Based on today's judgement to ban Samsung Galaxy phones across Europe and the likelihood of mass lawsuits against Google and Android phone manufacturers, how far will Apple go? Would they only just have the ban in place or go further?

I ask because there were plans by Microsoft to make Linux users pay royalties for alleged mass patent infringement. Thankfully that never happened:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/13178..._software.html

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...3867/index.htm

Would Apple ban the phones being sold, demand payments from Samsung/Android end users, encourage Samsung/Android users to upgrade to the "legit, genuine" Apple iPhone through incentives or FUD? I'm not sure how Apple would go chasing after people who have bought Samsung Galaxy phones or Android phones, but Microsoft were prepared to do it as said before.

It's a question I am intrigued in (based on my interest in both Linux and Android) but couldn't answer myself.

Apple will go as far as they 'legally' can to eliminate the (any) competition. I think this is quite evident. How far it goes is another question.

Reading more into it, its only banned in the netherlands. They can still send them here but will cost them an arm and a leg to do so.

As i said on another thread, the patent that was upheld was only to do with the way pictures are shown. Google will nip that in the bud with an update leaving apple no where to sue laughably!! All other patents were thrown out including the amusing "everyone copied our designs!"

Apple wont get a penny from this. They are trying to ban all phones that are not apple simply because they are falling behind at a great rate. A truly pathetic company.

I mean, apple are already away to lose the case of the galaxy tablet as well considering they have lied through their teeth about it by photoshopping a picture thats not even the galaxy tablet!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14542200

Also there is not a chance in hell apple could convince me to swap my Galaxy S2 for an iphone!! They would have to prise it from my cold dead hands!!

The actual ban is unlikely. There is a grace period until 14th October, by which Samsung most likely will have changed the 'interface for viewing and navigating photographs on a touchscreen phone' which is the only violation upheld.

From the comments I've seen, (not just this encounter - 9/10 claims were rejected), the majority of Apple's claims are spurious. They are playing a very dangerous game with Samsung, as they supply a number of components for iOS devices.

If it gets really dirty and Apple manage to get a ban in the US (which is not unlikely considering the US legal system), Samsung would be really annoyed and their reaction will be interesting. Apple have alot of financial muscle, but Samsung have more.

It's one patent that relates to how the photo album works. It's seriously nothing. Samsung will change the software, release a firmware update and it's done with. Either that or they'll pay Apple a licence fee - it's how these things work.

End users won't have to give up their phones or pay extra. It's a storm in a teacup. Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, HTC, etc - they're all suing each other over some patent or other!

Android will be in PC's/laptops as soon as next year.
So to me its an unspoken alliance between Microsoft and Apple against all of Android.
MS are suing Barns and Noble and Motorola for Android infringements. Foxcon are also getting sued, maybe so no suppliers will dare supply!

'Storm in a teacup'. It almost looks a fight for survival.
Android now having 50% + market share means they won round one.

We have recently seen the very astute move by Google to buy the Motorola mobile phone division for £7.7 billion http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-reaction.html. As Motorola were in at the start of the development of mobile phones, they hold 17,000 patents (now Google's) upon which Apple, Microsoft and mobile phone manufacturers are dependent.

Therefore, if Apple try and squeeze Android and Andoid mobile phone manufacturers, Google can squeeze right back now and bring tears to Apple's eyes if they so wish. This is why all the Android mobile phone manufacturers such as LG, Samsung, HTC, etc. all universally welcomed Google's purchase of Motorola.

That purchase effectively means that Android is safe from mischievous trouble making by their rivals and Google have confirmed that Motorola mobiles won't be given preferential treatment over other Android mobile phone manufacturers. So, this deal was about the 17,000 patents and securing the safe future of Android and not so much about Google getting a mobile manufacturing arm.

As for the Samsung phones http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/tabl...et-copy-claim/ and Galaxy Tab cases, this will probably end in some form of out of court settlement. Irrespective of Google's patent power now, Apple can't push their case too far in a court by overstating their case otherwise they risk losing the court case and being made to pay tens/hundreds of millions in court costs and lost revenue damages to Samsung.

This is an an illustration that corporations, like Apple, Microsoft and Sky, can become so huge and domineering that they seek to ruthlessly crush any potential competition and that's just not on.

So explain why Microsoft have licensed their 'Android IP' to HTC. How does that serve the hidden agenda of destroying Android? Microsoft had HTC over a barrel as they had pretty much nothing to offer up as a cross license deal (as you can see from the patent numbers below), so why not take injunctive relief? Why not stamp out HTC when they had the chance?


