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Macbook Air New Patent To Kill Ultrabooks, Asus Zenbook First Casualty
Posted on 17 February 2012
If you’re looking to get yourself an ultrabook because of your busy lifestyle, you might want to hold off for a bit. Apple’s just got ahold of 19 new patents, one of which is for the Macbook Air’s design.
Why should you care? You should care because the Macbook Air is an ultrabook itself, and any of the rival manufacturers who are seen making anything similar to the Air can be a target of a lawsuit from Apple. Granted, the laptop wasn’t named outright, and simply described as having an ornamental design, but the images in the patent cant be mistaken for another kind of product.
The first to go may be the Asus Zenbooks, because prior to receiving the patents, Apple pressured Pegatron to stop working on the Asus devices, using the contract it holds over the Taiwanese manufacturer as leverage, as Pegatron is tasked with assembling iPhones for Apple. By the end of March, Asus will need to look elsewhere for someone to produce its Zenbooks if it wants to stay in the ultrabook market.
All this happened before the patents were awarded to the company that filed them, so we can only imagine what will happen now. Holding these documents could encourage the company to hound manufacturers whom it thinks are copying the Macbook Air, most especially Intel, Dell and Samsung. Of course, the way around this patent and avoid an exchange in court is to design an ultrabook that’s not overly similar to the Air, but the going may get tough when it comes to fighting Apple.
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