after I started my response, and I didn't see it until you pointed it out just now.
I can type somewhat fast, but not that much in 3 minutes!
Regardless, I think the air is now clear.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; en-gb; Nexus S Build/GRJ22) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)
It's a shame that marksman has skimmed over the JooJoo concept pictures. Very iPad like without an iPad to influence it.
In turn, the JooJoo shares a similar design to the TC1000/1100 I posted earlier bit they can't be inspired by that, can they?
Oletros said:
It's a shame that marksman has skimmed over the JooJoo concept pictures. Very iPad like without an iPad to influence it.
In turn, the JooJoo shares a similar design to the TC1000/1100 I posted earlier bit they can't be inspired by that, can they?
This 30% cut crap needs to stop.
Why is it ok for Steam/you local mall/ and everybody else to have 20-50% cut, but not Apple? Add cost for manufacturing, shipping, boxes, the 30% is a bargain.
The 30% is also just for Apps.
For music/movies they get 8-11%. iTunes actually did not do a profit before selling Apps. It costs to run those servers. (and since Apple is a bit stupid, they stopped using its own hardware in the server room.)
Guys, think about it for a second. A tablet is a screen. Where did the inspiration for a tablet come from ?
Every LCD screen that came before them. All LCDs basically look the same, a big rectangle with a bezel, sometimes with rounded corners.
The iPad's design isn't some big stroke of genius... it's been staring at us for close to 20 years.
... but probably only due to the fact that no-one thought of patenting a 4-wheel vehicle back when they had been invented (now it is common knowledge with sufficient "prior art" to prevent getting a patent on that).
A 4-wheel vehicle is not all that natural - world's first "motor-car" was a three-wheeler and there are many examples for vehicles with a number of wheels <> 4.
And to close with an absurd example: Why do the 4 wheels have to sit basically at the 4 corners of a car? Competition could arrange them in form of a cross with two wheels at the sides and one each at the very front and back (think of a three-wheeler with an additional wheelie bar at the back)?
Hopefully i did not give patent lawyers another idea now...
If four wheels on a car (including their positioning) didnt make sense, we would see companies pushing other (better) designs. Are we? No.
Ask people what kind of motorbike they would buy:
Most would answer HD.
Ask people what kind of soda they want to drink:
Most would answer CocaCola or Pepsi.
If a car was much better and only priced a little higher, that car brand would gain the same brand loyalty that Apple have.
The Apple experience is unique.
BTW. If Apple was the only computer.
1) 90% of IT jobs would disappear since you don't need as much support, less problems and so on. (I know this for a fact. In Ericsson they had 1 support personal per 10PC and 1 support per 100 Unix system)
2) We would have flying cars, clean energy and solved world hunger. I have seen so many innovation go up in flames thanks to blue screen of death. At Ericsson we had to do simulations on phones/base stations. These simulations last 3-4 weeks at 100% CPU utilization. Keeping a Windows based server up for 1 month with 100% load is almost impossible. When it crash: need to start over.
Hilarious is all I can say to that. Apple would not even last for long in hard core Enterprise IT. Different ball game which requires lot of transparency, lot of vendor co-ordination, lot of backwards compatibility and other things like extended hardware and software support that Apple can't fathom doing. Oh and once you start going beyond web and email in enterprise IT - that's where it gets tough - people using Macs in IT don't go much beyond that and feel it's all easy ride!
Serves them right for stealing multi-touch, MAAAAAAAAN,
Droid's not my dad, it's not even a cell phone...
HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-TO-THE GROUND!
I threw the BlackBerry too!
I ain't a part of your system... Phonies!
Droid's not my dad, it's not even a cell phone...
HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-TO-THE GROUND!
I threw the BlackBerry too!
I ain't a part of your system... Phonies!