“Apple Inc. sued Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. claiming the Korean electronics giant copied the look and feel of its popular iPhone smartphones and iPad tablet computers,” Ian Sherr reports for Dow Jones.
“The lawsuit, filed on April 15 in the Northern District of California, alleged that Samsung’s smartphones, such as the ‘Galaxy S 4G,’ ‘Epic 4G,’ ‘Nexus S’ and its ‘Galaxy Tab’ touchscreen tablet, violated Apple’s intellectual property,” Sherr reports. “‘Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple’s technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products,’ the lawsuit said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: On September 17, 2010, we wrote that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab deserved to be “hit with a very well-deserved Apple Trade Dress Infringement lawsuit (at the very least).”
FINALLY! Jesus, it took Apple long enough to fight back.
This still isn’t the big fight, it’s just a stepping stone. They’ve won a lot of smaller lawsuits against smaller companies. Now they’re going after a medium sized one.
All of this is meant to set precedence before they go after the Google.
Apple is patient, taking their time, doing it right. Google’s gotta be nervous.
Medium sized one. If Samsung is Medium sized what do you consider large?
Indeed!
Samsung no yatsuya! Kowai ni nare!
medium sized? Samsung is one of the worlds largest conglomerate companies in the world… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
that’s because Apple is now worried of Samsung phones!
Samsung is coming out with hot phones and Apple is scared shit.
Apple scared? Ha. They could go on a two-year vacation and leave everything as-is; come back and still have no reason to worry.
Fear isn’t what drives Apple.
Long time coming – Balls to the wall.
Nice! Sends an interesting message to RIM the day before they release their “iPad killer”.
Apple will take no prisoners
Bout Time.
Apple is supposed to purchase something line US$7.8 billion worth of components from Samsung this year, making Apple Samsung’s largest customer.
Note to Samsung: Dance with who brung ya.
Lolz!
Hope “look and feel” goes better than last time
It’d be difficult to do better than “last time,” hannsg:
In 1999, Apple successfully sued eMachines, whose eOne too closely resembled the then-new iMac’s trade dress. The eOne was taken off the market, resulting in eMachines’ losing the ability to sell the eOne as intended.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation
It’s about time….
Unlike the patent trolls’ favourite east Texas venue, Apple sues where they live.
I wish Texas WOULD secede from the US. The IQ average of Americans would triple overnight.
Dude! Really? Was that necessary? Many of us have better than average intelligence here, I assure you…
I used to live in Tejas & there are a lot of really nice & intelligent people there. The problem is that they are drowning in a sea of crazies.
I remember a Governor losing his reelection bid because of his then unique support for “don’t pass-don’t play” in Texas schools. The win at any cost crazies went wild and organized against him for simply requiring students to be in good academic standing before participating in team sports, etc.
Actually, Texas is home to a *lot* of high-tech companies. Indeed, the East District court region (where most of the patent trolls file) is a *very* high-tech area. I serious question your statement that the average American IQ would increase if Texas seceded. Indeed, I’d be willing to argue that it would actually drop.
I’m from California, btw.
@ RDF:
The Dallas area has one of the highest percentages of college-educated citizens in the country. Take your stupid remarks somewhere else.
Because this is intellectual property, not patent violation. Big difference.
The USPTO has now approved sufficient Apple design patents that leave few plaintiff escape routes in IP litigation. The beginning of what Apple promised to transgressors has started …
I think you mean defendants?
This is a carefully calculated move. Unlike the earlier suit against HTC, this one involves a manufacturing partner for whom Apple is easily its biggest customer. Samsung cannot afford to play this badly – given a choice between throwing Goggle under the bus or facing off with Apple, Samsung doesn’t have many good moves. This is global business chess at the grand master level and Google just got checked.
By the way, there is like ZERO chance Apple is going to let Google buy the Nextel patents. Look for an unexpected gang – led by Apple – to be the high bidders.
Well said. I too believe Apple will swoop in at the last minute and take the patents out from under google. It will be an interesting turn for google, and I look for the competition to begin to heat up in the next 12-15 months.
That would be Nortel.
Ooops, you are right. Brain was thinking one thing, fingers typed another…
Now, all Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has to do is write and compile a few thousand apps, set up a easy on-line way to sell and distribute them and tie them into all the other companion electronic devices, … and they will have a iPad / iPhone / iPod killer!
They just bought the farm 😉
I can’t wait to see what Samdung has to say about this. Gonna be fun watching these copy cats squirm. This time no whimpy clueless Apple CEO to sign off the new crown jewels. Go get em Apple!
Of course the Apple haters will see this as a sign of desperation sparked by Android’s rapid rise.
Apple has unleashed the atom bomb on the knock-off merchants.
Apple didn’t need to sue Samsung but if apple didn’t do this (defend their patens), their patents would be null and void basically become “open source” so to speak.
Apple will only be seen as heavy handed and draw the ire of regulators, looking for reason to break them up.
