Motorola vs. Apple: Apple may no longer sell iPhone 3 and 4 in Germany

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-apple-on-motorola-ip-claims-in-germany-this-old-pager-patent-is-invalid/

by Mitt • 14 years ago

67 40 14 years ago

nickik3• 14 years ago

I have not read this article in depth but in general, when are the lawmaker going to see that this patentwar stuff profits only bureaucracy and lawers? Its time to threw out this system or at least fundamentally rework it.

VMG• 14 years ago

I think the lawmakers know this already and like it that way. Maybe the large companies will someday realize this is a negative-sum game and put a stop to it.

nickik3• 14 years ago

Why do you think politicians like it the way it is? They don't win anything. I think the don't understand what going on.

pinaceae• 14 years ago

in Apple's online store. sales through mobile providers, which make up the majority of sales are still permitted.

samarudge• 14 years ago

Is there a particular reason they refer to themselves in 3rd person? Is it a journalistic habit or something to do with syndication etc.?

> Apple’s emailed response to paidContent also indicates that it will be appealing the decision

moreati• 14 years ago

It's a habit of at least some reporters/organisations. The BBC do the same when some aspect of the BBC makes headlines and they report on it.

a_a_r_o_n• 14 years ago

Widely used journalistic convention, to promote the appearance of objectivity, or similarly to remove the writer (who is usually irrelevant) from the story.

AndrewDucker• 14 years ago

Makes it easier to copy/paste into a report on other sites.

talmand• 14 years ago

I liked Apple's defense quoted in the article, "this old pager patent is invalid". I'm willing to bet some people have used that defense against Apple patents. What a farce this whole patent war is turning into.

raganwald4• 14 years ago

Allow me to save everyone the trouble of reading the inevitable comments. Here’s everything that has already been said 2^n times before and will continue to be said:

1. Fuck Apple, they deserve it for trying to use patents themselves. All they do is make overpriced pretty black plastic toys, there’s nothing remotely innovative about selling jewellery to metrosexual fanboys.

2. Patents are fundamentally broken. They should all be thrown out, and miraculously everyone will rush to build great products with razor-thin margins.

3. INAL, but <<Insert two paragraphs of dense legal opinions>>.

4. Apple is innovative and deserves its patents, these people are just leeches and trolls.

aristidb2• 14 years ago

"miraculously everyone will rush to build great products with razor-thin margins"

Not a very neutral reproduction of a hypothetical comment! I would even say that it is suggestive.

raganwald4• 14 years ago

Feel free to make a different comment, I’m just reproducing the ones that are made on a regular basis. I don’t judge whether they’re correct, just whether they’re frequent!

brudgers• 14 years ago

It's not Motorola [MOT] who is suing Apple, it is Motorola Mobility [MMI], aka "Android's fiance."

It is my understanding that the prenup prohibits MMI from settling existing suits or initiating new suits without MMI's future mother-in-law sending blessings.

Thus, there is ample opportunity for calling Google "evil."

In response, we may expect prayer rugs to be turned toward Mountain View.

Karunamon• 14 years ago

>2. Patents are fundamentally broken. They should all be thrown out, and miraculously everyone will rush to build great products with razor-thin margins.

The build cost for an iPhone 4s is roughly $190. The device retails for $649.

That is hardly razor thin.

raganwald4• 14 years ago

That comment parodies a debate wherein some people argue that patents grant Apple the right to make this margin, and if you remove the patents (and IP monopolies in general), other companies will clone everything, driving margins down to effectively zero. Some people agree with this but argue that somehow, companies will still invest money in R&D and create great products.

It’s a debate, it’s a complicated situation with a lot of hypotheses to toss around. I was just trying to find a risible straw-man comment to share.

joshu• 14 years ago

I think extending the analogy of runtime to argument repetition is interesting. Are there any n^2 comments?

recoiledsnake• 14 years ago

>1. Fuck Apple, they deserve it for trying to use patents themselves. All they do is make overpriced pretty black plastic toys, there’s nothing remotely innovative about selling jewellery to metrosexual fanboys.

The first sentence is independent from the rest. See below:

>4. Apple is innovative and deserves its patents, these people are just leeches and trolls.

That might be true, but that implies Motorola isn't inventive and doesn't deserve it's own patents. There has been a lot of innovation into packing such advanced technology into a palm sized device that Apple had nothing whatsoever to do with, but is leveraging. If Motorola is a leech, then so is Apple.

By firing the first salvo, they have needlessly stirred the hornet's nest.

jessa2• 14 years ago

How about iPhone 4s?

microtherion• 14 years ago

It appears that the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 no longer use the chip set that forms the basis for the present litigation, so they are not affected (Apple presumably will be absolutely devastated at being forced to only sell their high end models).

jessa2• 14 years ago

I see. Do you think it would affect its price on the market?

arikrak• 14 years ago

Q: Why did Apple launch so many patent wars, aren't patents just supposed to be used like nukes? (Don't sue me, or I'll sue you, and we'll both lose tons of money.)

A: Maybe because Apple has so much money, patent lawsuits cannot threaten them too much, but they have a chance at badly damaging the competition, who might run out of money.

shingen• 14 years ago

Apple has the most to lose in a patent war, specifically because they're the cash king. $100 billion in cash and soon to be $40 billion a year in profit, up for grabs by patent lawsuits and trolls.

When you have all the money, and only 3% of the patents, you've made an extreme miscalculation in starting a patent war.

Motorola Mobility is by far the patent king in that realm. Apple is stupid for starting a war that they could lose tens of billions over long term. It was a fit of rage by Jobs that caused them to start firing salvos. Not his finest decision making.

rsynnott• 14 years ago

This particular little war was launched by Motorola, which sued Apple before Apple sued it.

jrockway• 14 years ago

I miss not having Steve Jobs around. His commentary on issues like this was always amusing.

Apple always won by playing their own game. Now they are playing the game of, "if we can't beat them on the merit of our products, we'll sue them out of existence." It turns out that other companies have been playing this game for decades and are much better at it.

rimantas• 14 years ago

  > if we can't beat them on the merit of our products

The problem with your statement is that Apple still can. See e.g. the latest changes of iOS market share vs. Android market share, or what percent of smartphones sold by Verizon was iPhone, or the sales trend of iPad.

tedunangst• 14 years ago

I think you mean you miss having him around. Not having him around is the current state.

That said, this particular game started a while ago.

jacquesm• 14 years ago

It's high time that Apple and all the other participants in these silly lawsuits buried the hatchet lest they achieve that which they want least of all: that the patent system will be overhauled.

In the end the little guys would win so I'm all for it but this whole saga so far is a great example of starting a fire without having the ability to put it out once it gets out of control.

Compete in the marketplace on excellence of product and service. And like them or hate them, if Apple would just stick to that they'd be winners all around, these lawsuits might just backfire.

Xylakant• 14 years ago

According "Der Spiegel" the injunction has been (temporarily) overruled by the OLG Karlsruhe which is the next-higher instance in the lawsuit. Off to the next round. Iphones are still not available in the store though

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/0,1518,813264,00.html

(The linked article has been updated to reflect that as well)

Motorola vs. Apple: Apple may no longer sell iPhone 3 and 4 in Germany

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