Court
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5952790/apple-forced-to-run-public-apology-in-14pt-arial
Having lost its appeal against the UK High Court of Justice’s ruling, which decided Samsung’s tablet designs didn’t infringe on the iPad, Apple is being forced to make a public apology.
The best bit? The judge in question has described how it has to do it. Apple will have to post notices on its website, and in newspapers, explaining why it’s sorry. In Arial. With a font size no smaller than 14 pts. Brilliant.
The case in question had previously thrown out Apple’s complaints, when Judge Colin Birss explained that the Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design… They are not as cool.” As a result, Biriss judged that consumers were unlikely to confuse the two tablets, meaning that Samsung’s product didn’t infringe on Apple’s registered design. This particular legal battle just keeps getting better. [BBC]
Not too long ago, Samsung faced a big loss against Apple in court, and now, it’s just sat through the announcement of the new iPhone, which sold out its preorders in a matter of hours. What’s a rival manufacturer to do? That’s easy; if you’re Samsung, you attack.
Samsung has crafted a pretty aggressive ad comparing Apple’s flagship iPhone 5 to its own Galaxy S III. You can guess who comes out on top. While the lion’s share of the ad’s criticisms are fair—the S III does have NFC while the iPhone 5 doesn’t, and the same goes for removable battery and microSD storage—the bit referring to Apple’s new connector comes off as a bit snide. But you didn’t expect this to be civil, did you?
Adorned with the clever (admit it, it’s clever) tagline “It doesn’t take a genius,” the ad is due to roll out a bunch of newspapers tomorrow, where it will doubtlessly reach the sort of people who still read newspapers. Clearly Samsung isn’t about to take anything lying down, and who could blame them? The question is, will it work? [CNET]
Apple v. Samsung jury finds Apple’s patents valid, awards it nearly $1.05 billion in damages
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/24/apple-v-samsung-decision/
The federal court jury in the patent infringement lawsuit between Apple and Samsung has presented its verdict after deliberating for just 21 hours and 37 minutes following the three week trial. This particular case started with Apple’s lawsuit last April and now the jury’s decision is that Samsung did infringe on Apple’s ‘381 bounceback patent with all 21 of its products in question. For the ‘915 patent on pinch-and-zoom, the jury ruled all but three of the devices listed infringed, and more damningly, found that Samsung executives either knew or should have known their products infringed on the listed patents. The jury has also found against Samsung when it comes to Apple’s contours on the back of the iPhone and its home screen GUI. The Galaxy Tab, was found not to have infringed upon Apple’s iPad design patents. The bad news for Samsung continued however, as the jury decided that not only did it willfully infringe on five of the seven Apple patents, but also upheld their validity when it came to utility, design and trade dress.
The amount of the damages against Samsung is in: $1,051,855,000.00 (see below). That’s less than half of the $2.5 billion it was seeking, but still more than enough to put an exclamation point on this victory for the team from Cupertino. The final number is $1,049,343,540, after the judge found an issue with how the jury applied damages for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE and Intercept. The jury also ruled that Apple did not infringe upon Samsung’s patents with the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and has awarded it zero dollars in damage. We’ll have more information for you as it become available.
Update: Both companies have released statements on the matter, with Apple stating via the New York Times the ruling sends a loud and clear message that “stealing isn’t right.” Samsung has its own viewpoint calling this “a loss for the American consumer” that will lead to fewer choices, less innovation and high prices. You can see both in their entirety after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Apple v. Samsung jury finds Apple’s patents valid, awards it nearly $1.05 billion in damages originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 18:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Samsung and Apple ship almost half of all smartphones, but Korean manufacturer maintains lead
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/27/idc-samsung-and-apple-ship-almost-half-of-all-smartphones-but/
IDC’s latest figures offer some predictable reading. More phones are being sold than ever before; 406 million units were sold in Q2, against 401.8 million in the same period last year — with a 42 percent increase in smartphone sales. The winners? Perrenial court antagonists, Samsung and Apple, with the duo doubling their combined market share over the last two years. Samsung maintains its lead, reaching over 50 million phones sold — and a new quarterly sales record — while Apple saw a quarter-over-quarter decline, as buyers presumably wait for Cupertino’s latest iteration, or go elsewhere. Nokia, meanwhile, had another “transitional” quarter, with sales of both Symbian and MeeGo devices shrinking, although its Windows Phones proved stronger. According to IDC‘s figures, Nokia and Microsoft’s team-up handset sales have doubled since last quarter. HTC misses out on a top three spot, but its fortunes appear to have improved over the last two quarters, with the IDC pointing the finger at a more streamlined product range from the Taiwan manufacturer. ZTE continues to nip at its heels, reaching the top five thanks to strong entry-level smartphone sales in China, while continuing to inch onto US shores. If you’re looking for a full breakdown of all phones sold, dumb and otherwise, ! read up at the source below.
