Minnow Android slab maker BEATS Apple in court
Spanish biz countersues after year-long ban on sales
Spanish computer maker NT-K had its Android tablets impounded, at Apple's request, but has been vindicated by a local court and is seeking damages from Cupertino for lost earnings and reputation.
Apprecasts the A91 tablet, made by Nuevas Tecnologías y Energías Catalá - you must have heard of them - is a rip-off of the iPad design, just like the Samsung Tab, allegedly.
Starting November 2010, NT-K had shipments of its fondleslab impounded on arrival from China. But in a triumphant blog posting the company has declared victory, with local media reporting that the Valencia court has dismissed Apple's claims - and lifted the ban.
Patent-watcher Florian Mueller opines that Apple has really screwed up this time.
NT-K portrays the battle as a dominant, and foreign, company using its legal muscle to stop local competitors entering the market. It has been a year since the company's tablets were impounded following Apple's accusations, with Cupertino accusing the company of criminal plagiarism in December last year. NT-K reckons it has lost considerable business in the intervening time and wants restitution.
In addition to making a civil claim for damages against Apple, NT-K has an ongoing complaint with the National Competition Commission regarding the iPad maker's behaviour.
Mueller points out that Apple deployed the same legal technique it used to get the Samsung Tab removed from shelves in Germany, and tried to apply it in the Netherlands too (where it ended up using a technical patent to achieve the same goal). NT-K isn't the first small company to be targeted by Cupertino, but it is the first to win.
That's good for NT-K, and bad PR for Apple (which, just for a change, hasn't responded to our request for comment, obviously), but given the fragmented nature of European courts, it might not end up having wider implications. ®
COMMENTS
If the product's high quality is why you bought it, why do you care if someone else (whether "joe unemployed" or not) gets a similar product for less than you paid? Especially when the OS is being pushed as a substantial part of that experience and Android =/= iOS?
Or are you trying to hint that being willing & able to spend money on Apple gear is your way of trying to tell other people you're better than them?
WTF?
There's an old saying..."the sprinter who watches the chasers has already lost".
Apple, get back to innovating and stop worrying about your competitors; if you were truly confident in your products, you wouldn't have to try to protect your market share by legal means.
Caveat: Lots of apple kit in my house. But increasingly less likely to be more in the future.
Major Fail here buddy
IBM did patent their PC's
IBM acted illegally to maintain a monopoly and was forced to loose and license the majority of their PC technology.... and yet they probably still make millions on some of those inventions even now.
I'm also so tired of Apple being the "first tablet" Palm had pocket sized tablets for over a decade before Apple even considered entering this market, Compaq and HP had pocket PC devices as well that were VERY similar to the design and idea behind the IPAD.
There is one simple reason the IPAD came along when it did, and why so many others came out in tablet size (both before and after Appull): TouchScreen sizes increased and got cheaper.... real simple folks. No revelation to Jobs from God, no Genius moment in the appull factory... just simple math... touchscreens the size of a laptop were around in the 90's and the made said tablets cost upwards of $2000. The size of cheap screens that were tablet sized finally became a marketing reality.. and now scuzzy Appull is trying to steal the market with crooked tactics and BS. Don't believe this stupid hype. And as far as invention goes, there are CRAP LOADS of sci-fi movies and TV shows that had a plethora of different tablet sized devices for controlling ships, games and computers going back for decades... we are all aware of them, we all have been waiting for them to just be cheap enough to be a reality... no big invention here folks, tons of prior art. Hell the etch-a-sketch predates the Ipud by many decades, and I for one find it a more functional device and a better bargain too!
You comment shows that you are a typical Appull fan-boi.... to paraphrase what you said "I don't want poor people to be able to pretend their device is like my premium one, or that they are as important or cool....wahaa wahaa"
go cry to your mommy that you aren't special anymore and let the real people make their products and sell them as they see fit. Maybe you can pay Joe unemployed to carry you around town in your own private throne... then you can look down at the unwashed masses and pretend that you are the important twit you think you are.
Cockolorum - it describes you perfectly (look it up, you should be able to find it even if I spelled it wrong)
This wasn't a mistake, it was a shady action by a shady company and it surely was vetted by their legal department, they just bet wrong that they could win, and were double wrong that it wouldn't come back to hurt them.
JOE UNEMPLOYED??
>> I don't want joe unemployed to sport a clone of my iPad so can't see this as bad pr yet
Have you not been to a British council estate recently? Swathes of unemployed oiks wearing tracksuits playing angry birds on their **Apple iPhones**. Yes, theft, long term contracts, or generally spending every penny you "earn" (selling drugs) on a gadget is seen as more important to these people than putting 50p coins into the electric meter or changing baby's nappy immediately after a bowel movement. I actually *know* people who are Council Housed And Violent (C.H.A.V .for short) who insist on the latest apple gadgets. Apple as an "unobtainable premium product" finished years ago - now it's a toy for the masses, like Nokia was in the 90s and I presume microwave ovens were the decade before.
This looks like an iPad?
Were Apple's lawyers on drugs when they looked at it and thought "hey, that's a dead ringer for our shiny toy".
