Lately it seems that every other day Apple becomes entangled in a new lawsuit related to who’s infringing on whose patent. With all of the feuds between major players in the technology industry, we try to remain as unbiased as possible by refraining from covering news on said topic – but this one was too good to resist.
Today, a verdict was finally reached in an ongoing case between Samsung and Apple by a United Kingdom judge who ruled that Samsung’s line of Galaxy Tab products do not directly infringe upon Apple and their iPad designs.
As reported by Bloomberg, the judge overseeing the case stated that Samsung’s tablets aren’t “as cool” as Apple’s iPad:
The Galaxy tablet doesn’t infringe Apple’s registered design, Judge Colin Birss said in a ruling today in London. He said that consumers weren’t likely to get the two tablet computers mixed up.
The Galaxy tablets ‘do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,’ Birss said. ‘They are not as cool’
According to Briss, the judge mentioned above, the tablets in Samsung’s Galaxy line are lacking the same “understated and extreme simplicity” that Apple has worked so hard to achieve with their iPad.
As per usual, Apple will have 21 days to appeal the ruling – but, despite their loss, how could they argue against Samsung’s tablets not being “as cool” as Apple’s iPad?
Update:
The notice should outline the July 9 London court decision that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets don’t infringe Apple’s registered designs, Judge Colin Birss said. It should be posted on Apple’s U.K. website for six months and published in several newspapers and magazines to correct the damaging impression the South Korea-based company was copying Apple’s product, Birss said.
The order means Apple will have to publish “an advertisement” for Samsung, and is prejudicial to the company, Richard Hacon, a lawyer representing Cupertino, California-based Apple, told the court. “No company likes to refer to a rival on its website.”
On July 18th, a different judge ruled that Apple must place a notice on their United Kingdom website for a total of six months that states Samsung didn’t copy the iPad’s design (Bloomberg reports on the situation in the above quote).
Stay tuned for more coverage on the situation and other “head-turning” legal stories.
