Apple's Ad Sounds More Like an Attack
/Apple followed the court order to post the Samsung lawsuit ruling, but the company followed only the letter of the law. Information Week and other sources call the notification on Apple's website a mockery.
Apple sued Samsung for copying its iPad design too closely when creating its tablet, the Galaxy. But the company lost the patent infringement lawsuit and, as a result, was required to communicate the decision, according to Information Week:
"The court gave Apple seven days to post notification of the ruling in a font of no less than 11 pixels, with a link to the ruling, that must remain on Apple's U.K website for six months or until the court orders otherwise. It also required Apple to publish the same notification in the first five pages of the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, The Guardian, Mobile Magazine, and T3 magazine, in a font of no less than 14 pixels."
In the notification, however, Apple takes several stabs at Samsung. Apple quotes the judge's ruling about the Apple design:
"It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design."
"The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool."
Apple posts a link to the ruling, as required, but then ends with another blow to its competitor:
"However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple's design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad."
UPDATE: After being reprimanded by the UK court, Apple has replaced its notice with a revision.
Discussion Starters:
- Did Apple take the right approach for the company? Did the company do the right thing? What are the arguments for and against this approach?
- Should the judge have been even more specific in instructing Apple how to post the decision? Why or why not?
