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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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Apple's EU legal win could prevent all OEMs from building tablets

By | August 10, 2011, 9:49am PDT

Summary: Apple gets an injunction against the Galaxy Tab in Europe based on some very generic line drawings.

A German court on Tuesday sided with Apple and granted the company a preliminary injunction which blocks the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union, excluding the Netherlands. But according to Nicole Scott of Netbook News, the patent could essential block ALL tablets, irrespective of operating system or maker.

Here’s are images from the Community Design patent (#000181607) filed by Apple:

Here’s what Scott has to say:

Take a look at the above design and tell me that doesn’t look like EVERY TABLET on the market. Apple has just chosen the most competitive Android tablet on the market and taken it down. This Community Design patent by Apple has only been around since 2010 so clearly Apple didn’t invent the tablet, Bert Keely, in 2000 at Comdex in Las Vegas the showed off Microsoft’s vision for the Tablet PC. Look familiar? Kind of looks like the images above, how can Apple patent an entire product category? At any moment Apple could decide that any tablet is too much competition and file a suit!

I’m used to seeing pretty generic designs submitted in patent and trademark documents, but you’ve got to admit that those line drawings are very, very generic. But remember that it is on the basis of this that Samsung can no longer sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe.

But if Apple can get an injunction against the Galaxy Tab, what’s to stop it getting similar injunctions against other Android tablets from other maker? Heck, what’s to stop it going after Windows 8 tablets once they are available?

Apple seems to have a deadly weapon against tablets in the European Union, and it’s not afraid to use it.

Who will be hit by an injunction next?

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Patent, OEM, Apple Inc., Tablets, Notebooks, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
gvnll 22nd Aug
Great design Apple!!! All the other device manufacturers need to do is add ports and they will be different wink . Apple once again neglected to design USB and other ports into its yet again- feature short device. The German court ruling on this should be wrapped over the knuckles. The impact of this is a clear sign that we have moved from the information era of innovation to the legalistic era of vultures and scavaging in desperation for survival. Apple's action makes you wonder if they are in trouble or at least crisis, as only a desperate company would take these super-aggressive actions.
View in thread
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Where is the home button in that diagram?
toddybottom 10th Aug
I don't see it.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Feldwebel Wolfenstool 10th Aug
@toddybottom ....totally disgusting and flaky of Pingguo ("apple" in mandarin). Control freaks. Totalitarian and fascist. Gonna try to prohibit Nova Scotia from exporting McIntosh apples next? Looking forward to my Blackberry tab in 2 weeks.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
ConstableOdo 10th Aug
@Feldwebel Wolfenstool
I hope you and the ten people that bought it are happy despite not having any apps to speak of. No wonder RIM is going out of business. They should turn RIM into a hockey team, sell BlackBerrys as hockey pucks and they might make more money.
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It's crazy isn't it.
johnmckay 12th Aug
Constableodo Please stop trolling and writing rubbish. If you've nothing sensible to say! Say nothing please.

It's crazy that Apple get away with this sort of stuff. I'm writing this from my iPad as i was testing something but have an Asus transformer too. Personally I prefer using the transformers keyboard, as would others if they could just open their minds a little. This is much harder than it need be...... Let's hope the patent system sees sense and this is over thrown ASAP!
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An Extremely Simple Solution to Put Samsung Back in The Game
camcost@... 10th Aug
The way around this lawsuit is so simple I'm sure Samsung is already working on this. All they (any other company) has to do is glue a few pieces of finger grip material around the device to make it appear different in appearance. This solution happens quite often with near-identical products. A few cosmetic alterations and it no longer appears the same.

BUT... here's what I can't figure out... why the heck are all these tablet devices so incredibly identical to the iPad?? They really don't have to be. At a short distance almost all of them look so much like an iPad that you would believe they were all related. I've owned so many tablets over the years that looked nothing like an iPad (remember the HPC devices?) that it's obvious that the new crop of iPad wannabes really don't have to look as much like it as they do.

