Apple Fighting Macpro In Australia, Despite Is Using That Name For 26 Years

Legal Issues

from the just-discovered-it,-eh? dept

Reader mick alerts us to a legal fight in Australia with Apple working hard to stop computer firm Macpro from being able to keep its name. The company has been in business since 1983, prior to Apple introducing the Macintosh (which happened in early 1984). In other words, Macpro should have priority on the name. When Apple tried to register a trademark on Mac Pro, Macpro opposed it and won, but Apple keeps fighting, and Macrpo’s boss thinks the company is just trying to force them into bankruptcy with legal bills (he’s already spent $200,000). He says he’s offered reasonable settlements to Apple, but gets no response. Again, given Apple’s early trademark fight with the Beatle’s Apple Corp., you might think that it would be sensitive to bullying other companies over trademark issues… but apparently Apple thinks different(ly).

Filed Under: australia, lawsuits, macpro, trademark
Companies: apple, macpro

Steve Jobs Tells Startup Startup To Change Names, Saying 'It's No Big Deal'

Failures

from the to-you-perhaps... dept

Reader mick alerts us to the story of a small eight-person startup that makes a popular app for backing up your iPod music, which had been called “iPodRip” until Steve Jobs and Apple’s lawyers got involved, demanding the company cease using the name and hand over its domain. It’s even told the guy that even if he rebrands his app, he can’t even say that it’s the app “formerly known as” iPodRip. While lawyers told him he could successfully fight Apple on this, the guy gave in and is in the process of changing the name to iRip. Someone involved with the company actually sent Steve Jobs an email about the whole situation, and got the response:

“Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.”

Pleasant. Of course, at this point it seems worth pointing out that years long battle Jobs fought with the Beatles’ Apple Corp. over the “Apple” name. Would Jobs have been okay if John, Paul, Ringo and George had simply told him “Change your company name. Not that big of a deal”? Now, yes, it is true that a company needs to enforce its trademark, lest it become generic, but in this case it certainly seems like the name was descriptive in a way that certainly didn’t imply endorsement from Apple. But, of course, when you’ve got lawyers who can bully on your behalf, the details apparently aren’t that important.

Filed Under: ipod, ipodrip, irip, name change, steve jobs, trademark
Companies: apple

iPhone App Developer Backlash Growing

Predictions

from the openness-is-a-good-thing dept

Early on, we predicted that Apple’s walled garden approach to apps for the iPhone would lead to developer backlash. Even if it was successful at first, the obvious trajectory was that it wouldn’t just lead to problems that drove developers away, but it would eventually limit application innovation, just as other competing platforms were getting good enough to match Apple’s. We might not be all the way there yet, but the evidence is growing that the backlash is getting serious. Slashdot noted that some respected developers are ditching the iPhone app store and reader Andrew Fong alerts us to Paul Graham’s well argued explanation of why Apple’s setup is bad for developers, bad for innovation, bad for consumers and bad for Apple.

To summarize, it’s bad for developers because they’re distanced from their users, and can’t quickly make changes and updates, since each change needs to go through Apple’s long, mysterious and arbitrary approval process. On top of that, by creating a very real risk that Apple might not approve an app, developers have less incentive to put in the time. It’s bad for innovation because you are putting a gatekeeper in front of any innovation. It’s bad for consumers, because they can’t do what they want and often the apps they get are lower quality than they would be otherwise, because developers cannot rapidly respond with necessary improvements and changes. Finally it’s bad for Apple because it’s driving away some talented developers who are useful in making the iPhone so powerful. As those developers move to other platforms, it will help those other platforms catch up, and potentially surpass the iPhone. But, perhaps more importantly, it’s bad for Apple because it risks Apple’s overall reputation. It makes it harder to hire top engineers:

There are a couple reasons they should care. One is that these users are the people they want as employees. If your company seems evil, the best programmers won’t work for you. That hurt Microsoft a lot starting in the 90s. Programmers started to feel sheepish about working there. It seemed like selling out. When people from Microsoft were talking to other programmers and they mentioned where they worked, there were a lot of self-deprecating jokes about having gone over to the dark side. But the real problem for Microsoft wasn’t the embarrassment of the people they hired. It was the people they never got. And you know who got them? Google and Apple. If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. And it’s largely because they got more of the best people that Google and Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today.

