Apple Loses Appeal in UK Court; Must Now Publicly Admit Samsung Didn't Copy Them

[dgstorm]

Remember that Apple vs. Samsung battle? Of course, how could you forget? It's only been one of the hottest topics in the mobile tech world for the past year and a half (or more). Still, we have had a brief lull for a while as everything starts working through the appeals process.

Speaking of the appeals process, something new just broke recently, at least in the UK. Earlier in the year, Apple lost their court fight against Samsung in merry old England. The judge in the case indicated that the Samsung products were unlikely to confuse consumers because their stuff was not "as cool" as Apple's products.

Afterwards, the UK Judge even ordered Apple to publicly apologize to Samsung and admit that Samsung did not intentionally copy Apple's designs. Of course, Apple appealed this verdict, and that is where the news comes in today. That appeal was thrown down, and Apple has once again been ordered to share with the world that Samsung didn't copy their products. Here's a quote with some additional detail,

Britain's Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld the country's High Court judgment that, despite some similarities, Samsung's Galaxy tablet did not infringe Apple's designs, in part because its products were "not as cool".

The decision is valid throughout Europe and should prohibit further legal disputes between the two companies over the design of tablets in the region.

South Korea's Samsung welcomed the decision saying in a statement: "We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners".

Apple declined to comment on the decision.

The U.S. company has been instructed to run advertisements saying Samsung did not copy its registered tablet designs, both on its website and in selected newspapers.

Apple can appeal to the Supreme Court.

"I expect this will be the end of the line. An appeal to the Supreme Court is in principle possible but there has been no indication so far that Apple plan such an appeal", Darren Smyth partner at EIP, a specialist intellectual property law firm, told Reuters.

"For the design of tablets in Europe this should be the final word."

It's intriguing to see that the decision is "valid throughout all of Europe" even though the ads only need to be in the UK newspapers and websites. I wonder if this result will have any bearing on the U.S. appeal? Probably not, but we can cross our fingers.

Source: Reuters

 

[vampirefo.]

This is good news, any ideal where we could get one of the newspaper with apples ad in it? I want one, to frame.

 

[ThinkingBrian]

This is good news, any ideal where we could get one of the newspaper with apples ad in it? I want one, to frame.

Not for a while imagine as Apple still has one more appeal they can go through. And we all know Apple isn't about to admit they made a mistake and called Samsung copycats.

 

[tragidy]

apple needs to get off this high horse and stop trying to be an anti-trust company, google uses linux to power the tablet and a GNU policy, samsung follows this..