Hacker News Reader

Comment by kemayo | Hacker News Reader

To get to a retrial you'd need the case (or a part of it) thrown out, in which case the ban should definitely be invalidated until the new trial happens.

Generally an appeal like this is just a short pause while they work out whether there's more that needs to be done in the case, and so it hurts less to stop the ban for a few days while that's happening. Then if it actually goes up to an appeals court for more expensive lawyer-work the issue would indeed still be undecided and the pause should continue. For a company that's not a behemoth like Apple you could certainly imagine a poorly-decided import ban causing them to run out of money to fight it, after all.

View on HN

> Then if it actually goes up to an appeals court for more expensive lawyer-work the issue would indeed still be undecided and the pause should continue.

Not sure I understand this logic. There are basically two outcomes- either customs decides it is okay to be imported and the ban is lifted or it decides it should be upheld and the ban remains. If it were to be appealed to a higher court and then have the ban reinstated as you say, why would it make sense to pause the ban and then reinstate it when it goes to appeals since it’s already in place? Seems it should be upheld until a higher authority says it no longer needs to be upheld. I’m not sure I understand why third parties are still allowed to violate a ruling, either.

The court can decide it should be upheld but also simultaneously decide the ban was an overreach and order some different type of remediation.

i.e. There's more then 2 possible scenarios.

Apple's saying that the import ban will hurt them in ways that can't be fixed, and so it makes sense to stay it until their appeal decides what's going to happen. It's why this stay is only for ~2 weeks, because that's all they think is needed to get to a more-permanent decision from the appeals court.

The idea is that harms that can't be fixed (by e.g. ordering someone to pay money) should be avoided until the system has settled on a definite answer.

> I’m not sure I understand why third parties are still allowed to violate a ruling, either.

The ruling is just blocking imports, not sales. I don't think that Apple is actually required to freeze its own sales, per se, but they're very just-in-time for stock so it was an effective ban for them unless they wanted to stockpile.

Third parties are thus able to sell through whatever stock they have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com