“Apple Inc. won its bid for a court order immediately blocking U.S. sales of Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer while the companies litigate Apple’s patent-infringement claims,” Joel Rosenblatt and Edvard Pettersson report for Bloomberg. “U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, issued the order today after rejecting a similar request in December.”
Rosenblatt and Pettersson report, “Apple’s request, part of a broader patent dispute over smartphones and tablets, was based on an appeals court finding that it will probably win its patent-infringement claim relating to the Tab 10.1 tablet. The public interest ‘favors the enforcement of patent rights,’ Koh wrote. ‘Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wait, what? Apple’s legal team actually accomplished something meaningful? A court, however temporary it may or may not be, actually punished a slavish copier for slavishly copying Apple products? How the hell did that happen?! 😉
Of course, nothing meaningful was really accomplished. Slavish copier Samsung will simply continue selling their Galaxy Tab 10.1 II, which replaced the Galaxy Tab 10.1 last month and is not in any way barred from sale.
Ain’t the speedy legal system grand? It is, if your definition of grand is “a completely ineffectual laughingstock.”
The legal system is not equipped to adequately address blatant copying in the technology sector.
Here’s what our own SteveJack said back in April 2008, yes, 2008: “Samsung’s ‘Instinct’ is obviously to make Apple iPhone knockoffs.” There, the same determination made by the judge, but without wasting 4+ fscking years and for free, without forking over millions upon millions of dollars in legal fees.
So, crime pays. Nothing meaningful was restricted whatsoever. In Seoul, Samsung shares rose 3 percent in a flat market.
The way for Apple to actually get some real justice is to – gasp! – stop doing billions of dollars of business with a thief.
John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD, “Koh’s order will become effective as soon as Apple posts a $2.6 million bond to protect Samsung if it is lated determined that the inunction should not have been granted.”
Paczkowski reports, Reached for comment, Apple reiterated the same message it’s hammered at since this debacle began. ‘It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,’ spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD. ‘This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we’ve said many times before, we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: The ruling:
Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Düsseldorf court denies preliminary injunction against Galaxy Tab 10.1N: Design-around pays off for Samsung – February 9, 2012
Apple loses bid to get preliminary ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N, Nexus Phone in Germany – February 1, 2012
German court leans toward letting Samsung distribute Galaxy Tab 10.1 N – December 22, 2011
Apple petitions German court to ban a fourth Samsung Galaxy Tab: The 10.1N model – November 29, 2011
Samsung relaunches modified Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany – November 16, 2011
Samsung appeals Galaxy Tab 10.1 ban in German court – September 13, 2011
German court upholds Apple complaint: Bans Samsung Galaxy Tab from sale in Europe’s largest market – September 9, 2011
How do you like them Apples?
+1
Love ’em! Tasty!
Wow, finally a judge puts her foot down for right over wrong. Honestly, I didn’t think Judge Koh had it in her even though she had hinted at such a ruling.
And if only all justices would revert to that principle…
From the judgement: Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products. Asexplained by the Federal Circuit, “[a]lthough the public interest inquiry is not necessarily or alwaysbound to the likelihood of success o[n] the merits, . . . absent any other relevant concerns . . . thepublic is best served by enforcing patents that are likely valid and infringed.”
Guess Judge Posner didn’t do his homework in the MMI case. HTC should take note also. Moral to the story don’t F***’ copy.
Samdung’s response: Samsung Electronics comments on preliminary decision by U.S. court to block sales of Galaxy Tab
10.1 in e-mailed statement.
* Apple’s legal claims based on generic design patent to hurt
industry innovation
What industry innovation? I thinkthey mean industry copying.
Re: MDN Take – Is there anyone at Apple you folks actually *do* like nowadays? At least you didn’t call out Tim Cook personally this time around.
You gotta admit, Apple legal has been pretty much totally ineffective at stopping other companies from blatantly ripping Apple off to the tune of tremendous market share and profits:
Microsoft, Google, Samsung…
Coming soon
Illogical to necessarily blame Apple’s lawyers. There are other factors- and I’ll admit I can’t state with certainty the precise reasons why justice sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t triumph.
This should serve as a notice and warning to all other copiers that Apple is the inventor, innovator and owner of its IP and patents. Apple has ‘hoarded’ all those $$$, all these years after getting shafted once by a one Bill Gates, to make sure this ripoff is never to be repeated.
