David beats Goliath: Apple loses iPad lawsuit against small Android vendor from Spain

Apple took the maker of this Android tablet to court and asserted criminal charges.

Despite winning two injunctions related to Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets in Germany (here and here), Apple has lost an iPad-related lawsuit against NT-K, a smallish Android tablet vendor from Spain. The fact, highlighted by the FOSS Patents blog, was made public yesterday in a triumphant post over at NT-K’s official company blog. Machine-translated from Spanish:

Needless to clear all the damage it has caused this unjust accusation , both economically and emotionally to our company. We are a small company like many others in these times of crisis we are trying to get ahead, and it seems grossly unfair that a company the caliber of Apple has to use its dominant influence. Parallel to this, start the corresponding civil suit against Apple for
consequential damages, lost profits and moral damage.

According to this Expansión story and this EuropaPress.es article, Apple filed a complaint against NT-K in November 2010, months after the original iPad hit the market, seeking a customs ban on their low-cost Android tablet. As a result of Goliath dragging David into court room, Spanish customs seized NT-K’s shipments from China, the Spanish company had been listed on the European Union list of product pirates and had even found itself on the receiving end of criminal charges brought by Apple on December 9, 2010.

As FOSS Patent’s Florian Mueller commented, “having a commercial dispute is one thing, but going down the criminal law avenue is totally unreasonable” thing to do for Apple. Riding on the heels of their legal win, the Spaniards are now pushing an antitrust complaint against Apple and accusing the California firm of anticompetitive behavior. And since Apple asserted the same Community design right in its injunctions against Samsung, the Spanish ruling has likely degraded Apple’s chances in any future injunction against Samsung in the country.