"In today’s filing, Apple’s attorneys claimed the $3 trillion company “will suffer irreparable harm” if the models remain off the shelves during legal proceedings."
It's literally true, in the sense that they'll suffer harm and it won't be fixed if the appeal goes in their favor. They'll lose sales, and those sales won't just back-up and all get made the instant the product is on the market again.
It's not an amount of harm that's actually significant to Apple, I'm sure, but it is irreparable.
What you are describing is a textbook case of no irreparable harm.
Legally, if later money damages suffice to make someone whole, it is not considered irreparable harm. By definition:
"Irreparable harm is a legal term that refers to harm or injury that cannot be adequately compensated or remedied by any monetary award or damages that may be awarded later. "
Irreparable harm is like "they are going to physically destroy the i'm trying to save".
You're right, it's not actually the direct lost-sales that they're calling irreparable harm. Reading further into the legal filing, it seems that they're arguing that having to take the Watch off the market will cause damage to their reputation and to public goodwill, and cite some earlier cases indicating that those both qualify as irreparable harm. (Page 6.)
Both yourself and the GP are technically correct depending on how you choose to interpret harm on the company.
The problem is that the tone of that claim implies the kind of harm that is significant while being just vague enough to also be covered under your interpretation should they get challenged on that statement.
Thus I would argue that Apple are still being disingenuous even if they are technically correct.
I'd think they were being disingenuous if it was a PR statement, but this is just people quoting the legal filing by Apple's lawyers. My understanding is that "irreparable harm" is the core component of the legal requirement for getting a stay like this, so using the words when requesting it seems pretty unavoidable. (And a legal filing is precisely the place to be making technically-exact statements.)
I don’t think our point are mutually inclusive. Legal filings with big corporations have seldom been about sincerity. So even if your point is correct (which I don’t doubt) that doesn’t also mean Apples argument is sincere too.
Hmm. I'm not following. It's technically accurate. So how are you judging sincerity here? People forget that while Apple is huge, that also makes them a big target. There's no room for them to play nicey nice in court.
The GPs point was that this ban is a drop in the ocean (financially speaking) for Apple. So claims of irreparable harm is a little over the top. Which is correct from a financial / social perspective.
You are claiming that from a legal stand point Apple are correct. Which is also true.
My point is that both arguments are correct. One doesn't contradict the other.
You touched a little on this when you said there's no room to play nicely in court. And I agree with that. That's exactly why statements like that are used in legal claims. But what you're failing to empathise with is why they're used. It's because it is "technically correct" to the extreme edge of reality. And that's why the GP scoffed.
Or to put it another way: the alternative would be Apple saying "yeah we were a little underhanded and this ban wouldn't affect the health of the company, but we'd like to appeal the ban regardless". That would also be technically correct but you're not going to win any legal arguments that way. So of course Apple are going to write the most dramatised version of facts that favour themselves.
The problem with being technically correct is that there are a multitude of ways one can say the same technically correct thing yet convey a completely different story.
So yes, you are right. But I can also totally see why some might scoff at the Apples statement when taken verbatim. Frankly, it is a bit of an absurd statement. If it were made in any other circumstance outside of a legal appeal, it would be a pretty absurd claim to make. Literally the only reason one can defend that comment is because it's a legal statement.
And hence why both parties in this thread are correct.
Do you think I is not true? They will miss some sales, and thus revenue from this. Maybe many are unsympathetic, but it seems to be a factual prediction.
I mean people will just wait to buy the Apple Watch when it gets resolved and they are on sale again. It’s not like people will flock to the alternatives.
The harm is only significant if it drags out for a significant period of time. Apple will probably just remove some functionality and keep selling.
I mean it’s a watch, and the timekeeping aspects aren’t patented (I don’t think). Calculator watches existed since the 80s so that’s ok…my friend had a game on his watch in the 80s so that’s ok..
It's not an amount of harm that's actually significant to Apple, I'm sure, but it is irreparable.