Hasta La Gadget!

It wasn’t that long ago that Apple scored an injunction against the HTC One X and the EVO 4G LTE in the United States. The handsets were eventually let into the country once HTC proved the phones were no longer infringing Apple’s patent. Cupertino cried foul, saying that HTC continued to infringe the menu related patent on 29 devices. The company called on the ITC to issue an emergency ban, a request which has now been denied.

Apple suggested last month that HTC misled customs officials over the software on phones to get past the ban, although the ITC doesn’t share the same thoughts: “The commission finds that Apple has not demonstrated the propriety of temporary emergency action here. The commission will not direct Customs to detail all subject HTC products because the commission does not have the information necessary to determine whether the respondents are currently violating the commission’s limited exclusion order.”

It was previously reported that the version of Android HTC has included on phones such as the One X and EVO 4G LTE have been modified to remove the infringing patent. The international version of the One X shows the context menu that appears when a user long taps an item, whereas the American version removes this and places the relevant options in Android’s Settings area. As a result, the custom ban was lifted on the handsets and began shipping to retail stores.

[via Bloomberg]

Apple denied emergency HTC handset ban is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung may have been quick to appeal Judge Lucy Koh’s decision to halt Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales, but the woman with the gavel isn’t bending. According to Reuters, Judge Koh has rejected the firm’s request to allow sales to continue pending a decision, keeping store shelves empty for the time being. The story isn’t over, of course — if Samsung wins the appeal (or the greater dispute) tablets will return to stores in droves. Either way, we all look forward to a time when this whole mess is behind us.

Judge Koh denies injunction stay, keeps Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 out of stores originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week Apple Inc has been threatened with a temporary closure of its Italian operations due to the absence of their offering of a free two-year warranty on their products. As demanded by Italian law, a free two-year warranty is indeed required on products in many categories in the tech world – Italian authorities are also threatening Apple with a fine of 300,000 euros for this situation. This fine and threat comes after a similar situation in which Italy’s AGCM competition and market authority called Apple on not telling customers their rights to free technical assistance.

This second offense is having Verizon get a fine that’s quite a bit less than their customer support situation, that particular case sending Apple up for 900,000 Euros instead. Of course such cash is beyond inconsequential for Apple if you’ve only got raw hard cash on your mind, the cases themselves being the important factor here – along with the temporary closures, of course.

Apple appealed against the antitrust fine being shown here today earlier this year but lost the case, with their current predicament giving them just 30 days to respond to the AGCM. The AGCM alleges that Apple currently offers a free one-year guarantee for their products with an extension to two years for a fee without telling customers that they are obliged by Italian law to give two years for free.

Stay tuned as Italy speaks with Apple in under a month – or so they hope. Have a peek in the timeline below to see how often Italy comes up in tech news here on SlashGear – it’s not often!

[via Rueters]

Apple gets antitrust and closure threat in Italy is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The search engine portion of the Google conglomeration is currently under investigation in Europe for supposedly touting their own for-sale products when they should only be showing unbiased search results. Today we’re finding that the European Commission has received a letter from Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt which offered proposals prepared to avoid fines for anticompetitive behavior. Googles Brussles spokesperson Al Verney noted that the proposals address all four issues that the Comission had raised and that they’re committed to working with the Commission to resolve the matter.

In the USA a similar antitrust suit is currently going on and regulators are watching this EU case closely to see how it all plays out. Allegations against Google include directing users to its own products and reducing the visibility of competing websites and offerings. This set of complains was initiated by French search engine eJustice.fr and was joined by 14 other websites soon thereafter.

This investigation was extended this past November to include a full investigation of Google on if they did indeed create an algorithm which unfairly penalized opponents in their search environment. A guilty finding in this case could have Google paying a fine of up to 10 percent of its global annual revenue. This could be a healthy chunk as it reached US$37.9 billion just this past year.

Stay tuned for more hot Google legal action as the day rolls on – Apple and Google are also in a battle right now that has several devices, including the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 – in a headlock!

[via PCWorld]

Google suggests concessions to Antitrust Regulators in EU is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In a completely expected move, Samsung today filed to appeal the preliminary Galaxy Nexus ban granted to Apple last week, moving to stay the injunction. Among other claims, Samsung is arguing that the ban is “inconsistent with the Federal Circuit’s directive that market share losses must be substantial,” and, as Foss Patents puts it, “attributable to the ‘infringing feature,’ not just the presence of the infringing product on the market.” This, of course, mirrors Samsung’s appeal for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which also had its US sales halted last week. The Federal Circuit could very well decide to stay, putting the devices back on store shelves, but until then, we imagine Sammy will be looking longingly at Posner’s courtroom.

Samsung appeals Galaxy Nexus ban, of course originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Jul 2012 18:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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