A group of South Korean users of Apple Inc.’s iPhone sued the company in a local court, claiming it invaded their privacy by allowing the smartphone to collect location data without their consent.

About 27,000 people joined a class-action suit against Apple’s South Korean unit and headquarters, seeking 1 million won per person ($930) in damages, according to a notice posted online by Mirae Law, which represents the plaintiffs. The suit was filed in Changwon, south of Seoul, where the law firm is located.

Apple was fined by South Korea’s telecommunications regulator on Aug. 3 and ordered to encrypt location data of people using iPhones to address privacy concerns. The company also came under scrutiny of regulators around the world after an April report by publisher O’Reilly Radar said iPhones record information about users’ whereabouts, adding to legal disputes the company is involved in over patent infringements.

Apple was fined 3 million won for collecting such data even when some users turned off location-recognition features on their iPhones, the Korea Communications Commission said Aug. 3. Google Inc., which did not gather data in the same way, was not fined and only ordered to make the information unreadable, it said.

Earlier this year, Apple was sued in the U.S. by two iPhone and iPad users who claimed the devices secretly collected information on their movements.

“I’m an iPhone user myself, so when I first heard about this in the media, I reviewed the legality of the matter based on Korean law,” Kim Hyeong Seok, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said by telephone before the suit was filed. “I concluded it was clearly illegal.”

Steve Park, a Seoul-based spokesman for Apple, declined to comment on the case.

Apple’s iOS 4 operating system for the iPhone and iPad tracks and stores the movements of people using the devices, according to a report published in April by O’Reilly Media, a Sebastopol, California-based publisher that organizes technology trade conferences.

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple Inc. said a German court has ruled that a tablet computer made by Samsung Electronics Co. cannot be sold in most of the European Union, the latest turn in a patent fight between the two companies.

The preliminary injunction bars Samsung from distributing its Galaxy Tab 10.1 touchscreen tablet throughout most of Europe, with the exception of the Netherlands. The device, which was released earlier this summer and runs on Google Inc.’s Android operating system, is widely considered to be the most promising competitor to Apple’s iPad, which has dominated the market since its release last year.

Apple reiterated an earlier statement that Samsung had copied its products, and it intends to protect its intellectual property.

A spokesman for Samsung didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A German court representative declined to comment.

The ruling, which was earlier reported by Deutsche Presse-Agentur and the FOSS Patents blog, follows a similar injunction handed down by an Australian court.

In April, Apple sued Samsung in a California court, alleging the South Korean manufacturer infringed on its patents and “slavishly” copied its designs. Legal battles between the Cupertino, Calif., company and Samsung have circled the globe, with filings in various Asian and European countries, as well as the International Trade Commission.

With a lull in the battle of words between Google and Microsoft over patents held by tech giants, Apple today has been granted 20 new ones, including patents that cover integrated touch screens and parts of the visual voice mail tool found on the iPhone.

The full list, dug up today by Apple patent tracking blog Patently Apple, is definitely on the technical side, including printed circuit boards, metadata processing, and a system for estimating where a computer is located to improve online shipping experiences.

Of special interest though is one for an “integrated touch screen.” The system, which Apple applied to patent in September, 2009 describes a way of stacking together touch-sensitive circuitry into the pixels of an LCD display to use “fewer parts and/or processing steps,” as well as having the end result be “thinner, brighter, and require less power.”

Perhaps a more interesting patent granted is the one for a “voicemail manager for (a) portable multifunction device.” This one, which was filed for on June 28, 2007 (just a day ahead of the first iPhone’s launch), details Apple’s visual voice mail system, though particularly the option to pick a voice mail from a list and control its playback with a running counter.

That’s the very same system Apple and AT&T were sued over following the iPhone’s release for infringing on two patents owned by Klausner Technologies that cover selectively listening to voice mail messages. The two companies later settled with Klausner, whose patents are listed in the newly granted patent’s references section.

One other patent granted to Apple today covers the behavior of launching a Mac OS X application from the dock when dragging a file onto it, even if you’re not explicitly running that app at the time. That same patent also covers synchronizing a user’s dock settings from one machine to another, something Apple introduced as part of MobileMe, that’s being phased out with the move to iCloud.

