LEGAL BRIEF: Apple Sued By Luxpro (Again)

Scribbled on October 20th, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
Filed in Apple, Legal Brief

Last Thursday, paperwork was filed in an Arkansas court. The paperwork involved computer giant, Apple, and a small mp3 manufacturer, Luxpro. Luxpro is suing Apple for damages in excess of $100 million dollars, accusing the company of holding an “abusive monopoly” over the mp3 player business.

Apple has a history with Luxpro. Back in 2005, the company released their Easy Shuffle, which Apple thought looked and sounded much too much like their own iPod Shuffle. Apple was able to get an injunction against the company in Germany, but Luxpro changed the name of their player and continued selling them. Apple didn’t end there though: unable to remove the product from the shelves the Silicon Valley giant began harassing and pressuring Luxpro, it’s retailers, distributors, and suppliers. The Taiwan based company also accuses Apple of using thuggish-like tactics to drive it out of business (i.e. obtaining proprietary company documents. ) Apple has also already lost once to the company in Taiwan, where the case went to the countries Supreme Court, and Apple lost.

According to the papers filed last Thursday:

“While Apple’s over-reaching injunctions were on appeal, Apple sent warning letters to other companies doing business with Luxpro demanding that they cease doing business with Luxpro. For example, Apple placed significant pressure on InterTAN, a subsidiary of U.S.-based consumer electronics giant Circuit City, to drop Luxpro’s MP3 players from its retail shelves.”

Pressure that succeeded, the company pulled the players from their shelves and destroyed them! Luxpro also accuses Apple of intimidating other retailers such as Radio Shack and Best Buy who have stopped doing business with the company. Luxpro suppliers, ASUSTek Computer and Synnex Technology International, have also been pressured by Apple to stop doing business with Luxpro.

This isn’t the only legal trouble Apple is in. On the other side of the pond, the EU is investigating Apple for anti-trust practices. If either of these goes the wrong way for Apple they could find themselves in a great deal of trouble, and bleeding a great deal of money, just like Microsoft experienced in the wake of their antitrust case in the USA and EU.

(Thanks, DailyTech.)

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