The Sony Ericsson lawyers came a knocking on my email box today and Duncan, my CEO for Thegadgetblog.com (TGB) managed to put out the fire. The fuss was basically the insistence of the lawyers for me to take down the pictures of the mobile above. To cut the story short, Duncan finally removed the picture from the TGB post here but it seems to be still on the Engadget post. (as of 1025pm SAT. 27 Aug 2005)

Here’s the email extract from the Sony Ericsson German Lawyers :

We are acting on behalf of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications International AB. On your web site “http://thegadgetblog.com/2005/08/23/the-sony-ericsson-hermione/” you are showing today images regarding the Sony Ericsson “Hermione” mobile phone and related information regarding the product.

We hereby notify and inform you that the images as such and the related information with respect to the mobile telephone do constitute business secrets of Sony Ericsson. We additionally inform you that the images have only been published by violating secrecy and non-disclosure agreements. On the picture itself one can furthermore see the “confidentiality”-stamp. This means that any further disclosure of such images is illegal. In addition to that the images are under copyright protection and Sony Ericsson does not wanted them to be further spread.

For these reasons we have to ask you to immediately, but in any case not later than today, August 26, 4.00 p.m. Central European time refrain from showing the aforementioned images and any corresponding information on your web site. We have to ask you to immediately take the images and all related information off your web site and to furthermore inform us from which source you have received the images and the corresponding information.

Please note that should you not follow the aforementioned requests this very much would influence Sony Ericsson’s attitude towards your web site and Sony Ericsson would not hesitate to enforce all their respective legal rights.

Thank you for your co-operation. Please be informed, that this letter and its content are confidential. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Schunke Rechtsanwalt

Partner
Law firm

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