With its iPhones and iPads, Apple has led people toward a new way of operating digital devices that relies on direct manipulation of items with finger gestures, not a mouse and scroll bars. App icons are arrayed front and center, not buried deep in a file system or limited to a strip at the bottom of the screen.

Now, Apple is bringing those concepts and others to the personal computer via its most radical new Macintosh operating system version in years. It’s called Lion and it goes on sale Wednesday for $29.99—a price that allows installation on as many personal Macs as you own.

Lion is a giant step in the merger of the personal computer and post-PC devices like tablets and smartphones. It demotes the venerable scroll bar at the side of windows and documents, relying primarily on direct manipulation of documents and lists. It eliminates the need to save your work, automatically saving every version of every document. It resumes programs right where you left off. It can display programs, or an array of all your app icons, in multiple full screens you simply swipe through. And it elevates the role of multitouch gestures and adds new ones.

The new system doesn’t turn a Mac into a tablet. It retains traditional computer features not present on smaller devices—like the usual file system, multiple windows, the mouse and physical keyboard. It still runs traditional Mac programs, still can handle Adobe Flash, and doesn’t run iPhone or iPad apps. It doesn’t use a touch screen, instead continuing to rely on the touch pad to perform finger gestures.

But it’s a big change. Lion also is a harbinger of things to come. Apple’s historic rival, Microsoft, is working on its own radical overhaul of the dominant Windows PC operating system, due next year, which is also aimed at putting multitouch and other concepts borrowed from smartphones and tablets front and center.

I’ve been testing Lion on four Macs, and I like it. I believe its many new features—250 in all—make computing easier and more reliable. I found upgrading easy, and compatibility with existing apps to be very good. Only one app I use frequently proved incompatible, and its maker says a new revision solves that problem.

I only suffered one crash in Lion. It occurred on one of many occasions I used iTunes, but Apple says a forthcoming version of iTunes made for Lion should eliminate that.

To take full advantage of new features such as full-screen mode (which hides menus), auto-saving and auto-resuming, programs will have to be rewritten. But, in my tests, current versions ran fine. I am writing this column on a MacBook Air running Lion using an unrevised version of Microsoft Word for the Mac, with no problems.

An Adjustment Process
There are, however, downsides to anything this new and major. In my view, the biggest of these is that switching to Lion will require a major adjustment even for veteran Mac users, though it will be easier for those who use iPhones or iPads. Lion will significantly increase the learning curve for Windows users switching to the Mac.

One of the biggest changes is in scrolling. Instead of moving the top of a page upward by dragging the scroll bar down, or moving your fingers downward on the touch pad, you do the opposite—you just push the page up. A scroll bar appears only while scrolling. (Older programs may still have the traditional scroll bar.)

Standard programs and features like Apple Mail are significantly different, too, and there are smaller changes in almost every corner of the operating system, including some keyboard shortcuts. Just mastering all the new and altered touch-pad gestures—a couple of which are so unnatural i actually had to practice them—will take time. (Luckily, almost all of the actions performed by the gestures can also be done with a mouse, icons, menu commands, or keys.)

If you dislike some of these changes, Apple provides settings to return to traditional scrolling, the classic Mail layout, and to turn off gestures and other things.

Upgrading
Another big change is in the way Lion is being distributed. It won’t be sold on a disk, initially only via download from the Mac App Store. Since it’s a 4 gigabyte download, that could be a problem for people with slow Internet connections. Apple says its stores will help such users with the download, and that it will sell Lion on a USB thumb drive for $69 in August.

In my tests, the download alone took under half an hour on a very fast connection, and about an hour and a half on a more typical one. Once I downloaded the product, the rest of the installation took about an hour.

Also, you can only upgrade to Lion directly from the prior OS version, Snow Leopard. So, if you’re running an earlier version, you’ll first have to pay to upgrade to Snow Leopard.

In addition, Macs with the older PowerPC processors can’t run Lion, and even some of the earliest Macs with Intel processors are shut out. These are mainly machines released in 2006. Older programs originally designed for PowerPC, which still ran on Snow Leopard, will no longer work in Lion. The best known of these is Intuit’s Quicken 2007.

