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German Injunction Against Sale of Galaxy Tab 10.1 Upheld

gohanmzt said:
Ok, now I'm oficially confused. Did the galaxy tab get banned from sale because its infringing on the design registration even if the registration doesn't have anything to do with its competitor the ipad? Does this mean that it doesn't matter what kind of device it is, if it looks like the design apple registered it will get banned?
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If Apple brings claims against it, it seems quite like it will yes, especially in the plaintiff Dusseldorf court.

Since we don't have any other information than the "minimalistic design isn't the only design possible", we don't know what the german judge would find infringing or not (would a simple home button suffice since there's none on the registration ?).
 
apolloa said:
This has everything to do with Apple being scared and knowing full well it is going to loose market share to Android, it cannot control the market for ever, instead of generating an effective business plan to compete, innovate products, it has decided to sue everybody
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Some courts have decided the Apple has just cause in doing so.

Again, products have to stand up to legal scrutiny. Apple made the challenge, and not everyone is able to answer it effectively.

Whether Apple is "scared" is irrelevant. They're "scared" with the top products in the market? Maybe. But that's a little difficult to prove with all the tremendous success they've been having.

It's more likely they'd like to see how well their ideas (i.e., patents) stand up to everyone else's. From their perspective, those that *can* be penalized *should* be penalized.

Them's the breaks. It's a cutthroat industry.

Think of it this way. The wheat is getting separated from the chaff. We're about to see where everyone stands. Who knows, some of Apple's competitors might just be left standing strong.
 
KnightWRX said:
If Apple brings claims against it, it seems quite like it will yes, especially in the plaintiff Dusseldorf court.

Since we don't have any other information than the "minimalistic design isn't the only design possible", we don't know what the german judge would find infringing or not (would a simple home button suffice since there's none on the registration ?).
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But in Europe, if Apple started to try and ban everyone's tablets from sale it would be facing a monopoly charges brought about by all those other manufacturers.
As I understand it Apple have used such a fickle law, that I can't see how they can use it more then once on one product. No matter what Apple thinks, it cannot trade mark or pattern a bloody shape!
 
apolloa said:
But in Europe, if Apple started to try and ban everyone's tablets from sale it would be facing a monopoly charges brought about by all those other manufacturers.
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Based on what? The "other manufacturers" failing legal tests of their IP?

Seems like in that case these other manufacturers will have some re-designing to do.
 
KnightWRX said:
If Apple brings claims against it, it seems quite like it will yes, especially in the plaintiff Dusseldorf court.

Since we don't have any other information than the "minimalistic design isn't the only design possible", we don't know what the german judge would find infringing or not (would a simple home button suffice since there's none on the registration ?).
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WOW! For the moment I'm speechless. I'll wait for more information to see if I recover it or not. Thanks
 
apolloa said:
What a surprise, selective reply, and a link from Mac Rumors :roll eyes:

No point talking to the brand blinded.....
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I stop taking anything when it was rating Apple worth much a long time ago. Apple gets pretty big boost in the fact that it is Apple and people are insanely more forgiving to Apple products.

You should go back and see the defense of the orginal iPhone not having MMS, copy past, being able to install your own apps.

Later on Multitasking defense and the crap notification defense. It pretty sad but you start seeing things like that you learn quickly why Apple being rated number 1 is not surprising. They get away with some pretty big things.
 
apolloa said:
But in Europe, if Apple started to try and ban everyone's tablets from sale it would be facing a monopoly charges brought about by all those other manufacturers.
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That's why they went for Samsung, which is at present the prime Android OEM out there (best selling handset with the SGS II, most handsets sold, etc..).

But the problem is, they are only legitimizing Samsung as a competitor with these efforts.
 
apolloa said:
But in Europe, if Apple started to try and ban everyone's tablets from sale it would be facing a monopoly charges brought about by all those other manufacturers.
As I understand it Apple have used such a fickle law, that I can't see how they can use it more then once on one product. No matter what Apple thinks, it cannot trade mark or pattern a bloody shape!
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Actually they (or anyone) can to a point. Remember this is Europe not the US.

From my earlier post.


The registered Community design (RCD)
An RCD is an exclusive right for the outward appearance of a product or part of it, resulting from the features (in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials) of the product itself and/or its ornamentation.
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The way it looks to me is that apple are creating appliances and consumer devices that are not based on a generic spec or concept. Anyone can make an IBM pc compatible device and load it windows, that cannot be copyrighted. If you pay enough you can be a licensee of blu ray, or make an amp with hdmi etc..

But you can't just copy the look and feel of a device from a another company. It's just not on, and if the company wants to sue there is nothing wrong with that. The design of the iPad includes the software and the interface to the design.

Tell me what company had a touch screen device (phone or tablet) that had a grid display as its main home screen with a separated bar of favourite apps as the bottom row? No one before Apple.

Nokias grid display was never the front screen of symbian, nor googles original g1. HTC sense had the huge calendar at centre and even the nexus one doesn't have the grid display as the main display.

So samsung have gone out of their way to make the grid display the main display of their devices and made that prominent on the box of their devices which are also plain White like apple. WTF?

And people don't think they were trying to piggy back off the success of the iPhone/iPad? How come the samsung series is the biggest selling android happens to look the most like apple's devices? You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.

In the post pc generation you will no longer just get a generic set of parts and badge them together and stick a windows OS in it. Design is everything. Design costs. Design is intensive. Design is not invention, it is the organisation of existing ideas. Apple did not have to "invent" the tablet to protect their design. Companies should not be allowed to profit off of someone else's design. You wouldnt expect Armani to be allowed to create a rain coat with a similar Burberry checquered pattern as are in Burberry rain coats would you?

