“Samsung Electronics Co. won a legal ruling after a U.K. judge said its Galaxy tablets aren’t “cool” enough to be confused with Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad,” Kit Chellel reports for Bloomberg.
“The design for three Galaxy tablets doesn’t infringe Apple’s registered design, Judge Colin Birss said today in London in a court fight between the world’s two biggest makers of smartphones. Consumers aren’t likely to get the tablet computers mixed up, he said,” Chellel reports. “The Galaxy tablets ‘do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,’ Birss said. ‘They are not as cool.'”
Chellel reports, “The judge found that Samsung’s products were distinctive because they were thinner and had ‘unusual details’ on the back. He gave Apple 21 days to appeal… ‘It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad,’ Apple spokesman Alan Hely said in an e-mailed statement that didn’t specifically address the ruling. ‘This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we’ve said many times before, we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, at least the judge got one thing right.
This will make the fledgling “#boycott Apple” movement happy.
It’s not over yet, Apple has filed an appeal and it can be overturned and has a great chance of happening.
So Apple haters don’t get to excited, “it’s not over till its over!”
Get it.
A Judiciary Compli-sult. You win the case but are humiliated and insulted by the ruling.
Another idiot asshole judge.
Hey, the car I store from you isn’t as cool anymore, therefore it’s ok I stole it.
The world is full of jackasses.
Just because the judge didn’t rule the way you or I hoped they would, doesn’t make them an idiot. It’s a judges job to interpret the law based on the presented evidence. It’s entirely possible that Apple didn’t present enough of the correct evidence for the judge to find in their favor.
Seems like the Brittish legal system is as corrupt as ours huh!
So Apple is now RESTRICTED BY LAW to customers who can tell cool from uncool?
OK that is IT! Time to invade Britain and make THEM a colony so we could teach them what is REALLY cool but yet what is not germane to the idea of overall design theft.
sadly we have all suffered from that already
All we need now are laws that would make uncool stuff illegal.
And just who would be the arbiters of “cool?” Who would choose them based on what criteria? Would Conservative Cool be able to market items to Liberal Kool? Would the things that the Religious Right considers cool be acceptable as cool for Mormons, Jews, and Buddhists?
These are burning questions that need to be answered post-haste.
Yeah, there should be an app for that.
Pathetic.
Imagine if all the auto makers copied Porsche.
It may not ruin Porsche but it would affect their sales and if every car sold by the copy cats looked like a Porsche, your real Porsche wouldn’t be as cool.
I hope to think this is what Apple is trying say but they don’t seem to have good lawyers.
Well i hope that other automakers do not copy the porsche pan america off roader, it is the ugliest porsche around and seeing its ugly clones would be sadistic 😡
Regarding the judges decision, what a farce, these samgdump devices do look likes inferior copies of apple designs, what was this idiot judge thinking 😡😡
Is that judge blind? He can’t see the similarity between samsung design vs Apple creation. samsung is a thief and a robber of Apple design and these judges are awarding samsung’s criminal activities by ignorantly waiving off these charges and saying samsung is doing no such thing. Idiots!! Apple should mount an all out war against their rival and cut off all dependency on their chips and other items that continue to make Apple look silly and foolish, as they continue to carry on a business relationship with samsung while suing them for stealing iphone, ipad, and laptop (macbook airs) design and technology. How stupid is that Apple? How stupid can you be.?
Terminate your business relationship with this samsung fellow already. Enough is enough! Take your 5-7 billion dollar business from samsung, the thief, and give it to a much more honorable business partner that is certainly not going to stab you in the back, or screw you in the rear. My goodness Apple, how could you carry on like this? Stop the bleeding now, cut the belly cord.
PS: I purposely used a small “s” to the name samsung because that’s how much respect I have for that f****** company.
This is the problem Apple faces with its trade dress lawsuits. They are simply too difficult to prove, and it’s easy to skirt being an exact copy but still look and work similar to the original product. Most legal systems abhor injunctions and suppressing competition, so the laws are written such that it is incredibly difficult to win in any event.
Apple’s better recourse is to develop relationships with other suppliers and stop buying parts from Samsung, which would hurt the company far more than these lawsuits do. Apple is for the most part wasting its money in all of these arenas.
The UK is a notoriously difficult jurisdiction to affect an injunction, so the outcome isn’t surprising. What is surprising is the glib dismissal of Apple’s claims by someone in a seat of judgment. Not as cool? Nice ruling, asshat.
Of course MDN would leave this bit out of the article:
“In a ruling on July 9, 2012, the High Court of England & Wales sided with Samsung that the designs of the Galaxy Tab series of products are ‘different’ from an Apple tablet design, and do not infringe Apple’s Registered Community Design No. 181607-0001… Apple has insisted that the three Samsung tablet products infringe several features of Apple’s design right, such as ‘slightly rounded corners,’ ‘a flat transparent surface without any ornamentation,’ and ‘a thin profile.'”However, the High Court dismissed Apple’s arguments by referring to approximately 50 examples of prior art, or designs that were previously created or patented, from before 2004. These include the Knight Ridder (1994), the Ozolin (2004), and HP’s TC1000 (2003). The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004.”Equally important, the court also found distinct differences between the Samsung and Apple tablet designs, which the court claimed were apparent to the naked eye. For instance, the court cited noticeable differences in the front surface design and in the thinness of the side profile.”
Again MDN hard at work and leaving out the most important info…
“referring to approximately 50 examples of prior art, or designs that were previously created or patented, from before 2004. These include the Knight Ridder (1994), the Ozolin (2004), and HP’s TC1000 (2003). The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004.”Equally important, the court also found distinct differences between the Samsung and Apple tablet designs, which the court claimed were apparent to the naked eye. For instance, the court cited noticeable differences in the front surface design and in the thinness of the side profile.”
So has Apple in turn stole IP from others? YOU BET!
Karma is AMAZING. Keep wasting your money Apple and may the Apple macheads keep giving Apple that money to blow on lawyers… now only if America was as smart as the UK… but American judges are not.so.smart as it seems!
Again only fools like Apple would think they compare. They gave Samsung a boost… That’s for sure. May Apple keep wasting money on legal fees
Yea! I’m not as cool as …… Hey! Wait a minute!!!! Yes I am. Errr, no I’m not, uhhh…….