Yet another loss for Apple in Europe – Dutch courts have just ruled in favour of Samsung concerning supposed infringement of a patent detailing ignoring multiple touch inputs, affirming last year’s provisional ruling. Apple asked for a ban on loads of Galaxy devices. However, the courts ruled that Samsung and Android do not infringe this patent, also referring to similar rulings in the UK and Germany where Apple lost on similar grounds, while also affirming the British judge’s ruling that the patent in itself isn’t ‘inventive’. Apple has been ordered to pay all legal proceedings, too. In case you’re wondering, you’re not alone when it comes to pattern recognition: Apple’s only true win so far has been in a jury trial in the US. Make of that what you will.
Not just a jury trial, but a jury who’s foreman is a US patent holder.
Why on Earth Samsung agreed to select Velvin Hogan as a juror I don’t know. He’d seem like an obvious candidate for the ‘exclude’ list. But I guess that’s the beauty of hindsight.
Apple’s only supposed win was just invalidated today by the patent office, they are catching the shaft hard today.
Don’t they have a limited number of vetoes during jury selection?
Possibly. I’ve seen TV shows where they’ve mentioned that, but they’ve all been fiction so hardly count as evidence.
Edited 2012-10-24 14:46 UTC
*cough* Velvin Hogan *cough*
Sorry, I’m useless at subtlety. You’re going to need explain your post a little more
I believe the OP’s point was that if there weren’t a limit on number of vetoes (which there in fact is), then there’s no way Samsung would’ve allowed Hogan on the jury.
Any chance to get a fine for abusive litigation? It would help against Microsoft’s extortion scheme, too.
It’s also the ONLY case to go through the legal system to jury trial and to verdict. And they won! They’re batting a 1.000!
If you have a more realistic measure of the legal battle, Apple has won many, many battles — gaining several preliminary injunctions (some of which were essentially never enforced, some of which remain under appeal, some of which have been overturned — but some remain in effect), several judgments (whether preliminary or final) of infringements of several patents by several devices in several markets, a jury verdict of patent infringement and one of the largest patent awards in history, and prompting at least 5 antitrust investigations around the world into Samsung and Google.
Edited 2012-10-24 21:39 UTC
They may have win legal battles, but they lost at least my pocket money *and* my trust.
A few months ago I was that close to buy an Mac Mini. But after 1) raising its price without nothing really new added (as they did again 2 days ago – there is a pattern here…) and 2) going frontally against everyone else claiming being the unique inventor of, well, everything all while cheating on tablet actual ratio, the green phone icon madness and so, they totally lost me.
I used to work on Macintosh circa ’90 and a bit more during 2004-2005, but I can’t stand their our way or the highway. A lot of old Apple users from MacOS times that I know express similar feeling, and only the new fans from the iDevice & co are clearly seeing this company as the best thing on earth.