Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/motorola-secures-europe-wide-sales-ban-on-iphone-ipad/1435

by Garbage • 15 years ago

90 48 15 years ago

CaveTech• 15 years ago

Pretty big piece of FUD here. Title is "secures Europe-wide sales ban", yet the article is littered with bits like "could be barred from sale" and "whether Germany can enforce a Europe-wide ban on 3G-enabled iOS devices is unclear".

mrich• 15 years ago

It's a substantial win for sure. Of course it is unlikely that Motorola will try to enforce the ban, but it gives them an excellent bargaining position.

cezar_sl2• 15 years ago

Agreed. This will turn out to be just about money, not principle or, you know, what the consumer wants.

robertskmiles2• 15 years ago

I like that HN tends to stay away from reddit-style sensationalist titles. I suppose here the OP is just copying the original title verbatim, but it's still misleading.

Regarding the article itself, hopefully this will help popularise the fact that software patents are a bad joke.

r00fus• 15 years ago

Copying the linkbait article title is not an excuse, the submitter (Garbage) could have linked to a more balanced article.

PedroCandeias• 15 years ago

A german court enforcing a europe wide ban? Now that would be rich.

iradik2• 15 years ago

I wonder if we could get into a situation where all leading mobile devices in the world are banned.

zacharypinter• 15 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if every leading mobile device gets banned in at least one country or another.

nixxle• 15 years ago

Lol, can't blame the writer for not understanding how Europe works. It's actually a bunch of countries, not states.

tallanvor• 15 years ago

The article doesn't use the word state anywhere, but one of the definitions of state is "a politically unified people occupying a definite territory; nation.", so yes, Europe consists of multiples states.

robertskmiles2• 15 years ago

The countries in the EU are known as 'Member States'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Un...

Edit: Also the author of the piece is a native of an EU member state

Edit2: Also now that I look I don't actually see the article mention the word 'state'.

What the hell, man?

zachgreen• 15 years ago

I think he was simply implying that Germany doesn't control the rest of the countries in Europe like the US government controls its states.

roel_v• 15 years ago

EU legislation doesn't use the word 'country' anywhere, and neither does anyone working in the Commission. The EU is made up of 'Member States' in the parlance.

seabee• 15 years ago

Good thing too. 'Country' is a loaded word with various populations both claiming and denying their geographic locale as a separate country from the legal entity (or 'Member State') they're a part of.

arethuza2• 15 years ago

Just to confuse things even more, some of the member states are made up of more than one country.

babebridou2• 15 years ago

This is just false. Just to clear things up:

- a state with lower-case S is a subdivision of a Federal Country.

- a State with upper-case S is a synonym of Country.

- All members of the EU are States/Countries. Some of these countries are Federal (Germany for instance) and are subdivised into states (Länder in the case of Germany).

- Some States of the EU include multiple Nations. UK is one of these. Scotland is neither a State nor a state for example, but it's a nation.

- Some States of the EU have territories that encompass States that are not members of the EU. Monaco or the Vatican are examples. Some of these States belong to the Eurozone though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstates_and_the_European_Un...

fpgeek• 15 years ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3333939

IgorPartola• 15 years ago

How is any of this in the interest of the consumer? Can't one of those nice gov't agencies charged with protecting consumer rights stand in and say enough is enough?

I guess things have to get a lot worse before Apple/Motorola/Samsung/etc. realize that this is just not good for anyone.

cezar_sl2• 15 years ago

My view is that if someone takes your idea and makes it better, it's called progress, and it should be encouraged, not banned.

jarofgreen• 15 years ago

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself.

But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate.

In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ...

Or am I being optimistic in hoping it would be reasonable debate and not just an "Evil Motorola/Google!" hate fest?

anonmouse• 15 years ago

I downvoted you. Here's why: It's hard to take anyone seriously when they misspell "though" "tho". You may have made a good point, but I didn't read past your first sentence. I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one-- but you would really be doing yourself a favor to use somewhat correct spelling and grammar. It really sucks when people ignore what you have to say, not because of the message, but because of the delivery.

johnbatch• 15 years ago

"Tho" is in the dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tho

edu• 15 years ago

And I down-voted you for an ad-hominen, and for not checking your dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tho

urbanautomaton• 15 years ago

Is it common practice to register anonymous accounts to explain why you've downvoted someone? "anonmouse" doesn't have sufficient karma to downvote anything, so clearly isn't your regular account. You appear willing to downvote others over inconsequential nonsense, but won't risk your own karma over it. This doesn't seem entirely in the spirit of things, I have to say.

> I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one...

Next time, then, consider doing neither.

ido• 15 years ago

"Tho" is a correct variation in American English. It's like down-voting someone for "misspelling" colour or metre.

funkah• 15 years ago

Get over yourself

dhughes2• 15 years ago

The HN website can do what they want but it seems anti-democratic to muzzle opinions and debate by making comment box text unreadable making the text colour lighter, just because some people (a few downvoters) find the words uncomfortable.

SonicSoul• 15 years ago

so you didn't want to waste your time reading past the first sentence, yet you dedicated 10x more time to creating a new account and writing up all this stuff?

harryf• 15 years ago

You're right. Angry consumers, rioting for iPads would tip it.

ypcx• 15 years ago

I think you are being optimistic. The question is (tho), how will Apple counter this one. If they pull something similar on Motorola, then that's a settlement. If they can't pull anything, they have to buy themselves out - which would be great, because the only way to beat the patent system is its main players realizing, that the game became way too costly, and instead of patent troll firms they start paying lobbyist firms (may even be the same ones huh?) to get legislators to make radical changes on the patent system.

bad_user• 15 years ago

Motorola is being bought by Google. And while they aren't involved in this lawsuit, they are probably present as advisers, so a settlement will probably have to apply to all Android phone makers, as it's in Google's interest to do so.

Considering how fierce Apple is fighting Android companies, I don't think they'll settle. I'm seeing this fight going nuclear.

grumblepeet• 15 years ago

This farce has surely got out of control and just makes the manufacturers look extremely foolish. All of this is powered by greed.

Lets hope as you say that it pushes this debate out to the general public, although I doubt that it will happen.

Makes me want to not buy any of Nokia, Samsung or Apple's products.

iradik2• 15 years ago

This is an arms race. I just see this getting worse and worse until it gets better.

As these battles get larger, companies will dump more and more resources into their legal arsenal.

The ever larger legal departments at these corporations will then need something to do. Budgets to spend. Targets to meet. Goals to hit.

cygwin98• 15 years ago

Ironically, these kinds of law suits remind me of a book I read long time ago about in late nineteen century how American railroad tycoons bribed judges against each other: one day the judge bought by Vanderbilt would ban his opponents from operating, while a week later another judge bribed by his opponents would side-track the order. Heck, policemen bribed by each side even open fired against each other.

Of course, nowadays, we replace bribery with lobbying and "influence". The same game is still on-going.

Freestyler_3• 15 years ago

How can Germany ban something Europe wide, since patents count per country?

I don't get it, at the price they sell these Apple products why would they not buy the right licenses?

I only have questions, no answers. Sorry for that.

jsnell• 15 years ago

Because Motorola isn't selling them a license. Ah, so why isn't Motorola selling them a license then? Because Apple is unique among the big mobile phone players in that they have no interest in licensing their own patents to others for money or for access to the other party's patents. Instead Apple are using them just for the purpose of getting the others off the market.

Nokia apparently managed to bludgeon a cross-licensing agreement from Apple. Motorola is presumably attempting the same.

Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

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