Suit Alleges Shady Marketing of iMac's Color Palette

On the heels of settling a similar lawsuit, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) now faces a legal challenge about its marketing practices for iMac desktop computer.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., claims that Apple falsely marketed the monitor for the new desktop as an improved version of its 24-inch iMac monitor. The complaint alleges that the new 20-inch monitor displays 98 percent fewer colors than the 24-inch screen and uses a 6-bit LCD screen, which has a narrower viewing angle, less color depth and less color accuracy.

The reduced color depth and accuracy distorts the color and effects of photographs, for instance, according to the lawsuit.

"Apple is duping its customers into thinking they're buying 'new and improved' when in fact they are getting stuck with 'new and inferior,'" said Brian Kabateck, managing partner with Los Angeles-based Kabateck Brown Kellner, which filed the suit.

Proving Its Case

The lawsuit comes on the heels of three other patent-infringement suits filed against the company. Those suits, which each address functionalities in the desktop, iPhone and iTunes environment, likely pose a greater threat to Apple than the potential for a class action suit about its marketing practices, Jeffrey Glassman, a partner at Los Angeles-based Moldo Davidson Fraioli Seror and Sestanovich, told MacNewsWorld.

To win the marketing case, lawyers would have to prove that Apple intentionally misled consumers with its marketing campaign, didn't test its product to verify its claims were true and then failed to disclose to consumers that the smaller monitor used dithering technology to merely represent the entire color spectrum, instead of actually rendering the colors, Glassman said.

The technology, known as "dithering," approximates some colors in between those shades that it renders, giving the appearance that the monitor produces more colors than it actually does.

Proving those three events occurred makes it likely that this case won't proceed very far in court, Glassman said, although he did say it is possible Apple would settle the claim out of court to avoid a costly legal battle if the plaintiff lawyers can assemble enough people for a class action suit.

In fact, Apple recently settled a similar suit that involved allegations of the same type of display misrepresentations in its notebook computers.

Out of Court

At the end of the day, the plaintiffs will have two hurdles to overcome, if the lawsuit moves forward.

The first: find a jury that is interested enough in the minutiae of technology to understand the difference between rendering colors on a monitor and using technologies that approximate colors; the second: overcome the fact that the Federal Trade Commission's push to monitor consumer advertising was built to protect consumers from using potentially harmful products that were marketed incorrectly.

"The FTC probably won't like a lawsuit like this one, even though they are the organization that promulgates the laws for this industry," Glassman noted. "They are more concerned about consumers being deceived, particularly about products that can hurt them."