No, this will have nothing to do with regulators. Apple is legally obligated to its shareholders to protect its intellectual property, and to prevent companies like Samsung from simply copying what it creates. Very big difference between that and acting as a monopolist. Apple’s not saying Samsung can’t sell its tablets and phones, just that it has to come up with its own design.
A bit of an incestuous relationship between Apple and Samsung.
Apple hires Samsung to build its chip designs (and probably other components). Samsung builds copycat devices that cop the look of the hardware and software.
Imagine the phone exchange between Steve Jobs and Lee Dong-Joo:
Steve: “We’re taking you to sons of bitches to court, Dong.”
Dong-Joo: “We’ll see, Steve. We’ll see.”
Steve: “We will see. Oh, and how are those A5 chips coming along?”
Dong-Joo: “Fantastic!”
Wouldn’t it make more sense for Apple to first buy the Nextel patents and then sue Samsung? Nextel patents are not directly linked to this case but suing Samsung now just made Nextel patents more valuable and would probably mean Apple would have to pay even higher price to buy them (my guess 1.5 – 2.0B or 50% to 100% premium over market valuation).
You’re assuming Samsung doesn’t have licenses with Nextel for its patents.
Guys it’s Nortel.
Something tells me HTC, Google and others are next. This time a cross- licensing settlement (M$ case over Mac v Windoze) will not be the result.
BTW- The DoJ is investigating Google for anti-trust.
I remember being slammed (on another forum) for suggesting that Asian suppliers (including Samsung) would ever use what they gain and learn from supplying Apple with components, sub-assemblies and assembly to benefit non-Apple-branded products (their own or other contractors’). “They wouldn’t dare” – “That would be unethical” – “Apple would never buy from them again.” etc.
Not too many readers of Machiavelli’s “the Prince” out there, I guess. Still, while it doesn’t happen too much in marriage or love, don’t expect either party in this case to pull out of component agreements over this, etc. Apple and Adobe have been going at each other tooth and tong in the Flash Wars, and Adobe just released a number of new apps for iDevices, plus finally brought PS on the Mac back to par (I think) after many years of severe neglect. MS and Apple have been exchanging body blows for years, but again, both have a lot at stake over the success of Office on the Mac.
On the other hand, as American companies make less and less of the geegaws they sell, and the great majority of emerging engineers and scientists keep coming out of Asia, who will be surprised when, e.g., FoxConn (or a diffusely connected “partner”) begins to put all its Apple-honed manufacturing expertise (plus they also know many of the other tech companies’ methods and materials) to work building products with native Asian OS’s and no Apple badges?
At a certain point the American design firms will begin to be seen as mostly another middleman who can be bypassed.
And how friendly will the democratic, fair courts of China be in adjudicating the IP suits to follow?
agreed
But MDN is *the* place to come to get slammed…
You’re right. However, Apple doesn’t really have a lot of choice now, does it? There aren’t exactly chip and display manufacturers plopped around town like Starbucks and McDonalds are. I’m sure Apple has stringent contract restrictions in its agreements, but of course, that wouldn’t prevent Samsung from taking anything it could from Apple’s designs.
About fscking time! Samsung was really starting getting to my nerves with these blatant copying!
i always wonder why Apple didnt sue Sammy because i can tell Sammy is the biggest copy machine of Apple products from macbook air. Iphone , ipod touch, ipad. This will teach Sammy a lesson of copying just like the korean cars copy from lexus, mercedes…. Korean is the biggest copy cat country on the planet
Cuz Sammy is where Apple gets their chips? Awkward?
What the heck are you talking about? The touch-screens and touch interface has been developing for a long time even before Apple introduced iphone, and ipad. I know because one of my friends owns a touch-screen tablet made by HP that looks a lot like ipad, but just didn’t get such popularity as Apple’s and now out of production. Technologies keep develops upon the previous ones, not to mention a lot of basic technology of Apple’s products are developed by Samsung. And what?? “Korean is the biggest copy cat country”?? You are such a stupidest moron to say such a thing… if Korean cars “copied” Lexus or Mercedes, then from whom did they copy from??? Then the whole lines of cars will go all the way back to Ford when he first invented a car, and then from then everybody started to “copy” from then. Korean car companies have their own technology in fuel efficient engines and many ingenious developments on their own, not to mention Samsung has more of its own patents. Korean companies worked hard to improve upon technologies and that’s how they got to the top with many innovations. Just go back to your ignorant gutter play with your archaic iphone. I am just sick of seeing all these Apple-addicts brain washed by Apple company as if owning their product make them some sort of bourgeoisie or something.
If I’m not mistaken, the TouchWiz interface is a blatant attempt to ape Apple’s iOS
Look at the email app on the Samsung – it is identical to Apple iPad in looks and functionality. They did not even bother to make it upside down and backwards like Microsoft copying the Mac GUI.
But our design team is so smooth!