Samsung continues to fight against Apple. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
A number of Silicon Valley technology giants have backed Samsung in its legal battle against Apple. Documents confirm Dell, eBay, Facebook, Google, and HP all took the South Korean company’s side in a “friend of the court” brief on July 1.
Apple began adding the Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent-infringement case against Samsung last week, and it has now specified five patents which it believes the device is breaching. The Cupertino company has also taken aim at Google Now, which allegedly infringes its unified search patent.
Today, Google pledged that it will not sue any users, distributors or developers who have implemented versions of its patented MapReduce programming model. Google took out an Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge, which states that they will not take legal action against distributors and developers of open-source software.
Another day, another public humiliation. At least that’s what UK judges have in mind for Apple. After losing a legal claim against Samsung, a London judge ruled that Apple must “correct the damaging impression” caused by their “copycat” claims. The ruling forces Apple to publicly announce — both on their website and with adverts in publications such as the Daily Mail, Financial Times and T3 Magazine — that Samsung had not infringed on its design rights. Apple appealed this decision, of course. However, the judgement stands and the public humiliation must commence as an appeals judge has decided not to overturn the decision.
Motorola is looking to bring down the ban hammer on almost every Apple product out there, including every Mac OSX computer. I have no idea if Motorola is just looking to throw spaghetti at the wall or what, but they have a long list of infringements that apparently the International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate.
