Europe is the focus of the past week’s legal events for Apple, with a swift slap on the wrist from Italy and another small but significant victory in Germany looming on the horizon. As the courtroom rulings begin to line up in Apple’s favor, are we beginning to see the formation of a larger legal strategy for Cupertino?
Cue up the “dun dun” and read on for this week's Law and Apple, European Style!
Yesterday, Italy’s antitrust body fined Apple $1.2 million (900,000 euros) for encouraging customers to buy AppleCare Protection Plan extended warranties without fully explaining that, under Italian law, the products already come with an extended two-year warranty.
The ruling states that three divisions of Apple -- Apple Italia, Apple Sales International, and Apple Retail Italia -- will be fined 400,000 euros for failing to inform customers of their right to two-years of free support, and fined 500,000 euros for selling the AppleCare service to those customers.
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Apple famously offers customers a full one-year (90-days telephone support and 1-year limited warranty) of support in the U.S., and the AppleCare Protection Plan extends that umbrella for an additional year. Apple is traditionally very generous with product support for customers under warranty, so the extended plans are very popular. However, as Italy mandates a minimum two-years of full coverage, selling AppleCare extended warranties that overlapped what was required by law was not viewed kindly by the court. Apple continues to be very active in the European courtroom, including ongoing legal battles against rivals like Samsung and Motorola, as well as scrutiny from the courts themselves with regard to alleged price-fixing with ebook publishers.
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents reports that a Munich court is likely rule in favor of Apple next February on lawsuits brought by Cupertino against Motorola in Germany. The ruling may lead to an injunction against Motorola products that use a specific method for flipping pages within a gallery of photos.
According to Mueller, the German court does not doubt the validity of the European patent (EP2059868), and is even more convinced at the conclusion of two preliminary hearings last week that the Android photo gallery is violating that patent.
Android will likely have to modify the way it flips photos.
Motorola appears positioned to modify its devices if an injunction is awarded to Apple, much the same way Samsung did in October. Apple seems to be accepting these forced modifications as minor, yet important, victories within a long-term legal strategy. While these rulings are not the “knock-out blows” that many have been waiting for, it appears Cupertino is happy to have Android devices forced to cease infringing on Apple innovations and remain available to customers in a modified format, rather than have the devices removed from the marketplace altogether. It is an expensive strategy, one that continues to chip away at Apple’s massive cash reserve, and perhaps that is part of the long-term strategy for Apple’s competition.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column for MacLife.com. You can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to him on Facebook, if you want to.