As for why Apple is making this mistake, Graham blames Apple’s general view of the market:

They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes. Apple is the channel; they own the user; if you want to reach users, you do it on their terms. The record labels agreed, reluctantly. But this model doesn’t work for software. It doesn’t work for an intermediary to own the user. The software business learned that in the early 1980s, when companies like VisiCorp showed that although the words “software” and “publisher” fit together, the underlying concepts don’t. Software isn’t like music or books. It’s too complicated for a third party to act as an intermediary between developer and user. And yet that’s what Apple is trying to be with the App Store: a software publisher. And a particularly overreaching one at that, with fussy tastes and a rigidly enforced house style.

If software publishing didn’t work in 1980, it works even less now that software development has evolved from a small number of big releases to a constant stream of small ones. But Apple doesn’t understand that either. Their model of product development derives from hardware. They work on something till they think it’s finished, then they release it. You have to do that with hardware, but because software is so easy to change, its design can benefit from evolution. The standard way to develop applications now is to launch fast and iterate. Which means it’s a disaster to have long, random delays each time you release a new version.

My guess is that there may be another reason: the perfectionist attitude at Apple. They don’t want “bad” apps getting into the store, and certainly some people appreciate that. But the store has 100,000 apps right now, and most people are never going to see the vast majority of them. Having a few “bad apps” get in isn’t a huge issue at this point, and certainly user-level reviews can help deal with that issue anyway. And, even if that is the biggest concern, why not at least allow non-approved apps to be viewed and downloaded, just without an official “apple seal of approval.” Perhaps it made sense when Apple was first launching the store (though, even that seems questionable), but if it wants to continue to lead the market, it needs to break down that wall.

Filed Under: app store, developers, innovation, iphone, openness, reputation
Companies: apple

Apple Tries To Patent Annoying People With Intrusive Advertising That Requires Attention

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the only-good-if-it-stops-everyone-else-from-using-such-a-thing dept

The NY Times is discussing a patent application by Apple (20090265214) for putting really intrusive advertising into products that would require users to respond to prove that they’re paying attention to the advertising. First, there’s a fair amount of prior art on very similar ideas. Not all of the prior attempts were quite so draconian — but that’s not because they needed some special new invention or “spark of genius.” Instead, the reason why this hasn’t been implemented fully is because most people realize it’s stupid and would only serve to piss off customers. But it’s hardly a new, unique or non-obvious idea. Hell, I remember discussing a nearly identical scheme around 1995 as a joke because it was so ridiculously stupid. Hopefully, the Patent Office realizes that this is an obvious concept and doesn’t grant the patent.

Filed Under: advertising, annoyance, intrusiveness, patents, prior art
Companies: apple

Psystar Loses Big To Apple

Legal Issues

from the and-so-it-goes dept

When Psystar first started selling PCs with Apple OS’s installed on them, we knew there would be a lawsuit — though it took a bit more <a href=https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080715/1154271690.shtml”>time than we expected. Originally, Psystar tried to claim that Apple was violating antitrust law, which seemed like a wasted path for exploration — and, indeed, a court rejected that claim. Then Psystar went back to more reasonable defenses… or so we thought.

The court hearing the case didn’t seem to think any of Psystar’s main lines of defense had any validity at all and granted summary judgment to Apple on all of the major points, saying that a trial wasn’t even necessary. The “fair use” claim was already weak, and the judge noted that Psystar didn’t even try to discuss any of the four factors generally used in determining fair use. The two (I thought) stronger claims were that (a) the right of first sale applied, and once Psystar purchased OSX legally, it could resell it, provided it was only installed on that one computer, and (b) that Apple went too far in its EULA terms, which demanded that OS X could only work on a Mac. Unfortunately, the judge didn’t agree to either one, though I find the judge’s reasoning perplexing and hardly convincing.

On the issue of first sale, here’s what the ruling said:

The copies at issue here were not lawfully manufactured with the authorization of the copyright owner. As stated, Psystar made an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X from a Mac mini that was placed onto an “imaging station” and then used a “master copy” to make many more unauthorized copies that were installed on individual Psystar computers. The first-sale defense does not apply to those unauthorized copies.

