With the news that Apple has lost their patent infringement cases against Samsung and HTC in the UK recently; it has gotten me thinking about how Apple hasn’t really made any innovations since the release of the iPad. instead it has been concentrating on trying to crush the opposition in courts of law around the world, which is pretty pathetic to be honest; suing over things like “Slide to Unlock” and claiming that people would confuse the iPad with Samsung’s Galaxy 10.1 tablet.
Today, it is reported that Apple has lost it’s patent infringement case against Samsung. Apple claims that the Samsung copied the design of it’s iPad tablet and that consumers may confuse the two tablets. Yes, they look similar but most tablets look very similar, one clearly says Samsung and the other clearly shows the Apple logo; anyone would think that Samsung had put an Apple logo on their Galaxy 10.1 Tab. Judge Colin Birss ruled that the Galaxy Tab is “not as cool” as the iPad so therefore there has been no infringement. But it does sound like Judge Birss is an Apple fanboy, “not as cool” is hardly an unbiased legal statement is it? But Samsung won the case, so I don’t care!
Apple also lost their “Slide to Unlock” case against HTC last Wednesday. In simple terms, HTC won the case because Apple’s claimed patent is an evolution of a similar technology (Neonode N1) that was available in 2004, three years before Apple released it’s iPhone, a UK judge has ruled. Four patent infringements were claimed by Apple 1. Unlocking a device by performing a gesture on an image. 2. The use of a multilingual keyboard offering different alphabets on portable devices, including mobile phones. 3. A system to determine which elements of a screen were activated by single-finger touches; which were activated multi-finger touches and which ignored touches altogether. 4. Letting a user drag an image beyond its limits and then showing it bounce back into place to illustrate that they had reached its furthest edge. The judge ruled the first three claims as invalid; rightfully so in my view! Let’s see if Neonode sues Apple over infringement of it’s tech?
In the meantime, Apple has secured a sales ban of Google’s new range of Android based Galaxy Nexus phones and tablets claiming: 1. The use of a single search interface – such as Siri – to retrieve information from a range of systems using a number of techniques. 2. The use of a sliding gesture to unlock a touchscreen device. 3. A text input interface that tries to anticipate which words the user wants to type and makes recommendations. 4. A way to manipulate structures – such as phone numbers or postcodes – within computer data. Apple had to put down a near $100m bond, in the eventuality that it loses it’s patent case. According to The Next Web; Google will release an updated version of it’s Android OS to circumvent the sales ban, which will no doubt piss off Apple!
Apple Inc may be winning the patent battles in the US courts; but it’s losing the battle for consumer sales as the #BoycottApple movement is gathering pace on social media sites, such as Twitter. Apple is stifling innovation through litigation because it has done nothing in recent years to innovate while sale of Android based devices have steadily climbed! If Apple put as much effort into designing new and improved technology as it does into lawsuits, it would be untouchable!