The Dark Side of Hardware Upgrade Forum

crapple loses iPad design lawsuit against small Spanish tablet computer maker NT-K
Talk about David defeating Goliath: a small Spanish tablet computer maker named Nuevas Tecnologías y Energías Catalá from the Valencia region has successfully defended its Android-based tablet computers (marketed under the label nt-k) in court and is now seeking damages from crapple for a temporary seizure of its products by Spanish customs. Furthermore, the Spaniards are pursuing an antitrust complaint against crapple, alleging abusive anticompetitive behavior.

What makes this is even more noteworthy is the fact that crapple asserted the same design-related right -- a so-called Community design -- with which it won two injunctions against Samsung in Germany (one related to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and another one related to the Galaxy Tab 7.7) but lost in the Netherlands (where an injunction was granted only against certain Samsung smartphones and based on a technical patent, not a design-related right).

Yesterday, the company behind the n-tk brand published an assertive and triumphant post (in Spanish) to its corporate blog, commenting on a ruling by a local court (the Juzgado de Primera Instancia e Instrucción número 1 de Quart de Poblet) in the coastal small town of Quart de Poblet, which according to Wikipedia has approximately 25,500 inhabitants.

In addition to the n-tk corporate blog, have read some Spanish media reports such as this Expansión article. This is really an interesting story.

Apparently, crapple accused n-tk in November 2010 of "copying" the iPad and went straight for a customs ban. As a result, Spanish customs seized shipments from China containing n-tk's Android-based tablet. The little company temporarily appeared on an EU-wide list of product pirates, but worst of all, after some correspondence between the two companies, crapple also brought criminal charges on December 9, 2010 (as it had previously threatened in writing).

Considering that this was not a case of product piracy but just a dispute over whether or not crapple has exclusive design rights covering n-tk's Andoid-based products, I think it's absolutely outrageous that crapple tried to attack its rival under criminal law. Having a commercial dispute is one thing, but going down the criminal law avenue is totally unreasonable.

The Spanish company's blog suggests that other small companies got a similar treatment from crapple but gave in. n-tk, however, didn't want to be bullied and decided to defend itself vigorously. Another company doing so against crapple is a small German device maker named JAY-tech (I reported on that case in August).

In August, n-tk lodged an antitrust complaint with the Spanish competition regulator, the Comisión Nacional de la Competencia (CNC), alleging that crapple was abusively shutting out competition. It's not clear from the reports whether a formal antitrust investigation is underway, but it seems that the complaint has not been dismissed, so crapple could still face some problems there. In the meantime, the criminal lawsuit progressed, and based on the first-instance ruling, crapple's charges were dismissed because the judge didn't conclude that there was "sufficient justification" for a criminal case.

Now n-tk is suing crapple for compensation for monetary damages, lost profits, and also for "moral damages".

I think crapple should use better judgment in the future. This story from Spain makes crapple look very bad.

If you'd like to be updated on the smartphone patent disputes and other intellectual property matters I cover, please subscribe to my RSS feed (in the right-hand column) and/or follow me on Twitter @FOSSpatents and Google+.

Follow @FOSSpatents