Migrating
Even if you buy a new Mac with Lion pre-installed and your older Mac has Snow Leopard, you’ll have to download a new version of Apple’s migration program for Snow Leopard in order to move over all your programs, settings and files. The company made this new migration utility available on Tuesday. When I tried to migrate my stuff from a Snow Leopard machine to Lion using the current migration program—normally a strength for Apple—the process failed. Apple sent me the new version and it worked.

Lion also introduces a new migration feature that will move data and settings—but not programs—from a Windows PC to a Mac, though it requires a free Windows migration utility that Apple couldn’t provide in time for this review.

New Macs
Speaking of Macs with Lion pre-installed, Apple also is upgrading its thin and fast MacBook Air laptops so they use faster chips from Intel. It’s killing off the bottom model of its laptop line, the plain MacBook. But the new MacBook Airs, available Thursday, have the same design, prices and base storage capacity as their predecessors, so this review is focused on Lion.

Features
Here are some of the main new features in Lion:

• Auto-Save and Versions: Apps running in Lion automatically save your work when you pause or every five minutes. There is no interruption during this process and you can still save manually. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s implemented beautifully and can work on all programs whose authors issue new versions to take advantage of it. Right now, it works on some of Apple’s own programs.

The best part of this is that each auto-save creates a “version” of your document and you can view all these versions in a visual stack arranged by date, next to your current version. You can swap back to an older version, or even copy and paste text from one version to another. These versions are created by storing the changes behind the scenes, not by creating numerous files.

To prevent auto-saving, you can lock a document and, for privacy, when you share or transfer a document, only the latest version is copied or sent.

• Resume: If you relaunch a program, any document you were working on appears again with the cursor right where it was, and even any highlighting is preserved. If you restart the Mac, all your programs are resumed in this manner, unless you check a box to prevent this.

• Full-screen apps: You can launch some apps, or individual browser tabs, in a full screen, by just clicking on an icon at the top right. In full screen, the menu bar and other controls are hidden unless you move the cursor to the top of the screen.

• Launchpad: Pressing a special key on a new Mac, or an icon on an old one, brings up an iPad-like display of all your app icons in full screen. If they occupy more than one screen, you just swipe through them.

• Mission Control: One of the nicer features on the Mac was called Exposé, which, with one click, showed all your open windows in miniature. Now, it’s been subsumed into something called Mission Control, which does the same thing, but also displays any fullscreen apps or extra desktops. I found it cluttered and wished the simpler, prior feature had been retained.

• Gestures: The Mac already had a variety of iPhone-like gestures you could perform on the touch pad. But Lion has changed some of these and added more. One I liked: You can double-tap with two figures to resize a section of a Web page or PDF to zoom in to fill the screen, just like on the iPhone or iPad. Two I dislike: the gestures for calling up Launchpad and Mission Control require pinching or zooming with three fingers and a thumb—a clumsy method for such important features.

• Mail: Apple’s Mail app has been totally overhauled to look and work more like the Mail app on the iPad. One particularly nice feature is that it sports a beautiful optional conversation mode, which combines and numbers each message in a thread. It also hides duplicate emails. There are too many changes to detail here, but, after hating the new Mail at first, I have come to like it. And you can switch to Classic mode if you wish.

The Bottom Line

The past two major computer operating system releases, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, were incremental. Lion is very different. It’s a big leap, and gives the Mac a much more modern look and feel for a world of tablets and smartphones. If you are willing to adjust, it’s the best computer operating system out there.

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, fell in Nasdaq Stock Market trading after Morgan Keegan & Co. downgraded the stock, citing a new threat from Apple Inc. (AAPL) to RIM’s instant-messaging service.

Morgan Keegan’s Tavis McCourt, who had had an “outperform” rating on RIM since September 2008, cut his rating to “market perform” and lowered his price target to $49 from $71.

Apple’s iMessage service unveiled yesterday is “a major shot across the bow of RIM,” Nashville, Tennessee-based McCourt said today in a note. BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM as it’s known, “has over 40 million users globally and is one of the keys to RIM’s success outside the U.S.,” he said.