Perhaps this lawsuit will force some originality out of Apple's competitors.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Hazconj 10th Aug
@camcost@... Look, the iPad was not the first tablet. Just as the iPhone was not the first smart phone and the iPod was not the first digital player. Apple is trying to patent what was formerly open source technology and succeeding. I don't understand how they can do it, but it appears to be working. It seems ethics in business went South, when Sam Walton started Walmart. It seems to be the American way any more.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
edwardzeng 10th Aug
@camcost@... I wonder why the Fridge or microwave designer or factory did not sue other brands due to they are all look like the Same!!
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
daengbo 10th Aug
@camcost@... The GT2 isn't even the same aspect ratio as the iPad. It's obvious at a glance that they're different shapes and sizes.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
ditkazbearz 10th Aug
@camcost@...
They look alike because they are all skinny(apples gotten us thinking smaller is better) and they are black as thats what sells. They have a flat screen, they are rounded(again smaller is ingrained as better) They are all square as thats how a web page or video should be formatted. Apples every bit the evil empire they've claimed for years microsoft was lol
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Transformer doesn't look like this
symbolset 10th Aug
@camcost@... The back is textured, more tapered, and brown. The edges have ports and buttons, and one has mountpoints for the keyboard dock lock. The sides of the bezel are textured and make a separate metal frame that is half the thickness of the unit at its thickest point. Back and front have camera lenses. Not the same look at all.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
LinuxUser&XPGamerGraphic 10th Aug
@camcost@...
What you failed to understand is that a tablet's design is obviously like the iPad. Even _if_ Apple did not yet release an iPad, tablets will generally look the same, a rectangular device. Why? We now have wide-screen computer monitors available and it is very uncomfortable if we design a tablet's display differently other than our wide-screen monitor, so the community design is very generic.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
mschore@... 10th Aug
@camcost@... You are missing the point on this one, the patent should never have been issued. This isn't a new innovative idea (the drawing). There needs to be some real definition of what this is. This only identifies a problem with the patent process.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
hjs1951 10th Aug
@camcost@... I am sorry, but I think that there are way too many patents based general looks or designs that should not patentable. The whole point of a patent is that the end product should have some feature that is truly unique. It is this kind of crap that stifles innovation where it counts.

In fact some argue that patents should be much more limited in scope. They point out, for instance, that there is no such thing as a patent on apparel designs and yet this does not stifle innovation in that industry, in fact it makes the industry far more competitive.

I am not arguing that there should be no patents, but we maybe should consider having shorter patent periods or perhaps periods that vary by type of patent. Whatever the end result, I doubt that Apple's claim will eventually hold up.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Zyks 10th Aug
@camcost@... They all look the same because its a 'dominant' design. You must be aware as to what happened with bicycles ages ago. They have stopped making three tired bicycles.. n all. This will happen with tablets too. Apple knows what it's doing. Sooner or later every tablet manufacturer will adopt this design, hence the reason why Apple have patented it.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
camcost@... 11th Aug
@camcost@...
I have received more comments to this than normal. I stand by my statement... add a few simple embellishments to make it look slightly different. It's similar to an automobile. Most cars serve the same basic function, and their body sits on four similar tires. But there's a huge, vast difference in the way each car looks... that's what design is all about. You take the 'basically similar' product and you make it your own! As a designer, I could easily take the iPad and present it in a somewhat different way than what Motorolla, Samsung, Toshiba, Viewsonic, Asus, Blackberry, and the minions of Chinese knockoffs have done. Every device which has hit the market after the iPad has a design too similar to be ignored. And yet, if you look at the many tablets which were around before the iPad, you will notice a much wider variety in design. Even Archos, which has offered a good variety of differently designed device over the years has curtailed and now offering tablets which look more like an iPad than they ever did before.

But you're all partially wrong if you consider this to be an Apple VS them/us/other war. It is much more of a war on what can be patented and what can't... especially when it comes to design. Get rid of design and we go back in time when most cars were built and sold with black paint and similar appearance.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
csteinola 11th Aug
@camcost@...
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Tablets don't NEED to look the same. In fact, I'd love to see a little variety in the market.

HOWEVER... I see exactly WHY they all look the same. And I think your comment touched on it, even though you weren't really trying to. They all look the same precisely BECAUSE they want to all look like the iPad. It's hard to tell them apart because the manufacturers don't really WANT you to tell them apart. As shallow as it is, there are a lot of people who don't want to buy an iPad, but still want their friends to think they're cool enough to have one.

In one of your follow-up posts, you mention "Most cars serve the same basic function, and their body sits on four similar tires. But there's a huge, vast difference in the way each car looks", so I'll use that same industry to prove my point. Were you around in the 80's? The Volkswagen Rabbit? It came out and was the hottest thing on the market, and suddenly every auto maker had a vehicle that looked exactly like it. Why? Because those other manufacturers wanted to capture a bit of the market by offering customers who weren't terribly enamored with Volkswagen the opportunity to drive around in something that still LOOKED like they were driving around in a Rabbit.

