Howick Golf Course - 18th hole. (pic: Peter Aranyi)
Samsung design is “not as cool” as Apple’s
Samsung / Apple UK judgment
On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic(UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do notinfringe Apple’s registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the Highcourt is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2012/1882.html.
In the ruling, the judge made several important points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products:
“The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design.”
“The informed user’s overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool.”
That Judgment has effect throughout the European Union and was upheld by the Court of Appeal on 18 October 2012. A copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1339.html. There is no injunction in respect of the registered design in force anywhere in Europe.
However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.
John Banks standing by his earlier prediction
ACT Party leader and sole MP John Banks demonstrating his acute memory for his own words — in this case. Or perhaps he jotted a note down on a piece of paper? (Click to link to his tweet and read the replies ... )
Superman to become a blogger
He may as well, since some legend-in-their-own-lunchbox bloggers seem to imagine they’re super villains.
– P
Pic via Circa
Vicarious Viral Video
Slapstick. (Some blue language and much laughter.)
I bet you watch it more than once!
– P
Vicarious: experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person
Obama and Romney: Two men, two visions
Here are the two parts of a BBC documentary about the US election, and the ‘tectonic plates’ of the partisanship being played out, which featured on the World Service this week.
It’s instructive to hear an explanation for the death of public consensus, the rapid rise of the right wing extreme (and its effect on the flip-flopping ‘independent’ Romney). Also fascinating, the context of the Romney family’s story of ‘rebellion against a hostile government’ … and the ongoing influence of the virtually-deified Ronald Reagan’s ‘peace through strength’ which Romney is attempting to channel … see what you think … (below the fold)
Must read: Sympathy for the Plutocrat
Wonderful!
Sympathy for the Plutocrat
By Nick Hanauer Reuters
It’s great to be what you people are now calling a plutocrat. I know. I am one.
We plutocrats live incredible lives, surrounded by luxury and insulated from risk and discomfort. Things have gone very well for us over the last several years. Since George Bush left office, the stock market has doubled, we got a (sweet!) $700 billion rescue of the financial system, and corporate profits are at a 50-year high. BOOYA!
The growing economic distance between people like me and the little people like you hasn’t been this great in a long, long time. You may call that inequality. We call it freedom. But if things are going to continue to go this well, you people need to get with the program. Here, I’d like to have a frank discussion about that.
It is something of a puzzle to many of you little people why we plutocrats, who have benefitted most from these trends, view President Obama with such intense disdain. Why, you might ask, given how good the economy has been to you plutocrats, are you so maniacally angry?
Debate #2
I’m sure how you saw today’s 2nd debate between the US presidential candidates depends on where you stand. I didn’t think it was even close. To me, Romney floundered and appeared untrustworthy, arrogant and somewhat entitled/spoilt-bratty. But I’m sure others judged the whole thing differently.
Let me be clear: I want Obama to win. He deserves to have a second term, in my view, although he is not perfect and has in some respects been a disappointment.*
Mitt Romney strikes me as a glib liar and just leaves me cold. Brrr!
(But I don’t get a vote, so he can relax.)
– P
pic: Doug Mills The New York Times Mitt Romney and President Obama during the debate, their second, Tuesday night at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. via Chris Heller, The Atlantic
*Update: Reflecting on it, I felt the same way about John Key’s administration in 2011. Deserved another shot, and, as I said at the time, seemed likely to get it. (But gee, it ended up being close!)
Paula Bennett has been egregiously let down
Say what you like about Paula Bennett’s [alleged] predilection for vindictively infringing other people’s privacy. Say what you like about her untenable denials and bullheaded refusal to acknowledge her transgressions (Privacy Commissioner findings notwithstanding). Say what you like about her perceived pulling-the-ladder-up-behind-her with respect to changes to training allowances for solo mums. Say what you like about the bombastic way she is handling her part of the National government’s campaign to ‘reform’/’slash’ (pick one) social welfare and the [alleged] cynical game-playing of her announcement timings.
All those items aside, the MSD/WINZ kiosk privacy fiasco shows this minister has been let down by public servants in her department to an astounding degree. (And yes, it could have been worse.)
She deserves better. We deserve better.
– P
Amazing pic of Biden & Ryan
Photographer Jon Passantino got a shot.
Conservatives vs Liberals: a Fox News fan’s view
This is a case of the Reticular Activating System in action.
As regular readers will know, here at ThePaepae.com we’re in the middle of a long-running (or on-going?) discussion about political labels, self-identification, partisanship, and fear & loathing of ‘The Other Side’ …
2012 Pew Research report shows increasing partisan polarisation over Bush/Obama years pic: journalistsresource.org (click)
In the middle of a (I would have thought unrelated) comment stream about Marco Arment’s new project‘The Magazine’, the words ‘Fox News’ were thrown as a negative epithet.
I love it (not really) when someone from one group declares monolithically what another group ‘believes’ … as if they know. (Bonus Godwin points for comparing the Obama administration to the Gestapo. Sheesh!)
… The nasty comments about Fox News are a good illustration of the perennial differences between conservatives and liberals in America.
As Edmund Burke noted in his critique of the French Revolution, conservatives believe that human nature and societies are too complex to shape according to a single, overarching idea. A good society can only be built over a long period of time and using the feedback of everyone in the society. It needs many voices. It needs to move slowly and compromise or seeming good ideas will bring great harm. That’s precisely what Burke warned would happen with the French Revolution. and the Great Terror proved him right.
Liberalism, on the other hand, believes in what it used to call a ‘vanguard’–an enlightened few who have seen the future and are leading the rest of use to it (Hope and Change). The strange zeal for Obama, given his thin resume, is an illustration of that. Liberals smile benignly on those who follow meekly along as they ought. They sneer at the reactionaries, who resist, clinging instead, in Obama’s words, to ‘guns and religion.’ Continue reading →
Confusing jingoism with patriotism.
From a good profile of actress Claire Danes, currently gripping segments of the intelligentsia/viewing public (including me) with her role in TV drama Homeland, this excellent distinction.
“The first time I realised I was patriotic was after September 11,” she says. She was living in Sydney at the time. “I couldn’t have been farther away, physically, from the event, but I grew up in downtown New York, not even a mile away from the towers. One of my friends wanted to have a debate about it and when she was pressing me to take an intellectual position, I just kind of barked: ‘my house is on fire!’ That’s how it felt; it just felt personal and visceral. Growing up in New York with artist parents – a very liberal environment, where we were always encouraged to challenge the status quo – I think for a long time I confused jingoism with patriotism. And that is a mistake.”
Claire Danes on spies, motherhood and therapy (via NZ Herald).