RIM is counting on sales growth in Latin America and East Asia, where lower-priced models such as the BlackBerry Curve with free, built-in BBM have gained popularity. Apple’s iMessage function neutralizes BBM’s strengths, McCourt said.

“Apple has knocked down all of RIM’s advantages with iMessage,” he said. While iMessage probably won’t be released for a few months and is still untested by consumers, “given Apple’s history, we suspect it would not be launching unless it had a competitive delivery time and overall performance.”

Battle for Teenagers
The large base of customers with Apple devices and its youth brand loyalty will be a test to BBM’s own popularity with teenagers, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky.

The arrival of iMessage may only raise investors’ “uncertainty regarding RIM’s long-term competitive position for BBM,” said Abramsky, who cut his rating on the stock to “sector perform” in April.

RIM fell 59 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $38.32 at 1:20 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading after earlier dropping as much as 2.3 percent. Before today, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company’s shares had lost 33 percent this year.

RIM’s share of U.S. smartphone subscribers dropped 4.7 percentage points to 25.7 percent in April from three months earlier, according to ComScore Inc. Apple gained 1.3 percentage points to 26 percent and devices using Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android software advanced 5.2 percentage points to 36.4 percent.

Outside the U.S.

Revenue growth in markets such as Latin America may also be threatened as Android catches on outside the U.S., UBS AG analysts said last week as they lowered their price target on RIM to $45 from $60.

Apple’s tendency to trigger technology copycats poses a further threat to BBM given Android’s surging growth, said McCourt. Google will need to begin working on a similar instant messaging type solution for Android, he wrote.

“We would be shocked if Android ultimately did not attempt to replicate iMessage/BBM, which ultimately would be a much greater threat to RIM’s long term success than iPhone specifically,” McCourt said.

Separately, RIM said today that it bought Scoreloop, a Munich-based company that makes software for mobile-game developers. No price was given for the purchase of Scoreloop, which was founded in 2008 and also has offices in the U.S. and Asia.

RIM plans to tap Scoreloop’s expertise in creating software that developers use to build social and collaborative games such as “Greedy Pigs” and “Hungry Shark,” Tyler Lessard, RIM’s vice president of global alliances and developer relations, said in a blog post.

June 6 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, addressing an annual developers conference today, may give consumers a new way to access digital songs and information on smartphones and computers.

Jobs, on medical leave since Jan. 17, will make his second public appearance of 2011 at Apple’s conference in San Francisco. He will preview software updates for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac, as well the new iCloud online storage service, which may help those devices wirelessly share the same materials.

Apple is using iCloud to retain its dominance in the smartphone and tablet markets amid fresh competition from devices powered by Google Inc.’s Android software. The new service may improve how users can access content across different Apple devices, keeping customers from defecting to rivals, said Frank Gillett, with Forrester Research Inc.

“The world we’re headed to is where you don’t have to think about which gadget has your stuff,” Gillett said. “As people get their content organized around one of these personal ecosystems, then it will be incredibly sticky because migrating won’t be convenient.”

Apple dropped as much as 0.9 percent in German trading today and were little changed as of 12:32 p.m. in Frankfurt. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fell $2.66 to $343.44 on the Nasdaq Stock Market on June 3. The shares have climbed 6.5 percent this year.

MobileMe Breakdowns

The company’s earlier foray into Web-based services, MobileMe, got off to a slow start, dogged by breakdowns, including one that kept users from sending or receiving e-mails. MobileMe, with a $99 annual subscription fee, eventually gained 3 million users, according to Forrester. That’s a fraction of the potential customer base for iCloud.

“This is kind of the new normal for Steve Jobs and Apple,” Eugene Munster, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “The First Word” with Ken Prewitt. “That he may not be full time involved at the office, but he is definitely involved and this is a sign he is involved strategically.”

Apple may design iCloud to include features of the older offering, such as storage for e-mail, contacts, calendars, photos, plus new options for music, said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw in New York. Storage for movies and television shows may be added later, he said.

Apple announced last week it would preview iCloud at its Worldwide Developers Conference, without providing more details. Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment beyond the May 31 statement.

Record Label Agreements

Apple has agreements with major record labels for a service that would let people access their iTunes song libraries from any Apple device through an Internet connection, instead of downloading a copy of the song to a device, said people familiar with the plans.