Filed under: Cellphones
IDC: Samsung and Apple ship almost half of all smartphones, but Korean manufacturer maintains lead originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 03:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Galaxy Nexus Pulled from Google Play Store
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5923427/galaxy-nexus-pulled-from-google-play-store
Last week US courts ruled in favor of Apple by granting a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Google-designed smartphone, the Galaxy Nexus. Now, the phone has been pulled from the Google Play store, and Goggle is hurrying to put together a software patch to get around the ban.
The court injunction centers around a patent which Apple holds pertaining to searching multiple areas for information—on a device and elsewhere—through a single search interface. The Verge reports that Google is now putting together, or already has put together, an over-the-air patch to get around the problem.
The Verge is also reporting, however, that the Galaxy Nexus has been pulled from the Play store. It’s not clear whether the stall in sales is due to the injunction, but it seems likely.
Apple has also now posted the $96 million dollar bond required to begin the Galaxy Nexus injunction in earnest—so regardless of what Google and Samsung do, it looks like they have a tough fight ahead of them. [The Verge]
UK judge rules HTC doesn’t violate Apple’s patents, invalidates Cupertino’s claims
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/04/uk-judge-rules-htc-doesnt-violate-apples-patents-invalidates/
Well, Apple had a few legal victories over the last couple of weeks, but it’s just been handed a significant defeat by Judge Christopher Floyd. The UK court handed down a ruling that HTC does not violate four Apple patents, including the infamous slide-to-unlock claim. What’s more, the judge ruled that three of the four patents in question were not valid, among them the aforementioned unlocking design. The only one of the four patents that stood at the end of the day was related to scrolling through images in the photo management app, but HTC did not infringe upon the claim. This follows the ITC refusing an emergency ban on HTC products in the US. Don’t think you’ve heard the last of slide-to-unlock, however. As HTC, Apple and Samsung have repeatedly shown, they’re just as interested in competing in the court room as they are on store shelves (if not more so).
UK judge rules HTC doesn’t violate Apple’s patents, invalidates Cupertino’s claims originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Fox, NBC And CBS Are Suing Dish Over A New DVR That Skips Ads
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/fox-nbc-and-cbs-are-suing-dish-over-a-new-dvr-that-skips-ads-2012-5
Broadcasters Fox, NBC and CBS sued Dish Network Corp. on Thursday over a service that offers commercial-free TV.
Dish, the nation’s second-largest satellite TV provider, filed a suit of its own seeking a judicial all-clear for its “AutoHop” ad-skipping technology.
Dish said the unique service it launched this month doesn’t violate copyrights and that it is seeing a “groundswell of support from consumers.”
The fight is over a subtle but key question: Whether TV distributors can cut out commercials on consumers’ behalf, or if consumers hold that power alone with their fingers on the remote.
Since May 10, Dish has been advertising a digital video recorder service called “Primetime Anytime” that gives consumers access to the last eight days of prime-time programming from the four major broadcast networks — ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox — with the commercials stripped out. The service, available to Dish’s top-tier subscribers, uses technology called “AutoHop” to deliver the programming ad-free.
In a suit filed Thursday in a Los Angeles federal court, News Corp.’s Fox says Dish’s service is unauthorized and violates a licensing agreement between the two companies.
