Luxpro Sues Apple for Damages and 'Power Abuse' 62
Dystopian Rebel writes "The Financial Times reports that Taiwanese company Luxpro (discussed on Slashdot last year) intends to sue Apple for US$100M for 'lost revenue caused by Apple's abuse of their global power.' In 2005, Apple obtained an injunction against Luxpro's Super Shuffle/Super Tangent but the Taiwanese Supreme Court has overturned the injunction, opening the door to Luxpro's legal action. From the article: 'The [Luxpro] product had almost the same measurements and weight, came in a white plastic casing and had similar buttons on the front. Its name, Super Shuffle, also closely resembled the original.'"
![[Luxpro] product](http://asia.cnet.com/i/r/2005/pav/39094321/b001.jpg){kind=link}
Abuse of power? (Score:1)
Ahem (Score:1, Insightful)
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Just don't call it innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Gimme a break (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:4, Interesting)
Taken directly from their website, it apears that they are flat out stating "YES, WE RIPPED OFF APPLE COME BUY FROM US!"
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http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD530340&id
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does it look significantly similar to Apple's product? yes.
is that a problem? only if apple have a valid patent on it.
do apple have a patent on it? yes
is it valid?
that question was left hanging, I think.
1) is the patent valid in the US? I mean, it does seem kind of generic. I notice from the patent diagrams, that the most significant difference, the buttons, is not detailed at all (just two concentric circles).
2) is this valid in Taiwan (and/or other
Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Not abuse of power (Score:5, Interesting)
The injunction was granted but later overturned. FTFA:
Luxpro appealed and won subsequent lawsuits in the Taiwan High Court and the Taiwan Supreme Court. Last month, the Shihlin District Court lifted the original injunction, saying that "the appearances of the two products are significantly dissimilar".
Now, I don't actually think they are all that dissimilar, but that's only tangentially related to this countersuit. Apple's original suit, seeking the injunction, was not a frivolous move by a monopolistic juggernaut - just a company defending its interests. Apple's shareholders could have sued if Apple hand't sought the injunction.
Had Luxpro's device pre-dated Apple's, or if the two devices really were dissimilar, that would be another thing.
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Picture [luxpro.com.tw] - this used to be a picture of all 4 items (from their own web page) atm it seems to be dead to me, not sure if it still is.
Re:Not abuse of power (Score:4, Informative)
Luxpro seems to have three models. The two higher-end ones are quite different from the Apple model due to their displays. The low-end one is much more similar but is nonetheless readily distinguishible from the Apple model due to the prominent Luxpro logo. Insofar as they are not infringing any Apple patents or copyrights and there is no way a reasonable consumer could confuse the two products, Apple has no case.
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-uso.
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Yes, if you want to put it that way. Nobody has a monopoly on making small music players. Anyone who wants to is entitled to take that idea and run with it. If they want to use patented features in their hardware they need a license. Similarly, if they want to use somebody else's software they need a license from the copyright owner. If they can design the hardware without infringing any patents and write their software from scratch, they are beholden to no one. The only other thing they can't do is name t
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Next time do it right (Score:2, Interesting)
Then wait for the judgement-proof street-corner vendors and we-don't-care-about-trademark 3rd-world toymakers to smell cash and create their own "shell" that exactly mimics Apple.
Word will get around and sales of your product and the third-party shells will both skyrocket.
When the trademark police come, they will come for the toyma
If you ask me (Score:1, Insightful)
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Apple, just like anybody else, is well within their right to prevent people from copying their trademarked or patented designs and creations. In the case of the Luxpro player, it's a blatant rip-off. Apple has never prevented
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I don't see what legal justification Apple could possibly have for preventing the sale of used Apple equipment. I'm not saying they didn'
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Nope. Proprietary PCs are as dead as Dillinger. You can go to any store in the USA and buy replacement parts or peripherals which will work on Dell PCs. But if you want Apple stuff, you have to go to the Apple store.
You mean aside from printers, scanners, RAM, hard drives, keyboards, mice, USB cards, monitors - I'm probably missing some stuff, but you get the picture.
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Well, yes. He is right. I have bought almost all the above parts except for monitors - and none of them was from Dell or by Dell. Get your facts right.
Obviously, my terse and sarcastic reply was misunderstood. My mistake. What I was trying to say was that all of those items can be bought at any computer store and put into a Mac. He was maintaining that ALL parts for a Mac need to be bought from Apple, which is blatantly untrue (and quite ignorant of the facts).
I completely understand your misreading of
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There are two claims there, let me handle them in reverse order. Yes, to buy Apple brand equipment, you must go to an Apple store or one of Apple's approved retailers. Similarly to buy Dell brand equipment, you must buy from Dell or one of their approved retailers. This arrangement is true of pretty much every manufacturer that has a brand
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Um.. that's a little twisted from the whole story. Because Apple chooses to not license their boxen, that doesn't make them a "monopoly" at their level of market penetration. Once anyone makes a product the planet can't live without and starts yanking everyone around because they can [think "Microsoft"], that triggers the "monopoly" flag. Apple is getting dangerously close with the iPod/iTunes connection but nobody has shown significant, damaging abuse, like jacking the prices way up or suddenly making you
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Whether Microsoft is or is not a monopoly is not up for interpretation - it's the law which has a series of tests to determine if there is a monopoly condition. The only legal monopoly by a private interest is one which agrees to have Government monitored policy and price regulation. Microsoft had neither of those and in fact thumbed its nose at the law for years. Most of that has changed. Microsoft is subject to inspection, fines and corrective action, even as they respond with hostility and attempts to su
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Then I guess IBM had an illegal monopoly since their monopoly had no such government intervention.
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Then I guess IBM had an illegal monopoly since their monopoly had no such government intervention.
No intervention? There have been decades of intervention. Check out one list of IBM Antitrust Suit Records [lib.de.us] which claims a printed length of 41 linear feet - and that list ends in 1980. You might also want to read up on the most famous case with Telex v. IBM. [sdsu.edu] It's kind of interesting. The last linked article was written in 1974 before all the appeals started.
Synopsis: The Government mopped the courtroom floor with IBM for a dozen years ending in 1982 with the slowest, most expensive bureaucratic paper cha
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It's been a while since that particularly specious reasoning appeared. I thought we'd all moved on a bit.
I particularly like the bit where you call it a little monopoly and then say "little by numbers," contradicting what a monopoly actually is. Well done, good troll!
Same joke, different decade (Score:3, Interesting)
My first thought is that this is just the 2007 update of the old Austin Powers joke:
--MarkusQ
code of knockoffs (Score:3, Interesting)
In this case if seems like these two player are nearly identical, which is no problem. Aiwa came out with walkman clones, which I considered better quality and a much better value. This was not an issue because there was a clear branding difference between the Sony and Aiwa product. What is a problem is the name super shuffle is confusing with the shuffle. Such confusion reducing the ability for consumers to efficiently acquire products, which is bad. Certain agents benefit at the expense of society.
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Aiwa came out with walkman clones, which I considered better quality and a much better value. This was not an issue because there was a clear branding difference between the Sony and Aiwa product.
I thought Aiwa was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony?
So what? (Score:2)
Wrong-o! (Score:2)
Shuffles? We Don't Need no Stinking Shuffles!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Really? You mean running a blatantly monopolistic business practice and then stomping the guts out of your competition is bad?
Who let these socialists in here anyways?
This is almighty Capitalism were are talkin' bout here!
It's all about the
LUXPRO's rip-off was more blatant than they claim! (Score:3, Informative)
It's always different for Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
silly (Score:2)