Apple will scan the songs customers have purchased from iTunes and quickly mirror those collections on the company’s servers, said the people, who declined to be named because the talks are private.

Google and Amazon.com Inc. each introduced cloud music services in recent months, letting users upload songs to remote servers and access them from a browser or smartphone with an Internet connection. The uploading process can take hours.

Through licensing deals with record labels, Apple has entire collections on its servers. That means it can more quickly provide customers access to their songs.

Working Together

The iCloud service can help all of Apple’s products and applications running on its devices work more seamlessly together, said Matt Drance, the founder of app maker Bookhouse Software and a former Apple software engineer.

By adding new Web features, Apple could loosen the need for users to regularly plug in an iPhone, iPad or iPod to keep the devices synchronized, he said. Instead, the updates could be made wirelessly.

The need to constantly plug in the devices to sync applications is one of Apple’s prominent “rough edges,” said Scott Stanfield, the CEO of Vertigo, which makes applications for companies such as NBC.

“You can buy content on all those devices, but because it’s so complicated synchronizing movies and music and applications, it’s kind of a disincentive,” Stanfield said. “If they make it so you can sync over the air that would be great.”

Apple will also use its developers conference this week to preview new updates to the operating system for Mac computers, called OS X Lion, and the fifth iteration of the iOS software that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch mobile devices. The company won’t unveil a new iPhone, as it did at the event last year, two people familiar with the plans said in April.

Making Money

The gathering draws designers and entrepreneurs behind more than 350,000 applications available in the company’s App Store. Apple says it has generated more than $2 billion in revenue for the developers since the store opened on the iPhone in 2008.

Jobs, in the midst of his third medical leave since 2004 as he battles a rare form of cancer, will be a welcome sight for developers as well as investors at the conference, Kumar said.

“The fact that Steve Jobs is out there front and center is the biggest positive,” said Kumar. “He’s the main event.”

Apple is competing against companies such as Google, and Microsoft Corp. for the loyalty of developers who make the gaming, picture-taking and business-productivity applications. Google held a similar developers conference last month, where it showed off features of its Android mobile operating system.

Competitive Edge

Apple has an edge because of the money its App Store generates for developers, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Gartner Inc.

“Apple has shown they can deliver the customer and they can deliver the customer’s credit card,” he said.

In an update of the iOS software that runs the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, developers also have been asking for a new notification system for sending users alerts, as well as enhanced voice recognition features, said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies.

Apple’s success in enabling customers to easily access their files and other content across multiple devices will be key to keeping customers and developers locked in to its ecosystem, said Forrester’s Gillett.

“We’re beginning a flip from which gadget you use to which service helps you manage all your information,” Gillett said.

Apple Monday sent a letter to Lodsys and to developers, saying it has the licensing rights to in-app purchases and that developers are fully able to use them, according to Macworld. Devs on Twitter had begun discussing the letter received by Apple just a few hours ago.

The full text of the letter, which has been obtained by Macworld, is addressed to Lodsys CEO Mark Small, and is signed Bruce Sewell, Apple’s Senior Vice President & General Counsel. In the letter, Sewell acknowledges Small’s recent patent infringement claims against App Store developers, and states right up front that “Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patent and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license.” Apple states that Lodsys’ allegations have “no basis,” and articulates its intent to “defend Apple’s license rights.”

The letter from Apple goes on to assert that Small’s threats are likely the basis of “misapprehension regarding Apple’s license and the way Apple’s products work,” and assumes that the outstanding threats will be revoked as a result of the clarification Apple is making today. Apple acknowledges that it does indeed hold licenses for all four of the patents in Lodsys’ portfolio, and that the licenses it holds entitle Apple to “offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.”

The letter then goes into more detail about the specifics of U.S. patent law, and articulates exactly why the claims made by Lodsys are in error, according to the way in which the App Store and Apple Developer Agreement works.

Apple was clearly taking its time to make sure it had a comprehensive grasp of Lodsys’ position before firing a return shot, but the Mac-maker’s response could hardly be more assertive. The message is clear: Stand down or gear up for a full-scale legal battle with Apple, which is clearly not what Lodsys was bargaining for as it chose to pursue small developers with very limited resources. Unlike devs, Apple doesn’t have to consider backing down as the only way to keep the business afloat.

