Friday, 8 June 2012

08/06/2012

Samsung, Apple and Australia.


   Firstly, Samsung have complained to the Australian Government about how Apple has been using a certain number of their patents in their on going legal battles. The Australian patent commissioner has therefore been charge with informing the court about what Samsung alleges is IP that was granted “ultra vires”, or beyond the powers of the commissioner, which would make it void.

   The patents in question are;

  • 2006330724 – Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image (Granted April 1, 2010)
  • 2007283771 – Portable electronic device for photo management (Granted May 20, 2010)
  • 2008201540 – List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display (Granted February 11, 2010)
  • 2009200366 – List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch screen display (Granted July 23, 2009)
   It should be noted though that this is 4 patents from potentially hundreds which will be disputed in the coming months, so this is quite negligible in reality.

    The second piece of news is that Apple is set to be fined by Australia, the fines run to AU$2.25m ($2.2m) fine at the moment but the judge has asked for confidential iPad sales information and details of Apple's finances before he agrees to set that amount. The issue is going back to Apple misleading new iPad buyers over the tablet's 4G compatibility. Both Apple and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have agreed on the fine and given Apple's bank balance a couple of million here is nothing really, just another lawsuit.



In other news:

  • Nokia shares have shot up in Finland because of rumours of a takeover by Samsung. It's hard to see why Sammy would be even remotely interested in Nokia but that was the rumour and it certainly gave Nokia shares a little bump in the right direction.
  • Apple have had rumbling that their TV SDK will be available at WWDC! That's a sign of what's coming, apps on your tv, that certainly is one department the Apple tv needs to catch up.
  • Apple is also rumoured to be getting rid of the 17" Macbook Pro and indeed the rumours are that the 'Pro' bit will be dropped from their name in their next iteration.
  • Nokia apparently only moved 2.2million Lumia's over Christmas, the IDC had reported. But that's Lumia 800's and they haven't got around to the numbers for Lumia 900's which seemed to do considerably better on launch, especially in the US, so we'll wait and see until we hear news from them before we make any damning judgements.

   Just an aside if you live in Europe the 'Euros' football tournament kicks off today. Good luck to Ukraine and Poland for a great tournament!

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