There are two sure fire ways to get Apple’s legal team to blitz you with a thunderpunch of litigation: 1) make an action figure doll in the likeness of Steve Jobs and advertise it as a Steve Jobs doll 2) Use the Apple logo, or anything that kind of almost looks like the Apple logo, on a product you’re selling.
Leofrutta, a fruit company in Sicily, is guilty of option number two. They don’t even try to morph the Apple logo into something a little bit different, instead they just use an exact replica of the bitten apple made famous by Steve Jobs. They’re not just using the Apple logo on their truck though, it’s all over their website too.
If Italy has its way, Apple’s operations in the country may be shut down for 30 days, following a dispute with Italy’s AGCM competition and marketing authority. According to Reuters, Apple is also being faced with fines up to $377,500 unless a free two year warranty is given to all Italian customers.
This is the Sandberg Battery Case for iPhone 4. Designed in Italy, it’s a low-cost backup power supply and case with svelte good looks. It provides a good balance between size and power storage, but isn’t without some flaws. Overall, it’s a good deal but let down by what look like lapses in manufacturing quality control.
Although many EU consumer laws already guarantee twice as much protection, Apple can continue to rip off customers there by selling AppleCare extended warranties.
Lawyer Carlo Piana told Cult of Mac that although Apple lost its appeal over fines for unfair business practices in an Italian court, that probably won’t affect Apple’s stance in the rest of the EU-27, although consumer laws are “harmonized” across member states.
South Korean smartphone maker Samsung learned a lesson about the pace of Italian justice Friday. A Mulan court rejected the company’s call for a preliminary injunction against sales of the iPhone 4S. This is Samsung’s second denial in Italy, a court refused to block the iPhone 4S in that nation back in October.
iPods in Rome (Photo/PitsLamp photography - http://flic.kr/p/EVR7x)
You probably throw most product warranties in the trash without reading them. Not so for an Italian antitrust group, which found Apple retailers’ one-year guarantee lacking and fined the Cupertino, Calif. company 900,000 euros or $1.2 million.
The Megaphone is one of the best good-looking accessories for the iPod or iPhone that we’ve ever seen: not only is it one of the few iPhone speaker docks tasteful enough to function as a part of the room decor even when it is not being used to play music, it sounds great too, all thanks to the work of Italian designers Enrico Bosa and Isabella Lovero.
The iPhone 4S arrives in Italy today – along with another 22 countries – and the Italians are so into it, they are apparently standing in orderly lines to get it.*
Outside the Roma Est store in the country’s capital, however, Apple employees went on strike.
Although we Yanks and select Euros already have iPhone 4Ses in our pockets, the iPhone 4S launch is hardly over. Far from it.
Today, Apple started selling the iPhone 4S in twenty-two other countries. Those countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Any Liechtensteiners care to report on how the lines are looking over there?
You can hear a collective sospiro of relief from Italian Apple fans today after a judge in Milan denied a request by Samsung to block sales of the iPhone 4S in a preliminary hearing.
At stake was the launch of the iPhone 4S on October 28, the device that some Italians have already been buying on eBay just to say they’ve established intimate relations with Siri before anyone else.
![This Italian Fruit Company Ripped Off Apple’s Logo To Help Them Sell Real Apples [Image]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
![This Italian Fruit Company Ripped Off Apple’s Logo To Help Them Sell Real Apples [Image]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mela_mela_camion_600.jpg "mela_mela_camion_600")
![This Italian Battery Case For iPhone 4 Delivers The Juice, But Could Fit Better [Review]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sandberg-batterycase.jpg "The Sandberg Battery Case for iPhone 4")
