After losing an appeal in a UK high court last week against a judgement that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets do not infringe the design of the iPad because their design is just not cool enough, Apple has now published an acknowledgement of the court’s judgement on its U.K. website — in line with the court order. You can’t call it an apology — quite the opposite: Apple makes it clear it does not agree with the court’s decision by pointing out that it has had court wins against Samsung for the same design patent in Germany, and noting its huge win against the Korean gadget maker in the U.S this summer.
Apple also focuses on the judge’s reasons for dismissing its patent claim — quoting the judge’s detailed ruling on exactly what makes the iPad’s design so much cooler than the Galaxy Tab, in which he talks almost lovingly of the “extreme simplicity” of the iPad’s design; its “undecorated surfaces”; “crisp edge” and “combination of curves”.
Apple then contrasts that with what the judge had to say about the Galaxy Tab: “very thin, almost insubstantial” with “unusual details on the back” — and the conclusion: “not cool”.
Here’s Apple’s acknowledgment in full
Samsung / Apple UK judgmentOn 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic(UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do notinfringe Apple’s registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the Highcourt is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2012/1882.html.
In the ruling, the judge made several important points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products:
“The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design.”
“The informed user’s overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool.”
That Judgment has effect throughout the European Union and was upheld by the Court of Appeal on 18 October 2012. A copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1339.html. There is no injunction in respect of the registered design in force anywhere in Europe.
However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.
The acknowledgement has not been published on the homepage of Apple’s U.K. website but there is a link to it — right at the bottom of the page, next to the notification about Apple’s use of cookies
In addition to the online acknowledgement of the court’s judgment, Apple is required to publish an acknowledgment as adverts in U.K. newspapers.
Tom is in love. The songs are called: Feeling Happy, Your Love & I Like You and are available on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. Official website: outfit7.com Songs question: outfit7.com
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All sorts of Android manufacturers have had to answer for the locked bootloaders in their devices, and now we’ve gotten a bit of insight into Verizon’s view of the subject. It seems Big Red has responded to a formal complaint one customer filed with the FCC for the carrier’s policy of allowing handsets with locked bootloaders on its network. Apparently, open bootloaders would allow users to make changes to their phones and use software that “could negatively impact how the phone connects with the network” and “the wireless experience for other customers.” So, there you have it folks, Verizon encourages OEMs to lock down handsets to provide you with a better experience and top-notch customer service. Head on down to the source link to get a gander at the letter, and feel free to sound off on Verizon’s consumer-friendly stance in the comments below.
Verizon lets loose its stance on locked bootloaders in letter to the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bill Gates revealed the details of an intimate letter this week that he sent to Steve Jobs shortly before the Apple co-founder passed away in October. In an interview with The Telegraph, Gates says he learned of Jobs’ medical condition and wrote him a letter, one that Jobs later kept by his bed. “I told Steve about how he should feel great about what he had done and the company he had built,” said Gates, discussing Jobs’ children in the letter too. He also dismissed Jobs’ critical comments about him in the recent Steve Jobs biography:
“He spent a lot of his time competing with me. There are lots of times when Steve said [critical] things about me. If you took the more harsh examples, you could get quite a litany.”
Gates describes Jobs…
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It looks like FRIDA and friends are about ready to get comfy over at Foxconn. Following the company’s August announcement that it would infiltrate its ranks with one million robots in the next three years, Focus Taiwan is reporting that the manufacturer’s parent company, Hon Hai, is moving forward on its plans to build an “intelligent robotics kingdom” in the Central Taiwan Science Park. Chairman Terry Gou reportedly signed a letter of intent with Taichung mayor Jason Hu last Saturday, confirming its plans to erect a plant dedicated to the production of robots and automation equipment. That robo-mecca is expected to draw some serious scratch, with an estimated production-value boost of NT$ 120 billion (about $ 4 billion) and the creation of 2,000 jobs. How many of those positions will be filled by headless automatons remains to be seen.
Foxconn chairman signs letter of intent for ‘intelligent robot kingdom,’ we cower in fear originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember all that iPhone tracking hubbub back in April? Sure you do — you probably also recall Apple’s denial, the subsequent Senate hearing, and the rest of the fiasco’s dramatic fallout. Amid the ballyhoo, Microsoft stepped out to admit that its Windows Phone also collected location data, but quickly promised to knock it off following the next scheduled update. According to ChevronWP7 collaborator Rafael Rivera, Windows Phone 7.5 cinches it: Mango “no longer sends location data prior to being granted permission to do so.” Redmond previously told the US House of Representatives that it only collected location data if a user expressly allowed an application to send it along — a claim which Rivera debunked last week, noting that simply launching the camera application captured and transmitted “pin-point accurate positioning information.” The big M maintains that the collected location data was anonymous, and that it shouldn’t have been sent at all unless the user allowed it. Either way, Microsoft’s chapter in the big location tracking blunder of 2011 seems to be at a close, squaring the firm with Congress, its developers, and hopefully its customers.