Perhaps I’m missing something here, because earlier reports had suggested that Psystar legally purchased each copy of OS X and then installed the legally purchased copy on the new machine (which it then included with the sold machine). But from the description above, it sounds like part of the problem is that a single “master copy” was used to make multiple installations. Of course, that raises a whole host of separate issues. If Psystar legally purchased a separate license for each one, but still used a single master copy, is that really infringing? After all, the code is identical, and it seems positively ridiculous to say that even though you bought, say, 20 licenses, you can’t just use one master copy to install 20 times. It seems like this could use additional clarification. Because, the other way one could interpret this is that there is no right of first sale if the company says a copy is unauthorized — which would have troubling implications.

On the EULA front, the court again basically just takes Apple’s position, and insists it did nothing wrong. I’m not surprised by the outcome at all, but I would have expected at least a more complete response to the First Sale doctrine rights issues. Even ignoring that a “copy” was being made — with the physical copy, it really is a matter of first sale. The company is selling something it legally purchased.

Psystar will likely appeal, though I still have little faith that will get anywhere.

Filed Under: copyright, eula, first sale, mac os
Companies: apple, psystar

Can't Innovate? Litigate! 3Com Goes Patent Lawsuit Ballistic

Legal Issues

from the ghosts-of-companies-past dept

Remember back when 3Com was a big innovative company coming up with interesting new products? What happened since then? Well, as we’ve seen over and over again, once a company runs into trouble continuing to innovate, its last ditch effort to stay in business is to start suing everyone for patent infringement. Step up to the plate, 3Com. The company set up a subsidiary specifically for suing other companies for patent infringement and just sued Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, Sony, and Toshiba. Oh, and take a guess where this “subsidiary” set up shop? East Texas… of course. All the better to file patent lawsuits apparently…

Filed Under: ethernet, innovation, patents
Companies: 3com, acer, apple, asus, dell, fujitsu, gateway, hp, sony, toshiba

Eolas Is Baaaaaaaaack; And It's Suing Everyone Over Embeddable Web Widgets

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the because-otherwise... dept

Well, here we go again. As you may recall, Eolas is a company that claimed to hold a patent (5,838,906) on browser plugins. The company sued Microsoft, and a long drawn-out battle ensued. Even though web inventor Tim Berners-Lee presented prior art and asked the USPTO to invalidate Eolas’ ridiculously broad and obvious patent, the USPTO eventually upheld the patent (after initially rejecting claims). Even as Microsoft began presenting evidence that it actually had made use of the technology in question before Eolas applied for its patent, losses in the courts and the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case eventually resulted in Microsoft agreeing to settle rather than continue to fight.

Since then (two years ago), plenty of people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, concerning Eolas’ plans to sue others. Now we know why it waited. It’s now received a new patent — a continuation patent, which is often used to abuse the patent system by putting forth a broad patent, then filing for continuations to make changes that let an earlier “invention” cover technologies that later become popular. In this case, the new patent (7,599,985), which basically just extends the earlier patent on browser plugins, and extends it to javascript widgets. Yes, those embeddable widgets used all over the web? It appears that Eolas thinks that those are infringing and everyone should pay up.

The new lawsuit has been filed against Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, Go Daddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Staples, Sun, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube. Apparently, starting small isn’t part of the plan. Not surprisingly, Eolas filed in Eastern Texas using McKool Smith — one of the most popular law firms representing patent holding firms in East Texas.

I am honestly curious how patent system defenders, who are also programmers, can defend this. I’m sure non-programmers will claim that the patent is valid, but I can’t imagine how anyone who has any knowledge of basic programming principles can claim that such a patent is valid. In the meantime, tons of companies doing an incredibly basic thing on the web will now have to waste millions of dollars fighting a ridiculous patent lawsuit. How is this promoting innovation in any way shape or form?

Filed Under: browsers, embeddable, patents, plugins, widgets
Companies: adobe, amazon, apple, blockbuster, citigroup, ebay, eolas, frito-lay, godaddy, google, j.c. peney, jpmorgan chase, microsoft, office depo, perot systems, playboy, stabples, sun, texas instruments, yahoo, youtube