I doubt it makes Android 'Safe'. Motorola Mobility's 250 US patents will help, yes, but it will do nothing for Google's position in cases such as the Oracle one, where Google stand to pay out ~$7 billion if the case goes Oracle's way.

I don't know how many patents MM have elsewhere in the world, but I seriously doubt it comes anywhere close to 17,000.

Some interesting US patent numbers:

Apple - 4,422

Microsoft - 18,391

Google - 772

HTC - 177

Motorola Mobility - 250

Samsung Mobile - 791

Nokia - 9,189



Oh, and if you really want to curse a company that patents everything then moan about Samsung and their 44,246 US patents...

In this recent case I imagine Samsung aren't too bothered.The court threw out the worst part of the ban which was the shape of the phone. Imagine if they had to change that? The rest of the lawsuit appears to involve software which should be fixable with an update.

How come they did not copy the revolutionary antenna?

Because no one is as stupid to do that in the first place

This happened when Android had a very low market share.

Yet it has also certainly incentivised HTC into making plenty of W7M phones too.

Probably because they had trained their PC manufacturing partners not to stray.

And of course Linux had no wealthy 'Google like' backer to aid manufacturers.

I could also make some up.

But instead I put in a link to the owner of the info.

How many directly refer to hardware I wonder and in any case, you don't see Samsung gunning for everyone because a Phillips/Toshiba/Bush TV/CD/DVD Player looks roughly like a Samsung TV/CD/DVD player.

And now there is a disgrace in itself. Sun's open source programming tool Java being sued by a company which did not develop it (the head of Google, Eric Schmidt actually led a team which did for Sun years ago) but merely acquired Sun. Greedy sods the lot of them.

Many, many open source advocates and developers are rightly annoyed at Oracle. Reminds me of the time where SCO (no relation to the original Santa Cruz Operation) acquired Unix System 5 4.2 and began suing everyone including Novell because of its SuSe linux distro. Luckily for Novell, not only are they massive, but they could prove that they held certain patents themselves which he original Santa Cruz Operation did not get as part of the original acquisition years before. All very convoluted and sad.

Apple were quite comical in the look alike claims.....Imagine if they had invented the bicycle...Any future ones with round wheels front and back would have been in court by now!!

Didn't they also complain about Samsung's packaging looking the same, that is a picture of the device on the lid with the name of the device in prominent lettering reflecting their corporate identity? Perhaps if my Galaxy Tab box had a picture of a highland terrier on the front, Apple wouldn't sue them.

Apple have gone way past ridiculous now. They are suing left right and center for things that cannot really be done differently.

1st they sue you for having a rectangular shaped tablet with a screen, then they screw you over because you use a grid layout for 1 menu system and now they are trying to screw you over because of the way you view photos!

A tablet PC is as the name suggested - a rectangle with a screen. This is one of these case where Apple is claiming to have invented the wheel, when in reality all it did was get in there first with an already conceptualised idea.

I'd suggest it was ARM who enabled the tablet.
They are the main reason they evolved from heavyweight slabs.

And lets not forget that the iPad is just a great big iPod with a similar restricted experience.
They are not computers in the traditional 'user controls the experience' way and thus are vastly different from Galaxy Tabs.

Its got some advantages but the two things are poles apart.

They will do, eventually

Yes I can just see the "development" of the iCycle (a good name that I should register it)

1st gen - no gears, sit up and beg, iCycle
2nd gen - 3 gears, sit up and beg. iCycle 3G
3rd gen - 3 gears with racer handle bars. iCycle 3GS.

Actually this ruling is a victory for Samsung - the way photos can be displayed is easy to change - even if they don't win an appeal. All the other nonsense was thrown out.

Maybe thats Apples new business plan , don't come up with new ideas ( they won't now that Steve Jobs has gone anyway) just make malicious accusations against the competition in the hope they will give up and go away

We should be glad Apple don't make 'iChairs'. Yes, four legs, a seat and a back. We have the patent. No-one can make them any more.

I would agree with that, CoolboyA, and they seem to have targeted Samsung in particular. I strongly suspect that the reason for that is that they think that the Samsung Galaxy series of mobiles and and the Galaxy Tab represent a real threat to their own products, which is a sort of negative recognition of just how good they are.

If these Apple chancers continue along this litigious route too far then they run the risk of of having their case thrown out, or better still, losing their case and having to pay massive amounts of legal costs and damages which will hopefully teach these anticompetitive spivs a hard lesson.