Apple’s coming after you all, has the wear with all to do it relentlessly and in the mean time, dont forget the five year lead Apple has on this technology.
It *is* perfectly logical to blame Apple’s lawyers!
Apple’s legal teams have, at best, been moderately competent.
In the most recent incident which was ruled on within the last week by Judge Posner, he ruled that while Apple *might* have a case against Motorola Apple’s legal team never showed in any of their filings how Apple was damaged and what relief could be granted at trial. (He also ruled that Motorola didn’t have a case at a all.)
How can a legal team be so stupid as to get a valid case thrown out because they cannot articulate how an infringing company is damaging the patent holder. There must be dozens of ways to show that — and show that explicitly.
I’m a firm believer that 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. Apple’s legal teams are no different.
I would put this win under the category of “even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while”!
Now hopefully the judge will block sales of Apple products for because they stole technology from Motorola! Karma is wonderful.
a well-crafted sentence, Jon.
Your comment is a sentence fragment, botvinnik. It’s not a well-crafted one, though.
Jon is wrong on the facts, but his first sentence simply contains an extra ‘for,’ which is an editing problem. Those with something meaningful to contribute will overlook the edit and address Jon’s substantive remark.
fsck you..there’s another fragment for you.
Jon, that was just great. I’d tell you it was a Frand patent that Apple had already licensed but I don’t want to confuse you with the truth.
Yeah, be careful. Wouldn’t want to hurt him. Not sure if he could cope with it.
Jon, ……… just forget it, you wouldn’t understand due to the poor excuse in delivering your message.
Just one thing Jon — (1). FRAND with abuses by Motorola.
Talk about Karma.
And Jon,
“Schoolhouse Rock!” Look it up, it may help.
Night Night.
Now hopefully you will pick up a remedial English textbook for because you cannot form a proper sentence.
Jon…. Do you understand the term FRAND?
This is what all Galaxy Tabs will be saying tomorrow for because they are poorly Xeroxed iPads
I/O Let’s GO!
FIRST KICK IN THE NUTS!!
I wish she presided over Apple’s other suit instead of Posner.
There’s no “slavish copying” going on here, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is horizontal while the iPad is vertical!
Move along.
When you copy the best, you get sued like the rest.
Now lets see Samesung pay up for damages too, please 🙂
(I actually wrote Samesung without realizing 🙂 )
Lets not forget…For the injunction to take effect, Apple must first post a $2.6 million bond to cover potential lost Galaxy Tab sales should the case be appealed and the verdict overturned.
Tim Cook flips over some couch cushions.
Yeah, that $2.6 million is probably figured to be the potential profit from Galaxy Tab sales for the next 10 years.
Have they broken 100k “sold” yet? At the end of last year, they had only “sold” about 25k of these (I’m guessing most were bought by sight challenged grandparents who thought they were buying iPads for their grandkids).
Of course, now they are trying to cook the numbers by reporting the big ass phone (Galaxy Note) as tablet numbers to obscure the dismal failure that the Galaxy Tab has been. Even doing that, they have only “sold” about 5 million devices.
I really do wonder – since no one wants to buy this piece of crap anyway, why does Samsung even bother wasting legal fees on this?
“[O]ne who elects to build a business on a product found to infringe cannot be heard to complain, if an injunction against a continuing infringement destroys the business so elected.”
Millions in legal fees just for this common sense determination.
Stopping the sale of a discontinued product is no justice in my book. Why couldn’t Koh reach this decision 6 months ago when it might have actually impacted Samsung. I can only hope that this small victory leads to some other tangible, and more aggressive, punishment for Samsung.
… the lawyers are suing to show Apple’s intention of defending their rights. Winning is a bonus. Making a difference in the current scheme of things is a HUGE win. If you neglect to defend your “property”, you lose the RIGHT to defend it. Which pretty much sux.
Dominoes fall … first the Galaxy Tab 10.1, then another Samsung device, then a third …. at that point Apple can show an ongoing pattern of illegal conduct by an organization and then maybe Samsung gets hit with RICO or something.
I dont think the 10.1 was being sold anywhere anyway. Another legal fail