Apple CEO Steve Jobs has responded to the current freeze on Meizu M8 sales, accusing the company of blatant theft.
In an email response, Jobs responded to “why?” by saying, “because they stole our ideas and intellectual property.”
The Chinese Intellectual Property Office halted M8 production and all marketing recently, and many were curious why.
Meizu’s M8 is a touchscreen multimedia/smartphone device that runs on Windows Mobile 6.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the device looks very much like an iPhone 3GS.
Meizu’s upcoming M9 has a different design and will use a customized Android operating system. It may turn out that Meizu just lets the M8 die as the M9 will be released in December.
Result for: intellectual property office
Eastman Kodak has said today it is suing RIM and Apple for patent violations relating to the cameras used in BlackBerrys and the iPhone.
The complaint was filed with the International Trade Commission and alleges that the smartphones infringe on Kodak patents “covering technology for previewing photos.”
Kodak is asking for an injunction on the import of phones sold by both companies. The company is also seeking unspecified monetary damages, and the end of the use of the technologies.
RIM and Apple declined comment but it is not as if sales of the popular devices are in immediate trouble. Patent disputes sometimes take up to 10 years, however ITC complaints usually take only 15 months.
“We’ve had discussions for years with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement,” added Laura Quatela, Kodak’s chief intellectual property officer. “Our primary interest is not to disrupt the availability of any product but to obtain fair compensation for the use of our technology.”
Kodak currently has 1100 patents relating to digital photography technologies and licenses them to over 30 companies.
Result for: intellectual property office
The IFPI and the City of London Police and the Intellectual Property Office have this week arrested a 33 year-old man for allegedly being part of a “scene” release group that specializes in pre-release music.
The group, DV8, has been cited in leaking 2500 albums before their retail street date. The IFPI investigation has already netted “a substantial quantity of promotional CDs, and computer equipment including an active FTP server and client and software used in connection with ripping and digitizing content.”
Of late, the media trade groups have been targeting pre-release uploaders, as they find those leaks to be the most “damaging” for the labels and the artists.
David Lammy MP, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, added: “This successful operation sends a clear message - we are serious about tackling the problem of Intellectual Property theft. This is an example of partnership working between the Intellectual Property Office and the BPI and IFPI. It clearly shows the added value that our work is bringing to the wider enforcement community. I want to ensure that consumers, legitimate businesses and their employees are protected from those that choose to break the law.”
David Wood, Director of Anti-Piracy at the BPI, noted: “Although the investigation continues, even at this early stage we believe that a full forensic examination of the equipment recovered will yield a lot of useful evidence and intelligence about the ’scene’ and the criminal activities of those involved in pre-release music uploading.”
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