Yep, they’re at it again: Apple is going for Samsung’s jugular. More specific, a ban on Samsung devices. Sounds familiar? Your memory is OK then. Apple got a serious hurt moment when judge Koh wasn’t too impressed by Apple demanding some 20 Samsung devices to be banned from the US shelves.
So Apple revisited the court to revise the ruling. Many would say it’s pretty silly to demand Samsung to take devices from a shelve that most likely are no longer there in the first place. A full year after the ruling means it’s about devices by now two years old if not older. Like the old Galaxy S4 seriesI and the first generation Galaxy Tab 10.1. Craigs list, marktplaats and ebay will be the places that you need to get them.
But…
If Apple would succeed it could use that ruling to be updated to what? S4 and S4 mini? The Note? G5? After all, a ruling can be on specific products but could also be used by shrewd lawyers to be extended to generic products, or products that have similar (which does not mean exact the same!) features. Swiping a smartphone can be used for keyboard strokes (like Swype) or zooming or whatever you are getting used to. If they can use this ruling to have Samsung taking out these “manual or pen-tip data input by means of touching a touch sensitive monitoring screen that can also be used for data input” it would upset some tables. Or tablets. Don’t forget Apple created the Newton PDA in the 90’s and Jobs may know what patents, rights and design features are tucked away in some vault in Cupertino. Or in a small company unheard of that went asleep in the early 2000’s and now could be worth a lot of money.
As a long term mac user I have held Apple Macintosh in high esteem as it would “protect” us from companies that were filling the markets with non-user centered hardware and software. Read: Microsoft. (Although MS Office was one of the best products for a Mac, not available to drooling windows users). Now it’s turning into a company that will hold patents and rights against any market, reducing that markets power and desire to innovate. And that’s a far cry from two idealistic guys that wanted to build an easy to use and affordable computer as opposed to servers and work stations or Personal Computers. Ideas that might have stemmed from series and films like the Jetsons, Star Trek or maybe even the Flintstones.
Some lawyers might fight Apple from this point as a concept of a technology or an idea are ruled by other laws. I’m no lawyer but I know that a design may be save to copycats much longer than patents.
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