Apple in the dock: Top 5 iPhone lawsuits

Stuart Dredge iPhone, Top Fives
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apple-iphone-lawsuit.jpgApple has great lawyers. Top-notch. They’re so good, that even a brave, morally courageous blogger such as myself wouldn’t dare print allegations that Steve Jobs CENSORED his CENSORED while taking CENSORED and CENSORED his CENSORED. Several times!

Joking aside, though, Apple needs good lawyers, because as a large consumer tech company, it’s often the target of legal action – some flippant, some serious. iPhone has already caused its fair share of legal headaches, attracting several lawsuits already in its short life. Such as? Well…

1. The One About Price Discrimination. I reported on this at the weekend: New Yorker Dongmei Li is sueing Apple for price discrimination, underselling, discrimination in rebates, and deceptive actions. Why? On launch day, there were only 4GB iPhones by the time she reached the front of the queue, yet a couple of months later, that model was phased out and the 8GB model got a $200 price cut. Cue lawsuit. More info

2. The One About Locked iPhones. Apple clearly isn’t flavour of the month in the Big Apple, since another New Yorker filed a lawsuit against the company in August. Herbert H. Kliegerman claimed that Apple hadn’t made it clear enough that iPhones would be locked to AT&T SIM cards, after he ran up a $2,000 data charges bill while roaming in Mexico. His argument: if he’d been able to put a foreign SIM in the iPhone, he wouldn’t have ended up with the huge bill. More info

3. The One About Batteries. Apple is no stranger to battery-related rumpuses, what with the iPod’s history. However, three separate lawsuits have been filed against Apple over the iPhone’s battery this year, with the main complaint being that only Apple can replace iPhone batteries, meaning that owners of the handset will end up paying over the odds. More info

4. The One About The iPhone Name. Remember those happy days when the iPhone had just been announced, only for us to discover that telecoms firm Cisco already had its own iPhone product heading onto the shelves? It might have been a significantly less sexy VoIP handset, but the clash led to high-profile negotiations between the two companies before a settlement was reached. Okay, so that’s four lawsuits and a nearly-lawsuit then.More info

5. The One About Disabled Access to Apple Stores. Two San Francisco women sued Apple claiming that its SF flagship shop violated accessibility laws in the US, making it too hard for anyone in a wheelchair to get hands on with products, or even attract the attention of a member of staff. I grant you, not a strict iPhone lawsuit, but there are a lot of people out there in wheelchairs who’d be keen to get an iPhone. More info

Stuart Dredge
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One thought on “Apple in the dock: Top 5 iPhone lawsuits”

  • Oh wait a minute, so in some way she is implying that anytime a price drops on anything, the consumer has the right to take the company to court. With that logic, I could be a millionaire by now. All the clothes, hardware, software, electronic stuff that I have ever bought have dropped their price 10 times over, so I am liable to who knows how much money.
    This is ridicules. Who told her to stand in line for hours and buy the phone at that price? That’s because she wanted to show off to here friends, that she could afford a ridiculously overpriced phone. She shouldn’t get a dime. In fact if I was the owner of Apple I would counter sue her for frivolous lawsuit. This is so stupid. It shouldn’t even be in the news.

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