U.S. federal court rules anyone can copy the iPhone’s design
Monday, May 18, 2015 · 4:28 pm“Apple did such a good job designing its iPhone that it now can’t protect itself from copycats,” Hope King reports for CNNMoney.
“A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that Apple could not seek damages from Samsung for copying the basic design of the iPhone, overturning a lower court’s ruling,” King reports. “Apple had argued that Samsung’s smartphones violated the company’s design patents, because they looked so remarkably similar: a rectangular body, rounded edges, and even the placement of apps and dots on the screen.”
King reports, “Yet the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the overall ‘look’ of the iPhone is so integral to the way other touchscreen smartphones work that Apple can’t prevent Samsung (and probably other companies) from using the same general designs.”
This is actually not quite what the Appellate Court did. . . the court ruled that the designs were not ornamental in nature but were actually functional and therefore were possibly part of the overall utility patent on the iPhone because Apple did indeed patent all of that as well as get a design patent for the ornamental look and feel. It sent the case back for further evaluation and/or litigation.
This is actually not quite what the Appellate Court did. . . the court ruled that the designs were not ornamental in nature but were actually functional and therefore were possibly part of the overall utility patent on the iPhone because Apple did indeed patent all of that as well as get a design patent for the ornamental look and feel.
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Patenting a rectangle with rounded off sides makes as much sense as patenting the general shape of an auto with 4 wheels arranged in a rectangle and expecting all others (including hundreds of companies that previously made horse buggies in the same config) build cars with 3 wheels on the left and one on he right...
Sorry ,, apples patents are not valid because they are too obvious and handheld informational computing devices (I’m looking at my handheld Garmin eMap which predated the iPhone)have been made in that shape and in various colors for a LONG time...