You know that so-called “permanent injunction” Motorola got against Apple that resulted in Apple pulling all iPhones and iPads short of the iPhone 4S off their online store earlier today? Already overruled, and Germans can once again get their iPhone and iPad on.
Insult, meet injury. Microsoft has just inadvertently ended up buying 1,400 iPads to schools in Madison, Wisconsin. Bet they wish they were Windows 8 tablets instead.
Motorola Mobility sued Apple in a Florida court on Wednesday for violating 6 wireless technology patents found in the iPhone 4S and iCloud. The patents in question relate to antenna, software, data filtering, and messaging technology.
Google recently acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion and is in the process of merging with the company. While Google is not directly involved with this specific case, Motorola’s lawsuit can definitely be seen as another attempt to protect patent ammunition for the ongoing legal war between the top smartphone manufacturers. In fact, this is the closest Apple and Google have ever come to fighting in the courtroom.
The U.S. government declared the act of jailbreaking legal on July 26, 2010, encouraging hundreds of thousands of iOS users into hacking their devices, safe in the knowledge that their actions would incur no legal repercussions. The ruling certainly had a huge on the jailbreaking community, but the tables could be set to turn once again.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), jailbreaking could become illegal again this year, but you can do your bit to prevent it.
There’s been a lot of fuss overnight about what exactly Apple is claiming ownership of in the Terms and Conditions associated with its new iBooks Author application for Mac. The fuss is understandable, because the wording of the license agreement gets a little bit muddy.
Despite vowing that nothing would stop it from producing its 12-inch Steve Jobs action figure, the Chinese toy manufacturer In Icons has finally cancelled production after “immense pressure” from lawyers representing both Apple and Steve’s family.
End-User License Agreements (or EULAs) are the very bane of our existence here at Cult of Mac, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t helpful information to be gleaned from the jargon we typically ignore while installing software.
There happens to be a particularly interesting tidbit of information nestled in the 17,697-word iTunes Terms and Conditions EULA.
Eastman Kodak has announced its plans to sue Apple and HTC for violating several of its patents relating to digital imaging. The once-profitable camera company claims that Apple’s iOS devices and HTC’s smartphones infringe on Kodak patents for transmitting images digitally and between devices.
A group of Chinese authors have reportedly filed a lawsuit against Apple in Beijing claiming that the Cupertino company is infringing copyright with books sold through its iBookstore. The Chinese financial magazine Caixin reports that nine authors from the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) are involved in the suit, which is hoping to secure 11.9 million yuan ($1.9 million) in compensation.
Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?
This week’s topic is one personal to both iOS and Android fans alike: is Samsung really copying Apple’s designs for its Galaxy series of Android smartphones and tablets? Samsung and Apple are brawling it out on pretty much every continent on Earth trying to get to the bottom of this issue, so it’s only fitting that we try to settle this one in the ring too.
In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!
Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.
Remember that Steve Jobs action figure from the other day that Apple is trying to force legally off the market, insinuating they own Steve Jobs’s likeness?
Turns out that it looks like in most states, Apple can’t really do squat to prevent the sale of DiD Corp’s Steve Jobs doll? As it turns out, even if Apple did own Steve Jobs’s likeness, that would only be valid in most states while Jobs was alive. Now that he’s dead, though, almost anyone can profit off of his likeness.
With billions in the bank, sometimes it is cheaper to pay a few bucks rather than spend time in court. That apparently is the logic behind a $5 million settlement announced in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against Apple. Despite little chance of a courtroom win, a Taiwan-based touchpad maker is proclaiming victory.
I’d have put my house and children on Apple suing the Chinese toy manufacturer which produces the incredibly realistic Steve Jobs action figure we reported on earlier this week. And just as expected, it’s threatening to do just that.
In Icon has reportedly received a letter from Apple’s legal team which states it must stop producing and selling the 12-inch $99 figure — which sports Steve’s iconic black turtleneck, blue jeans and white sneakers — immediately, or face legal action. Unfortunately for In Icon, it has no intention of quitting.
If you have plans to sue Apple for a faulty MagSafe power adapter that may have set fire to your home office, then you had better make it a priority on your to-do list. The deadline to make claims under the class action settlement relating to the device is fast approaching.
It’s been rumored that Microsoft is planning an iPad version of its popular Office productivity suite, but until then, we’ve got a free alternative. CloudOn is an iPad app that brings Word, Powerpoint, and Excel to your favorite Apple tablet.
CloudOn integrates with Dropbox to let you edit and create documents on the go. Your work is then synced back to your desktop.
Over the course of the past year, Samsung has shamelessly stolen Apple’s design on everything from the iPod touch, the iPad 2 Smart Cover, iOS’s homescreen, and more. Heck, they’ve even poached the actresses who star in Apple’s current iPhone 4S commercial!
