Law & Apple: Samsung Suffering Summer Heat, More Copycat Lawsuits Crop Up
Law & Apple: Samsung Suffering Summer Heat, More Copycat Lawsuits Crop Up
It's been a cruel, cruel summer for Samsung so far, and the situation is only worsening. Across the sea in China, new lawsuits are cropping out like rampantly growing weeds. Will the real Snow Leopard please stand up?
Join us for another week of Law & Apple as we review the details while trying to keep cool.
Apple vs. Samsung
Oh, Samsung. Last Friday Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple's request for another injunction against a Samsung device, this time effectively blocking the sale of the Galaxy Nexus. On Monday, Judge Koh denied Samsung's appeal to lift the injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and followed that on Tuesday by denying Samsung's appeal to lift the Nexus injunction. Google has apparently removed the device from Google Play, but is hinting that it will return with the new Android 4.1 preinstalled; assumedly, Google's Jelly Bean operating system will have work arounds built in so that it won't specifically infringe on Apple patents.
Either way, that makes two significant Google/Samsung products currently banned for cribbing intellectual property from Cupertino, and this may be just the beginning. This past Saturday, Judge Koh ruled on a motion Samsung brought in May; the motion sought to attack each of Apple's claims in the upcoming trial between the two longtime frenimies. Judge Koh's response was pretty much a falcon punch to any hope Samsung had in this case, as each and every part of Samsung's motion was flat out denied.
I fear, perhaps, this Judge Koh is on to us.
A complete dismissal of a motion like this is rare, and does not speak well for Samsung's fortunes in this case, but perhaps the Korean manufacturer shouldn't be too surprised. When Judge Koh issued the original injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1, she wrote in her decision that "Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products." It may be that this is the judge and this is the case that delivers that big courtroom win Apple has been seeking since St. Jobs declared war on Google in 2011.
Apple vs. China
Show me all of your Snow Leopards! Last week Apple forked over $60 million to Proview Technology, a Chinese company that caught Cupertino being a little sloppy when attempting to quietly snatch up the term "iPad" around the world in 2009. Apple failed to remember that securing a trademark in the Republic of China (Taiwan) is not the same as securing a patent in the People's Republic of China (China), and paid the price for their poly-sci shortcomings.
And since Apple is writing checks to Chinese companies for trademark infringement, the floodgates may have just opened. Now another Chinese company, a household chemicals manufacturer called Jiangsu Xuebao, has jumped into the say-you-are-sorry-and-send-me-a-check game. Xuebao holds the trademark for the term "Snow Leopard" since 2000, and claims Apple, by manufacturing an operating system called Snow Leopard (OS X version 10.6, released in 2009) owes them $80,000 and a formal apology; Xuebao is also suing four other Chinese companies that have marketed and sold Snow Leopard.
Clearly, consumers will face confusion.
Apple attempted to register the translation for Snow Leopard as a trademark in China in 2008, but was denied. Since the term was then never used on Apple's official Chinese-language website, it is not clear how strong Xuebao's case really is. Regardless, if Cupertino is writing eight-digit checks for shady trademark cases, opportunists are going to appear.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column and the occasional feature story for MacLife.com. Follow him on Twitter, or subscribe to him on Facebook.
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