03.08.10
Gemini version available ♊︎Apple the Bully Goes Hunting for Patent ‘Violators’ With the Sisvel Army
Summary: Jobs hires an army for the job of intimidating and extorting people who allegedly ‘copied’ some ideas from Apple, just as Apple “stole” ideas all along
THE HYPOCRITICAL BULLIES from Apple not only sue Linux these days [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; they also use the private armies of Sisvel and the police. This is arguably an illegal army whose existence led to legal action over a year ago. We wrote about this in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12].
Here is a report about the Apple-backed raids at CeBIT.
Word on the street has it that Apple, Siemens and Sisvel were all kvetching over patent infringements made by an unnamed company exhibiting at last week’s show, and within an hour or so of the fuzz showing up, the whole thing was stripped and a hefty fine (€10,000) was levied. Unfortunately, the exact details of who was violating what remains clouded in mystery, but for whatever reason, we get the feeling that something extremely similar will be going down in Hannover next year. We blame KIRFers determination.
SemiAccurate has some more photos of this.
WHAT DO YOU get when you cross Apple, Siemens and Sisvel with the German police at CeBIT? Raids of course, with lots of police, lawyers, and people stripping booths clean of everything electronic.
Walking around Hall 17 at CeBIT a few hours ago, there were several German police walking hurriedly through the crowd, talking into walkie-talkies. Where police are agitated, stories are likely to be found. Sure enough, when the police got to their destination, there were about 15 more of their colleagues surrounding a 5 by 10 meter booth of a netbook and e-reader manufacturer who explicitly asked not to be identified.
Shame on Apple, the company which ‘stole’ from so many people, by its very own admission (Microsoft is the same by the way). Its CEO had the nerve to accuse others of imitating last week when the lawsuit was announced; maybe he needs a heart implant (metaphorically), not just liver transplant. Sadly, hypocrisy is in the brain, not the heart, so there is no trivial cure for this, not even in CeBIT booths. █
dyfet said,
March 8, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I would not necessarily call what Apple or Microsoft did in the past stealing. Like everyone before them, their ideas and products were from the backs of the works of others before them. This is how science and technology progresses over time. However, they now wish to make sure nobody ever again has these same advantages they had, and that no new ideas or companies emerge unless they control and permit them. It of course requires halting the very process and advance of science itself, and in the process destroying the future of all human society, all for the selfish benefit of perpetuating the greed of a few.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
March 8th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I put “stealing” in quotes. What you said is just what I meant.
Needs Sunlight Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
The original IPAD was on BeOS:
http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/07-IPAD/
Haiku-OS né BeOS may have just found a funding source…
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
So when Jobs held up an “innovative” iPad he actually showed us “stolen” goods?