Having apparently run out of new Apple products to rip-off, Samsung has decided to examine Apple’s past portfolio of devices for new designs to flagrantly plagiarize. The latest? Meet the Galaxy Ace Plus, Samsung’s new entry-level Android phone that looks just like the three year old iPhone 3G design!
This is just beyond parody at this point. Next up? Samsung announces the Galaxy Tab 8.5 Noir, which shamelessly violates the design of the 1993 Apple Newton.
Here’s another “Act Now Before Apple’s Lawyers C&D!” deal for you: over at Sears, they are selling the iHdd 2 Slim External Hard Drive Enclosure for just $53.90. It’s self-powered, USB 2.0 compatible and has an attractive, IP and trademark-violating Apple logo glowing on the top! If you want one, better get moving before Apple’s lawyers come back from New Year’s break.
[via Macgasm]
Samsung has a hit on its hands. Unfortunately, it involves being thrown out of court — this time in France. To add insult to injury, not only did a French panel call an attempt to ban iPhone 4S sales “disproportionate,” but ordered the South Korean smartphone company to pay Apple’s legal bills.
Despite the fact that Apple allows users an easy way to opt out of the service, have removed it entirely from most of their phones and that Apple’s implementation of Carrier IQ tracks no personal information whatsoever, guess what? Cupertino’s been named in a class action lawsuit over the notorious keylogging software, along with a host of other hardware makers, all of whom are way more guilty.
Hysterical. In a recent response to HTC’s ITC complaint against Apple, Cupertino didn’t just deny all of HTC’s charges… it even went as far as to correct the Taiwanese device maker’s punctuation, snarkily writing:
Apple denies that its correct name is Apple, Inc. The correct name of Respondent is Apple Inc.
Priceless.
Did you buy a song off of iTunes for $1.29 before May 2010 with an iTunes Gift Card that said each song cost only $0.99? Thanks to the efforts of lawyers at Kurtzman Carson Consultants, you may be eligible for a class-action payout!
Make room in your piggy bank: you could be up to three dollars and twenty-five cents richer today than you were yesterday!
The class action lawsuit basically deals with iTunes Gift Cards that had been purchased when Apple was transitioning to $1.29 iTunes plus DRM-free songs from their previous standard of $0.99 DRM-protected tracks.
The cards claimed that each iTunes track only sold for about a buck, when actually, Apple had jacked the price of their songs by thirty cents. The class-action lawsuit filed by Gabriel Johnson in July 2009 claimed that consumers became confused by the discrepancy, and deserved their money back.
It seems ridiculous — Apple clearly wasn’t trying to rip anyone off — but the lawsuit continued for the past two years. It has now finally been reconciled, with both parties agreeing to settle out of court to prevent future expense.
If you’d like to file for your three bucks, head on over to Kurtzman Carson Consultants.
iEmu is a Kickstarter project from Chris Wade — one of the guy’s behind the first iPhone jailbreak — and his team, which is aiming to emulate iOS applications on Android, Mac and Windows devices. But is it really possible?
As you probably know, Apple and Samsung have been battling each other in court over a heated “copycat” lawsuit for awhile now. Apple accused Samsung of stealing the iPhone’s design for Samsung’s own series of smartphones, and Samsung has been retaliating with counterclaims.
Pretty standard stuff. What makes the legal battle between Apple and Samsung more interesting is that Apple has been using Samsung as an internal parts provider for the iPhone. Now that’s about to end. In the midst of this copycat legal battle, it appears that Apple is looking to give Samsung a swift kick to the gut by taking its $5 billion/year parts order business elsewhere.
Patent troll Lodsys has been suing iOS indie developers for using Apple’s own in-app purchasing mechanism. Sleazily, the company has claimed that they had no choice but to go after the little guy because Apple refused to cough up an App-Store-wide patent license.
No surprises here: Lodsys’s actions have roused the Cupertino Colossus, and they might not like the response they get from disturbing the sleeping giant’s slumber.
Wondering just how you went through your 2GB allowance of data this month when all you did was do some browsing and email? A new lawsuit filed in California federal court says you’re not the only one.
The lawsuit filed by Patrick Hendricks alleges that AT&T has been systematically overcharging iPhone and iPad owners with capped data plans by falsely reporting the amount of data. According to Hendricks’ lawyers, this so-called “phantom data” can inflate the actual amount of incoming data by as much as three hundred percent.
“AT&T’s billing system for iPhone and iPad data transactions is like a rigged gas pump that charges for a full gallon when it pumps only nine-tenths of a gallon into your car’s tank,” the complaint reads.