Too bad VW didn't have a generic line drawing of a hatchback.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
dheady@... 12th Aug
@camcost@... The fact of the matter is they 'have' to make it look like an iPad, iPhone, iPod or people won't buy them. Apple didn't 'invent' the smart phone, they just perfected it. Apple didn't invent the tablet computer, they just perfected it. Copying perfection is the last refuge of the untalented.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
erik.soderquist 12th Aug
@camcost@...

they are emulating the paper tablets they take their name from
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Feds Against Guns 10th Aug
@toddybottom I see it, I also see every phone and flat screen TV from my 24" sylvania LCD in my kitchen to my 55" Panasonic plasma or my 19" Acer LCD monitor, sence the mounts are not physically part of the body then they would not show up on a design, tomorrow I am filing a pattent for a vehicle with 2 or more wheels and 0 or more axles with a source for propultion and shaped like the most genaric modes of transportation , then I will fight apple on their suit, or get the most rediculous rights to royalties of all time any time you buy anything with 2+ wheels I would get royalties or I could bar its sale/production, that, cough cough Apple, is rediculous
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
jgm@... 10th Aug
@Feds Against Guns I read a great sci-fi short story where the end reveal was that a fellow had ended up patenting the circle. happy Little did I know art was imitating real life....
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
JohnOfStony 11th Aug
@Feds Against Guns - spot on. I was going to ask "when is Apple goping to patent the wheel?" but you effectively beat me to it. By the way, do you have a spell checker?
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
baawaa 11th Aug
@Feds Against Guns Why stop there? Start out with a patent for the wheel, and rubber tires.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
kashyap.bikram@... 11th Aug
@Feds Against Guns
In fact some one in Australia(a lawyer if memory serves correctly) patented wheel to show that patent system was week. He himself released the patent after some time.
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a TV is a mobile computer?
doctorSpoc 15th Aug
@Feds Against Guns
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
mauricejunior 10th Aug
@toddybottom QUESTION: Has ANYONE sued Apple for COPYING ANOTHER TABLET'S DESIGN?
ANSWER: NO!!!!
That should tell us that Apple was first with the iPad look.
Most tablets look like the iPad because they have copied the iPad. Why do they all have rounded corners? Why don't they make their corners square or beveled instead? Why do they have to extend their glass surface to the edge like the iPad and put a black border around the screen? Why hasn't of these tablets put a raised border around their touchscreen? Why do they have round home buttons? Why not a slide-out keyboard?
The fact is these tablet makers have blatantly copied the iPad design, and then are trying to make it seem as if the design is generic.
The only tablets that I find tried to at least not look iPad-like are Asus Iconia and Eee Slate.
I find Apple was really generous not to have sued earlier.
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Etch-A-Sketch got robbed
doctordawg 10th Aug
@mauricejunior They need to get their lawyers moving pronto.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
crogs 10th Aug
@mauricejunior
Have you looked at any flat screen or home theater screen? They all have black bezels. It absorbs light and frames the content on the screen. It's a common sense design.

Why do they extend the glass? Because it's more elegant looking and they can compared to old resistive designs and previous gens of glass tech. Bezels protect the glass, and it's probably cheaper to design with a bezel. So outside of the ipad, they want to differentiate themselves from the slew of android tablets out there.

Round home button? Trackballs and dpads have been round on many devices for years. Heck, the home button is the most dysfunctional thing out there compared to much more functional trackpads or dpads. So Apple should be proud of starting a trend of less functionality?

In the age of making things thinner, lighter, more ergonomic and such, tapering and rounding is quite common in many viewing screened devices whether they are handheld or not. Heck, just look at the evolution of the Palm Pilot. The big difference is designs were limited by the plastic resistive screen technology. But they too minimized bezels over time.

And nobody sued anybody back in those days, or in any other industry where the nature of functionality and evolution of product design just made sense. Cars were squared and boxy back in the day until aerodynamics came into play. Devices were thick and square until ergonomics came into play.

I'm all for defending worthwhile patents, and in some cases Apple does have a few, and they should defend them like everyone else. But their designs are just more rounded and tapered versions of tablets of old and just the natural evolution of the product.

