Europe is the focus of the past week’s legal events for Apple, with a swift slap on the wrist from Italy and another small but significant victory in Germany looming on the horizon. As the courtroom rulings begin to line up in Apple’s favor, are we beginning to see the formation of a larger legal strategy for Cupertino?
Cue up the “dun dun” and read on for this week’s Law and Apple, European Style!
Yesterday, Italy’s antitrust body fined Apple .2 million (900,000 euros) for encouraging customers to buy AppleCare Protection Plan extended warranties without fully explaining that, under Italian law, the products already come with an extended two-year warranty.
The ruling states that three divisions of Apple — Apple Italia, Apple Sales International, and Apple Retail Italia — will be fined 400,000 euros for failing to inform customers of their right to two-years of free support, and fined 500,000 euros for selling the AppleCare service to those customers.
Great coverage. Even greater when it’s free.
Apple famously offers customers a full one-year (90-days telephone support and 1-year limited warranty) of support in the U.S., and the AppleCare Protection Plan extends that umbrella for an additional year. Apple is traditionally very generous with product support for customers under warranty, so the extended plans are very popular. However, as Italy mandates a minimum two-years of full coverage, selling AppleCare extended warranties that overlapped what was required by law was not viewed kindly by the court. Apple continues to be very active in the European courtroom, including ongoing legal battles against rivals like Samsung and Motorola, as well as scrutiny from the courts themselves with regard to alleged price-fixing with ebook publishers.
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents reports that a Munich court is likely rule in favor of Apple next February on lawsuits brought by Cupertino against Motorola in Germany. The ruling may lead to an injunction against Motorola products that use a specific method for flipping pages within a gallery of photos.
According to Mueller, the German court does not doubt the validity of the European patent (EP2059868), and is even more convinced at the conclusion of two preliminary hearings last week that the Android photo gallery is violating that patent.
Android will likely have to modify the way it flips photos.
Motorola appears positioned to modify its devices if an injunction is awarded to Apple, much the same way Samsung did in October. Apple seems to be accepting these forced modifications as minor, yet important, victories within a long-term legal strategy. While these rulings are not the “knock-out blows” that many have been waiting for, it appears Cupertino is happy to have Android devices forced to cease infringing on Apple innovations and remain available to customers in a modified format, rather than have the devices removed from the marketplace altogether. It is an expensive strategy, one that continues to chip away at Apple’s massive cash reserve, and perhaps that is part of the long-term strategy for Apple’s competition.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column for MacLife.com. You can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to him on Facebook, if you want to.
As awesome as the new iPhone 4S looks, there’s just one more thing that senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller left out of his keynote — and it’s at the heart of the company’s “Let’s talk iPhone” invitation.
After introducing the souped-up new iPhone 4S, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, launched into “one more thing” by introducing Siri, the company’s new intelligent assistant “that helps you get things done just by asking.”
“Siri on iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more,” Apple explains on their website. “Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. Siri is so easy to use and does so much, you’ll keep finding more and more ways to use it.”
Of course, it’s widely known that Apple purchased Siri technology and the inclusion of it into the iPhone 4S isn’t much of a surprise — for once, the rumors pegged it quite well indeed. Schiller touted Siri as a way for their devices to answer your questions without a lot of unwieldy lingo or restrictive jargon.
“What is the weather like today?” is one such question posed at the keynote, which the handset proceeds to respond, “Here is the forecast for today.” (Sunny with a high of 70 degrees for Cupertino, by the way.)
Senior vice president of iOS software Scott Forstall returned to the stage for a demo of how Siri works — simply hold down the home button and Siri begins to listen. “What is the hourly forecast?” is followed by “Do I need a raincoat today?” — to which Siri responds, “It sure looks like rain today.”
Of course, Siri also extends to finding out the time, setting an alarm, getting stock quotes, finding “a great Greek restaurant in Palo Alto” or even getting directions courtesy of the built-in Maps app. Siri is also intelligent enough to read back incoming messages, aiding users in replying as well — or even setting up a calendar appointment or reminder.
Apple considers Siri a beta service for now, and it will only included with the iPhone 4S for English (U.S., U.K. and Australia), French and German languages for now. The iPhone 4S will be available starting on October 14, rolling out to 70 countries by the end of this year.
Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” event wrapped up this morning with announcements of a refreshed iPod nano and iPod touch, iOS 5 and iCloud arriving on October 12 and the new iPhone 4S hitting stores on October 14, with Sprint added as a third U.S. carrier and a 64GB model available for the first time at 9 with two-year agreement.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
In this week’s Law and Apple, Samsung makes an offer that Apple can’t refuse (but does), and T-Mobile decides to join forces with Verizon and support Samsung. Hey, what do they care? it’s not like they have the iPhone, right?
And finally, we’ll recap the thrilling conclusion of the Clone Wars. It’s like the Star Wars Clone Wars but with fewer fanboys and no Ewan McGregor.
Reuters reports that Apple rejected an offer from Samsung to withdraw two of the three disputed features from the Galaxy 10.1. Apple rejected the offer, telling the Federal Court in Sydney that Samsung’s offer provided no basis for a settlement. If the company would have accepted, it would have brought a quick close to the ongoing Australian lawsuit.
Samsung: “Please, sir?” Cupertino: “No dice.”
Samsung is desperate to get the Galaxy on Australian retail shelves, having originally planned on a late August or early September launch. The company claims that if it cannot launch the Galaxy in Australia within the next two weeks, it will miss the holiday shopping window and the product will be “commercially dead” Down Under.
Apple stated that it still wanted the court to rule on its claim that the Samsung Galaxy infringed on Apple patents. The Australian lawsuit seems to favor Cupertino, which will help other lawsuits against Samsung worldwide. We suspect, however, that they would not mind if the Australian court took their time over the next few months.
Last week, we covered Verizon’s filing of a curiae brief in Northern California District Court in support of Samsung. Today, T-Mobile teamed up with opposing forces and filed a similar brief. What’s peculiar is that this is just one day after it was announced that it would be Sprint — and not T-Mobile — that would be getting the iPhone.
Oh, so you think Sprint is hot? Fine. We’ll go with Verizon and Samsung then.
It is rare for two amicus curiae briefs in one intellectual property case, but this kind of move is a prime example of how important this case will be for the industry. There is the potential that the court could place a preliminary injunction banning imports of Samsung products. T-Mobile wrote in the brief that the company “respects intellectual property rights and believes that owners of intellectual property deserve their day in court.”
The case, 11-cv-01846-LHK “Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. et al”, is scheduled to be heard by Judge Koh on Thursday, Oct. 13, at 1:30 p.m. The day before the iPhone 4S is expected to go on sale.
Last week Apple saw closure to a legal battle it has been fighting for years against Psystar. A unanimous three-judge ruling in California’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that Apple can stop other companies from selling Mac clones.
Psystar had been selling laptops and desktop computers running OS X, including the original OpenMac for 9 and the later Open(Q) for 9. The clones were sold with OS X installed, and Psystar attempted to get around copyright law by including an authorized copy of the software and claiming Apple was refusing to let people use software they purchased validly.
Or, as a Psystar employee summed it up, “What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you only drive it on the roads they said you could?”
Do not underestimate the power of legal precedent.
The court reaffirmed that users of software like OS X do not actually own the software but use it in accordance with a license from Apple. Which was basically how intellectual property protection for software works.
There was no shortage of legal precedent to support the court in reaching this decision.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column for MacLife.com. You can follow him on Twitter, if you want to.
Phosphor Games has announced that its bizarre, atmospheric new iOS game, The Dark Meadow, is nearing release. In about ten days time we’ll finally have our hands on the spooky-looking new adventure game, but for now we’ll have to make do with this new trailer.
Apparently the game was inspired by a myriad of influences from Guillermo Del Toro’s atmospheric Pan’s Labyrinth to Epic Game’s classic iOS title, Infinity Blade. Judging from the trailer, the former seems more appropriate than the latter.
We’re very much looking forward to exploring The Dark Meadow’s creepy (super creepy, actually) abandoned hospital. Check out the trailer below, and look forward to the game’s release on October 6th.
Phosphor Games has announced that its bizarre, atmospheric new iOS game, The Dark Meadow, is nearing release. In about ten days time we’ll finally have our hands on the spooky-looking new adventure game, but for now we’ll have to make do with this new trailer.
Apparently the game was inspired by a myriad of influences from Guillermo Del Toro’s atmospheric Pan’s Labyrinth to Epic Game’s classic iOS title, Infinity Blade. Judging from the trailer, the former seems more appropriate than the latter.
We’re very much looking forward to exploring The Dark Meadow’s creepy (super creepy, actually) abandoned hospital. Check out the trailer below, and look forward to the game’s release on October 6th.