It says the service is a form of unlicensed video-on-demand because the recordings are kept on a portion of the DVR’s hard drive that is controlled by Dish. Fox only licenses its regular programs to Dish for playback on VOD on the condition that fast-forwarding of commercials is disabled.
If the service isn’t stopped, it “will ultimately destroy the advertising-supported ecosystem” that underpins TV shows, Fox said.
Dish maintains that the service is “user-enabled” and that it is fundamentally no different from how consumers use DVRs today. It filed its suit in a New York federal court.
“Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control,” said Dish’s senior vice president of programming, David Shull, in a statement. “We are giving them a feature they want and that gives them more control.”
Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal and CBS Corp. also filed suits against Dish on similar grounds on Thursday.
“Dish simply does not have the authority to tamper with the ads from broadcast replays on a wholesale basis for its own economic and commercial advantage,” NBCUniversal said in a statement.
CBS said in a statement: “This service takes existing network content and modifies it in a manner that is unauthorized and illegal. We believe this is a clear violation of copyright law and we intend to stop it.”
A spokeswoman for The Walt Disney Co.’s ABC declined to comment.
About 40 percent of the 115 million television households in the U.S. have a DVR. Watching programs recorded on a DVR accounted for about 8.4 percent of all TV viewing among adults aged 18 to 34 last year, up from about 7.9 percent in 2010, according to TV ratings and research provider The Nielsen Co.
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Facebook Scam Artist Fined
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5908668/facebook-ad-scam-artists-fined-for-being-really-really-awful
Adscend Media is the jerk ad agency responsible for many of the “OMG LOL THIS VIDEO IS SO GOOD JUSTIN BEIBER” links on Facebook that, when clicked, spam the same crap link to your friends. It has just been fined $100,000 by a Washington court for spamming and scamming Facebook users.
The thing is, that $100,000 fine looks tiny compared to the $1.2 million that Adscent Media brings in every month; 80 percent of which comes from the scammy links that, really, should be punishable by orbital bombardment. Facebook itself is trying to legislate stuff like this out of our lives, and this decision is a step in that direction, but there’s still a lot of lawyering left to do. [Venture Beat]
Expired Groupons Are Valid Again After Court Ruling
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5898699/your-expired-groupons-are-valid-again-thanks-to-85-million-court-ruling
Remember that deal you purchased on Groupon—$30 for a $50 laser hair removal? It expired, and your unibrow has grown out of control. But you’re in luck. Groupon has agreed to pay an $8.5 million settlement in a class action lawsuit claiming that expiration dates are illegal. Better yet, the court also ruled that you can use all those Groupons you bought that expired last year. Mulligan!
Your coupons are still good if they were purchased before Dec. 1, 2011. Most future Groupons won’t expire so quickly, either. The company agreed that for the next three years, no more than 10 percent of its coupons will carry a use-by date that is less than 30 days after the date of issue.
The settlement is a result of the consolidation of 17 lawsuits in a San Diego district court, which allege that Groupon is violating consumer protection laws. Shoppers feel like an expiration dates force them to buy something, the suit argues.
Groupon didn’t immediately respond to questions about how you can cash in on your bygone coupons. We’re also investigating how you can get in on the settlement. We’ll update when we have the info. [Bloomberg]
Update: Groupon told us if you have expired Groupons, you can redeem them in the normal way. Print out the coupon or load it up on your smartphone, and the merchant should honor it as usual.
Update 2: Groupon says your coupons are valid for the purchase price post-expiry. For example, if you paid $20 for a $40, you’d get the $20 credit. It also noted that this is not a new policy, nor was it dictated by the settlement.
Facebook loses friends in Germany over privacy breaches
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/08/facebook-privacy-breaches/
Before you’ve even sipped your morning brew, a regional German court has delivered yet another stern judgement affecting a multinational organization. This time it’s Facebook back in the dock over the Friend Finder feature, which uploads a user’s contact list to Zuckerberg’s bunker without proper warning. Another offense involves the ownership of data — any original photo or music track uploaded to Facebook supposedly belongs to the company and can be used however it likes, which has now been deemed to breach data protection laws. Someone ought to add this to the Harvard Student Handbook.
Facebook loses friends in Germany over privacy breaches originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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