Let's be honest: not everybody can do the electric slide, especially when it is patented. Apple won a ruling against Motorola in Germany for the first time, and it is kind of a big one. Also, for all of you sufferers of the iPhone 4 "death grip" who have been anxiously awaiting the outcome from your class-action suit against Apple, a settlement is reached; you stand to get enough cash to possibly buy yourself two, maybe three gallons of gas.
Cue the dun-dun and let's recap another week of Law & Apple.
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents is reporting that Apple won a major decision in Germany’s Munich I Regional Court against Motorola last week. According to the ruling by Presiding Judge Dr. Peter Guntz, most of Motorola’s products infringe on Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent. With the ruling, Apple could choose to enforce a permanent injunction against Motorola smartphones in Germany.
Apple claimed infringement on three patents, and won on two of them; the third infringement claim centered on the Motorola Zoom. Motorola intents to appeal the decision, according to comments made to the BBC, at which time it is expected Apple will try again to win on the third infringement claim.
Apple: Yeah, that's ours.
Motorola can work around the injunction with a software update that modifies the slide-to-unlock functionality. The modification, however, is somewhat less elegant, and will result in what Mueller describes as a "degradation of the user experience." After suffering several previous losses, this ruling signifies the first offensive courtroom win for Cupertino against Motorola in Germany.
When antenna-gate first broke in the summer of 2010, many users of the new iPhone 4 complained that when holding the device in a specific way, the so called "death grip" would cause the iPhone to lose reception. Cupertino’s initial response was simply to suggest that users were holding the iPhone 4 incorrectly. When that did not go over well, users were given the option to return the phone for a full refund, or receive a free bumper which would solve any issues. For some 25 million users, that offer was still not good enough, and a class-action lawsuit eventually worked its way through the courts.
Apple just settled that class-action lawsuit, and for those who chose not to take a free case or return their phone back in 2010, the long wait has been rewarded with a third option: $15 in cold, hard cash.
This is where they test antennas. Seriously.
According to CNET, an Apple representative described the settlement as one that "relates to a small number of customers who indicated they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4, and didn’t want to take advantage of a free case from Apple when it was being offered in 2010."
So, now a free bumper OR $15; really, a huge score for those who were brave enough to wait out the almost two-year lawsuit.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column for MacLife.com. Follow him on Twitter, or subscribe to him on Facebook.
Bullie4u
February 23, 2012 at 3:09pm
I feel Apple, despite the initial hemming and hawing, was very fair about dealing with the antenna issue. After the major media press on the issue, we compared many phones at work and found antenna attenuation was not limited to the iPhone. It was just a shame the press chose to only focus on Apple. And for all those people who joined a class action suit, I say shame on you. Apple gave you options - and the class action was only an attempt by greedy people to attempt to gain money from a corporation. I applaud the ruling limiting the dollar about to $15 - which is less than the bumper cost.