Why has no one sued apple over design patents? Because they're too busy trying to do their own thing. Apple seems to be the only one (outside of the small troll companies) aggressively suing to protect some patents that should never have been granted in the first place.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Alpaca Lips 10th Aug
@mauricejunior That's true, also why don't they make a tablet with razor blades sticking out of it, make it in the shape of a woman's inner labia, and make it out of oatmeal. You raise a lot of good points.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
chippsetter@... 10th Aug
@mauricejunior I have a tablet that has rounded corners. When it was made XP Tablet edition was the O/S in it (runs Windows 7 now and even better). The drawing above has the same generic shape as my Gateway M1300 tablet. Sure, it is not a touch tablet but the drawing does not indicate that. On the otherhand, I saw video of a prototype multitouch touchscreen table by Microsoft a long time before the iPhone or iPad. Look it up. I am sure it is still online.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
pshippert@... 11th Aug
@mauricejunior
Square or beveled corners would have jeopardized Apple's "originality claim" because it would have seemed to be a Kindle or Nook clone--regardless of functionality. The problem with Apple's claim (as I see it) is that they developed a device incorporating the 'human factors' already mentioned (rectangular, slim, light-weight, etc.) and then decided that Apple was responsible for these factors' importance in the design of such a device as the iPad. BS. These human factors have always influenced the design of devices from refrigerators to touch-tone telephones, to calculators. (Although with the latter two examples, the humans had to adapt. I've seen absolute speed demons on the 10-key calculator design, but it always took practice.) Apple is way out of line with this "suit", and I eagerly await the overturning of it's judgment.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
uno@... 11th Aug
@mauricejunior
Tablets have rounded corners because that makes them easier to put in a bag, they will also be more durable to material tensions. The glass needs to extend otside the actual screen to make finger guestures possible near the screen edges, and all tablets doesn't have round home buttons, in fact the Samsung and most other Android tablets doesn't hava a home button at all as this is not required by Android. They are black around the edges as a lighter surface might easier catch sun reflections. This design have been used on flat screen TV:s long before iPad. They have no slideout keyboard as that would be too heavy and would essentially turn them into netbooks. The Samsung tablet look very different, it have a different aspect ration that is better adjusted to wide screen film watching, and as I mentioned before it has no home button, it has an SD card slot not found on iPad, Ify you hold it it also feels less bulky than the iPad due to the fact that it is slightly thinner. The reason that nobody have sued Apple is that noboy thoght they would get away with lawsuit on something that is that generic.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
jgm@... 11th Aug
@mauricejunior Talk about the Fallacy of False Alternatives! Have you considered that no one else filed ridiculously general design patents that shouldn't have been granted nor had the guts to try to sue anyone over it? Or that they spend more money on engineering than on lawyers?

The answer to your question can be answered with the same answer to "Why do all cars have four wheels? Why are steering wheels round rather than triangles?" Corners are rounded so as not to uncomfortable holding, and the less bezel = more screen real estate. What purpose does a raised border serve around the screen? Etc., etc.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
dheady@... Updated - 15th Aug
@mauricejunior I totally agree with you on this one. Smart phones all tried to look like a Blackberry until the iPhone came out, now half the offerings out there (cough, Samsung, cough, cough) look so much like an iPhone you can't tell them apart from across a table, much less a room.
I'm often reading about how Apple didn't 'invent' the tablet, but rather merely 'marketed' it better. Show me a tablet that is pre-iPad and I'll show you a chunky frankenlaptop that tries to run frankenwindows. They didn't sell. The iPad sells because form follows function and Apple hit the consumer sweet spot. As for Apple only being a marketing company I opine that NO one sells this many items on marketing alone. "Ishtar" would have won Oscars and been boffo box-office if it was just about marketing. The Edsel was marketed to hell and back yet was a total flop because it was a bad car. Succinctly, Apple makes products people want to buy and makes them in a form factor that people want to buy. A form factor, by the way, that is imminently patentable. I think it's karma for Apple's loss to Microsoft over MS's 'frankenMac'...Windows. Jobs won't make that mistake again.
As for the foolishness about patenting the wheel, c'mon people at least at the U.S. Patent Office a basic precept is that no one can patent anything in common usage at the time of application. Most famously was a guy who, at the height of the 19th century 'invention' craze attempted to patent the wheel barrow and was summarily denied.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
terjeb@... 15th Aug
@mauricejunior Has anybody sued anybody for making a wheel? NO!!!! Since I am going to patent the wheel tomorrow that proves that I was the first one to think of a wheel.

Were you born this dumb?
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
jdebender 11th Aug
@toddybottom
I appears that the judges in Dusseldork are almost as brain dead as the members of the US congress.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
egads@... 12th Aug
@toddybottom

All I see is a serving tray with a drain-hole. Methinks Apple is going to lose its entire enterprise to German brewers bringing Oktoberfest infringement injunction lawsuits....
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
jameel.aboulhosn@... 13th Aug
@toddybottom

Will someone PLEASE firebomb their headquarters? PLEASE? Apple has grown into a massively unacceptable, whining, stubborn, greedy, piss poorly raised rotten brat of a child and needs to be slapped in the FACE in a shopping mall, with a croquet mallet.