Mango kills Microsoft’s always-on location tracking, makes good on letter to House of Representatives originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Open letter to EA: You’re Wrong Let me start off by saying this is in response to Frank Gibeau’s recent comments . I’m sure that you’ve all read them, but the part that I would like to concentrate on is this: “Look, when you’re building new IPs and you’re building games and you’re looking at an entertainment audience, they see a lot of messages. Controversy isn’t a bad thing. I personally believe you should court controversy … Read more on Game Informer
Xbox Kinect Sales Top 10 Million Microsoft is now looking to move the hands-free control system to applications beyond gaming. Read more on InformationWeek
Crave 36: Pinball wizards (podcast) $ lazy(window.GeckoVideoPlayer, CBSi.lazy.videoPlayer, function(){ loadGeckoVideoPlayer({ parentElement: ‘universalVideoid50101750′, flashVars:{ autoplay: ‘false’, adTargetType: ‘Page’, adPreroll: ‘true’, contentType: ‘id’, contentValue: ’50101750′, playlistDisplay: ‘none’ } },’blogLarge’); }); This week, Donald and Eric explore the idea of hearing with your mouth, seeing in 12 dimensions, and … Read more on CNET
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Ever wonder how the world would still turn after MPG stickers were updated to take hybrids and EVs into consideration? Wonder no more. Purportedly, the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to decide by July’s end whether it’ll require “emissions grades” on all new vehicles. We’re told that said stickers would resemble those shown above, complete with a QR code that could be scanned by any smartphone for more detailed information on how a grade was decided upon. As the story goes, cars would be graded from A through D, with a score of F presumably omitted for political correctness. If implemented, it wouldn’t require automakers to slap these onto their rides until the 2013 model year, but as you’d expect, said car companies aren’t exactly pumped about the idea. As of now, 40 percent of the vehicles on American roads would receive Cs or Ds, and Ohio’s own Rep. Steven LaTourette had this to say about it: “Those who live in Planet Reality might need a minivan or SUV to haul around four kids in child and booster seats, and have room for luggage and a family dog. Thanks to the EPA, they’ll be lucky to find a vehicle that gets a C.” In truth, he’s dead right, but there’s always two sides to every story. To counter the obvious, automakers are instead backing “a more modest labeling redesign” that’s not quite so jarring to consumers. Ah, the wonders of compromise.
EPA’s letter grade automobile stickers could bring QR codes to car windows in 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 02:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The EPA is revising the window stickers seen on new cars to more accurately reflect the capabilities of electric and hybrid vehicles. They’re also proposing, rather boldly, that a big fat letter grade head the sticker, ranging from A+ (for plug-in electric vehicles) to D (for Veyrons and R8s). The Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers has condemned the stickers, accusing them of evoking “school-yard memories of passing and failing.” Yes, well, that’s kind of the idea.
There are a number of new metrics on the proposed stickers, resulting from the fact that MPG, the only metric presented on the old sticker, is fast losing its relevance for consumers. That particular term has been replaced in part- or all-electric vehicles with MPGe, a measurement that compares mileage based on energy consumption, as opposed to liquid volume consumption. The energy yielded by a gallon of gas is converted into BTUs (not your sissy metric kilojoules, to which BTUs are almost exactly similar), which can be multiplied by various factors depending on energy source, eventually yielding a standard unit, the MPGe. You’ll get used to it.
Unsurprisingly, automakers are not amused by the letter grade, and to be honest it seems a bit arbitrary to me as well. They’ve essentially set the curve so that each grade represents a class of vehicles, and I’m sure you can guess where SUVs and luxury vehicles end up. Why not just let the numbers speak for themselves, or come up with a more relevant “headline”? It’s interesting how they seem to have chosen “non-judgmental” colors for, say, greenhouse gas emissions (they’re not red to green), but have no trouble writing an enormous C-. Why not judge a little more, though? The grade thing is a fixed game, but the EPA should feel free to display true information and comparisons that embarrass inefficient cars.
There are also several labels, as you can see, in addition to the vertical graded ones:
It’s like a muted rainbow of efficiency. This is to reflect the various fundamentally different vehicles out there right now. EVs, ER-EVs, plug-in hybrids, plain hybrids, frybrids, and what have you. While a single sticker might have been preferable, it would be impractical at the moment, and after all we can always do another revision later. At least they share a general layout.
One thing I think they should fix is the display of numbers that are clearly very rough estimates. The money saved, for instance, is simply not to be believed. The old stickers had estimates, and then estimates based on those estimates, and further estimates based on those. Let’s try to keep things grounded this time around. Let the label reflect the facts; manufacturers or dealerships can include “secondary” labels augmenting the facts — charge time, extra efficiency numbers, and so on.
Apart from that, I think they’re pretty nice. The design incorporates a lot more information yet stays relatively clean, and the inclusion of a QR code is thoughtful.
The new labels are just proposals at the moment, and the EPA will be accepting comments on them for the next two months. Want to do your part for green legislation? Give those guys a piece of your mind.
[via Jalopnik]
Props to CrunchGear
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