It looks like the wheel does turn around. Apple may keep getting small wins against Samsung, especially in Germany, where they seem to be very strict about patents, but the same happened to them this time around thanks to Motorola and their 3G patents. Motorola managed to put a permanent injunction on all Apple’s iOS devices with a 3G chip in them, so that includes all currently selling versions of iPhones, and all versions of the 3G iPads.
This is a big blow to Apple, and in the same time it sort of feels like payback, because they started this with Samsung in Germany, when they tried to ban their Galaxy Tab. At the time I thought the German Courts are just favorable to Apple, maybe because the judges own iPads or something, but it seems that the German Courts are just very tough on patent infringements in general. The same case was lost by Apple in Netherlands, so that shows that the German judges have a pretty narrow view of how patents work.
Apple is now complaining that they have asked Motorola for licensing their patents, and they refused, but that seems pretty silly and hypocritical of them, when they took the exact same stance against Samsung, and they even said they don’t care about the license money. They just want their tablet blocked. And now they go around and act all innocent and as a victim of Motorola? Nice try, Apple, but I doubt it will work.
The European Commission will investigate these cases as they go further, and see who’s abusing what, and hopefully they realize it’s Apple who tried abusing the system all along. They are now attacking Samsung again in Australia, where they already lost a battle, but Australians are already very angry with Apple, and something tells me this will turn against them, too, in the end, whether it’s the judges attacking them or the population developing a hate towards everything that is owned by Apple, which will only mean loss of sales for Apple in the future.
It may have made some sense to do it while Steve Jobs was alive, but now that Apple has different leadership, I think they should act a little more responsible and try to solve all this mess in a peaceful manner. What they should do is call on a cease fire from all the other manufacturers and themselves promising to do the same thing.