Finally, if other companies can create mobile devices that don't look anything like apples products then it's clear that the design is not "obvious" as many people believe. Apple have paid good money to design a unique UI and tablet why should anyone copy it for free?
 
Remember when tech sites used to show us the latest and greatest in neat gadgets? You know, before everyone decided to start suing everyone else over who owns exclusive rights to concepts such as "thin" and "minimalist"?

I do. Those days are sorely missed.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
I stop taking anything when it was rating Apple worth much a long time ago. Apple gets pretty big boost in the fact that it is Apple and people are insanely more forgiving to Apple products.

You should go back and see the defense of the orginal iPhone not having MMS, copy past, being able to install your own apps.

Later on Multitasking defense and the crap notification defense. It pretty sad but you start seeing things like that you learn quickly why Apple being rated number 1 is not surprising. They get away with some pretty big things.
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I remember seeing the jokes about the first iPhone. I am a fan of the current one, but man the tech specs of the original looked so pathetic, in the UK at least next to 5mps cameras, full functioning smart phone OS with cop and paste, full bluetooth etc etc.
But if anyone asks me what can my iPhone do there Android smart phone cannot I simply state the fact which is nothing, a blinded fan would real of 30 mins of utter crap with no facts what so ever, and fully believe in it! :rolleyes:

KnightWRX said:
That's why they went for Samsung, which is at present the prime Android OEM out there (best selling handset with the SGS II, most handsets sold, etc..).

But the problem is, they are only legitimizing Samsung as a competitor with these efforts.
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Yeap, no body likes a bully and in Europe we have way more choice then Apple.
i had some respect for Apple, but the way it's acted I now don't. This will devalue it's reputation a bit. But even though this is on the main news websites, it's only in the technology parts. Main news is still Libya and the 9/11 events.

Apparently the German court did try to block the sale Europe wide until Samsung kindly reminded them they do NOT posses the power to do that, so it's only banned in Germany. And seeing as Apple has lost other cases, I can't see this course of action getting very far.
 
apolloa said:
Apparently the German court did try to block the sale Europe wide until Samsung kindly reminded them they do NOT posses the power to do that, so it's only banned in Germany. And seeing as Apple has lost other cases, I can't see this course of action getting very far.
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And as kdarling pointed out, the ruling and ban only extend to Samsung's german branch and direct sales from them. If a distributor were to get in shipments from a subsidiary of Samsung in another country (say straight from Korea) they could sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 without being in contempt of this court ordered ban.

It remains to be seen how this plays out. Does Samsung GbmH even exist ?
 
threesixty360 said:
So samsung have gone out of their way to make the grid display the main display of their devices and made that prominent on the box of their devices which are also plain White like apple. WTF?
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Actually I believe the grid of apps is in the app drawer. The main display is different and customizable.
 
840quadra said:
Actually they (or anyone) can to a point. Remember this is Europe not the US.

From my earlier post.
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Maybe, I do know we are talking about Europe but if Apple went to a UK court trying to ban a product from sale based on it's shape, I can't help but feel it'll loose miserably. But meh, apple is playing the dirtiest tricks it can, the very fact it chose a court and law which resulted in Samsung not being told about the case tells us that!

----------
*LTD* said:
Completely different. Nothing Apple did here meets any legal test for abuse of monopoly.

You can't just apple a "monopoly" label to anything you don't like, especially when Apple is acting within the law.
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My point was relating to if Apple decided to try and block the sale of ALL tablets, it will be creating a monopoly market removing consumer choice and in Europe you get punished for that. So it is NOT different, it is a large American company trying to monopolise a market and reduce consumer choice.
And if Apple was acting 'within the law' it wouldn't be doctoring images presented in it's case would it?
 
threesixty360 said:
As far as I can see from this video it's pretty similar to the iPhone..

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?deskto...e.com/watch?v=rAE_zKAtMvg&v=rAE_zKAtMvg&gl=GB
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What you see in that video is some guy who customized his home screen to have a bunch of icons. You can also have different widgets, no icons at all, etc... Notice he still has the Google search widget at the top.

And that's the i9000 Galaxy S running on Froyo, not the Honeycomb tablet.

Cherry picked evidence is cherry picked.

Here is how the real i9000 looks like :

Samsung-GT-I9000-S-Galaxy1.jpg


The application drawer is where you find the grid of icon layout.
 
threesixty360 said:
As far as I can see from this video it's pretty similar to the iPhone..

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?deskto...e.com/watch?v=rAE_zKAtMvg&v=rAE_zKAtMvg&gl=GB
Click to expand...

App grids have been around practically since the day that PDAs could display graphics, and you could go even farther back with GUI desktops, which basically do the same thing. The only point of contention you could argue is Apple's implementation of the concept, which isn't at all the way Android handles it.

Also, I think you've got a dud link there.
 
kennyli said:
I feel sorry for the consumers in Germany!
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Why? They get to buy an innovative product and not an Asian knock-off.

Had Samsung designed their product from scratch, as Apple did, they wouldn't be in this situation.

What Apple is doing with their suits against Samsung is serving notice to all other iPad and iPhone manufacturers that it's time they get to innovating or go through the same thing.

If you want real choice and see some real innovation, then what Apple is doing will bring that about.
 
SandynJosh said:
Why? They get to buy an innovative product and not an Asian knock-off.

Had Samsung designed their product from scratch, as Apple did, they wouldn't be in this situation.

What Apple is doing with their suits against Samsung is serving notice to all other iPad and iPhone manufacturers that it's time they get to innovating or go through the same thing.

If you want real choice and see some real innovation, then what Apple is doing will bring that about.
Click to expand...

Nonsense, Apple simply bribed the judge.
 
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