07.01.13
Apple Bites the Bullet
Apple Sued by Company Partly Owned by Apple’s Peripheral Lawyers
Summary: Apple’s aggressive patent plot against Android is breaking to pieces and Apple is getting sued even by some of its own teams
Apple is unable to stop Android domination and the ITC now threatens to embargo Apple products, not Android products. To quote a report about the ruling:
Earlier this month, the ITC issued a landmark decision and exclusion order, ruling that certain Apple products should be excluded from entry into the United States because they infringe a Samsung 3G-essential patent. As we explained in a follow-up post, the ITC doesn’t have the final word, though — by law, the President has the power to disapprove of an exclusion order for public policy reasons. (This power has since been delegated to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).) In a high-stakes, high-profile case such as Samsung-Apple, you’d expect the parties to continue the fight at every level — and sure enough, that’s what has happened.
It sure looks like in 2013 Apple finally lost it altogether and its patent chief left. There is no hope of embargoing the best-selling Linux/Android devices any time soon as a “California judge [last] week denied Apple’s request to add the Galaxy S4 to an ongoing patent case it is fighting against Samsung.”
“Maybe if enough lawsuits of this kind get file, Apple will finally decide to fight against patents, not to fight against Android.”Meanwhile, says this report from a reliable journalist, “an array of documents from a patent lawsuit over Apple’s iPhone became public, revealing a stunning scheme: FlatWorld Interactives, a patent-holding company demanding a royalty on nearly every iOS device, is partly owned by an attorney at one of Apple’s go-to law firms for patent work.”
This is great news because it helps show loyalty to Apple declining not just on the customers’ side but also employees’/contractors’ side. Maybe if enough lawsuits of this kind get file, Apple will finally decide to fight against patents, not to fight against Android. █