By that illustration, Etch A Sketch obviously went into the future, stole their patent idea, and took it back with them. You can't block everyone that competes with you, from competing with you - you already have the entire mobile world in your hands, you greedy soulless pieces of !@#$. Be satisfied that you finally managed to succeed after 30 years, because your computers and operating system haven't been able to except among the misguided, confused, and stupid.

And yes feldwebel, next they are going to fabricate a patent for "McIntosh" apples, because obviously they invented the fruit as well, before it was discovered 200 years ago in Canada. I hope they choke and die on their own money.
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As for your question as to who is going to be hit next?
toddybottom 10th Aug
Well, Motorola is being hit now and the HP TouchPad will be hit next.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
keitha73 10th Aug
@toddybottom I think that Hasbro needs to sue Apple over patent violations on their "Etcha-Sketch".
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
mschauber 10th Aug
@keitha73
+1. Etch-A Sketch is a better device than ipad anyway.

Next Apple will be suing farmers for calling the fruit they grow apples. This is how Steve Jobs is making up for his post-pancreatic cancer impotence.
  • Flagged
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
DaemonSlayer 10th Aug
@MedicNYC

I suppose they could. McDonalds has tried suing people, even if their family names started with "Mc", for using "Mc" in their business name. I'm not sure of their success, but leave it in the hands of a lawyer and one may actually see dollar signs in trying.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
jgm@... 10th Aug
@keitha73 Let's patent the concept of patenting things while we're at it - or at least suing over patent violations. Hmmm... patent patent trolling....
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
VRSpock 10th Aug
@keitha73
LOL...Yes! That's what needs to happen....Hasbro can sue over the etch-a-sketch. Heck, Sony and all the flat screen tv manufacturers can sue Apple's butt off too! That looks like a scaled down rip off of a flat screen TV to me and does a lot of the same functions....like surfing the Internet using apps.
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Great idea! But then we would lose that app from the app store!
gftitan 10th Aug
@keitha73
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Zeroesque 11th Aug
@keitha73
+1. Not to mention Gene Roddenberry and his prop crew.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
NZJester Updated - 13th Aug
@MedicNYC
Apple should not have been allowed to use the Apple brand name on music devices anyway. The Apple company name belonged to the Beatles record company till they signed a deal in 1981 that they would stay in computers and not enter the music industry with the name. In 1989 Apple Corps stopped Apple Computer from putting midi ports on the Apple II line as it violated the 1981 agreement. Pity Apple Corps failed in there legal bid to take Apple Computers to task again over the use of the Apple name in the music industry when they came out with the iPod! They just eventually rolled over and sold the brand name to Apple Computers and licensed back some trademarks.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
non-biased 10th Aug
@toddybottom Who says that anybody will be next? This may only be a strategic move in the ongoing fight between Apple and Samsung and they have no intention on going after anybody else.
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I say it
toddybottom 10th Aug
@non-biased
The author asked who would be next and I responded. Of course it is conjecture, I can't tell the future. Neither can you. However, considering that Apple has now sued yet another tablet maker over this matter and that Apple is suing HTC, Nokia (eventually settled) and Motorola for patent violations and Jobs actually announced to the world that he would sue any company that violated Apple patents, the evidence supports my theory that Apple is not done with the lawsuits more than it supports your theory that the lawsuits are over.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
781lc 10th Aug
@non-biased

OMG.. intelligent life!!! see earlier post above.

Right on, and a great nom de plume.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
Relorian@... 10th Aug
@non-biased Maybe Apple itself will be next when the makers of the original tablets decide that Steve Jobs has gotten too big for his britches. I mean hell Microsoft had a tablet years ahead of Apple's iPad... I'm sure they filed a patent on it and that apple at this very moment is infringing on it.

Of course this highlights why patent laws need to be changed. Vague ideas used as weapons to keep others from even developing or selling a product need to go. I mean whats to stop someone from drawing a large round object and patenting it as "The wheel"... Absolutely nothing at this point in time.
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RE: Apple's patent could prevent ALL OEMs from building tablets
gvnll 22nd Aug
Great design Apple!!! All the other device manufacturers need to do is add ports and they will be different wink . Apple once again neglected to design USB and other ports into its yet again- feature short device. The German court ruling on this should be wrapped over the knuckles. The impact of this is a clear sign that we have moved from the information era of innovation to the legalistic era of vultures and scavaging in desperation for survival. Apple's action makes you wonder if they are in trouble or at least crisis, as only a desperate company would take these super-aggressive actions.

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