This is a welcome development in this in-app purchases licensing debacle, but it isn’t necessarily the end of the story. We’ve contacted Small for a response, but don’t expect him to issue a reaction before considering how best to formulate an answer from a legal perspective.

Microsoft Corp. and Nokia Oyj are among four technology companies to challenge Apple Inc. ’s European Union-wide trademarks for “Appstore” and “App Store.” Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) are among four technology companies challenging Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s European Union-wide trademarks for “Appstore” and “App Store.”

Nokia, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB and HTC Corp. (2498) all filed separate requests yesterday with the EU trademark agency in Alicante, Spain, seeking to invalidate Apple’s trademark rights.

The companies “are seeking to invalidate Apple’s trademark registration for ‘APP STORE’ and ‘APPSTORE’ because we believe that they should not have been granted because they both lack distinctiveness,” according to a statement from Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker.

A decision by the agency could be appealed all the way to the EU’s top court in Luxembourg. Apple, which pioneered the sale of mobile-device applications, accounts for more than three-quarters of revenue in the industry — even as Google Inc. (GOOG)’s app sales grow faster. Apple’s App Store offers more than 350,000 apps for iPhones, iPods and iPads. It will bring in $2.91 billion in revenue in 2011, up 63 percent from last year, according to researchers at El Segundo, California-based IHS ISuppli.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) on April 15 opposed Apple’s two EU trademarks, according to documents on the trademark agency’s website. The dispute over the validity of the Apple rights has also reached the U.S., where Amazon, after being sued for trademark infringement by Apple, argued the intellectual property right was invalid.

Alan Hely, a U.K.-based spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, didn’t immediately respond to voice mail or e-mail messages seeking comment.

Mark Durrant, a spokesman for Espoo, Finland-based Nokia, and Sony Ericsson spokeswoman Mandy Slater confirmed the companies also objected to the trademark registration.

The phrase “means just what it says, a store for ‘apps,’ which in itself is a generic term for the services that the trademark registrations cover,” Durrant said in an e-mail.

Apple’s App Store, started in 2008, offers downloads of programs from the company and third-party developers. Sales of apps from sites run by Apple, Google, Nokia and Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) will rise 78 percent this year from $2.1 billion last year, IHS ISuppli said.

Decisions by the EU trademark agency’s cancellation division can be appealed first to the agency’s own appeals board and later to the EU’s two top courts.

Customers look at various iPad 2 products during the China launch at an Apple Store in central Beijing May 6, 2011.

LONDON (Reuters) – Apple has overtaken Google as the world’s most valuable brand, ending a four-year reign by the Internet search leader, according to a new study by global brands agency Millward Brown.

The iPhone and iPad maker’s brand is now worth $153 billion, almost half Apple’s market capitalization, says the annual BrandZ study of the world’s top 100 brands.

Apple’s portfolio of coveted consumer goods propelled it past Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable technology company last year.

Peter Walshe, global brands director of Millward Brown, says Apple’s meticulous attention to detail, along with an increasing presence of its gadgets in corporate environments, have allowed it to behave differently from other consumer-electronics makers.

“Apple is breaking the rules in terms of its pricing model,” he told Reuters by telephone. “It’s doing what luxury brands do, where the higher price the brand is, the more it seems to underpin and reinforce the desire.”

“Obviously, it has to be allied to great products and a great experience, and Apple has nurtured that.”

Of the top 10 brands in Monday’s report, six were technology and telecoms companies: Google at number two, IBM at number three, Microsoft at number five, AT&T at number seven and China Mobile at number nine.

McDonald’s rose two places to number four, as fast food became the fastest-growing category, Coca-Cola slipped one place to number six, Marlboro was also down one to number eight, and General Electric was number 10.

Walshe said demand from China was a major factor in the rise of fast-food brands. “The Chinese have been discovering fast food and it’s such a vast market — Starbucks, McDonald’s… and pizza has hit China,” he said.

“The way McDonald’s has reinvented itself, adapted its menus, added healthy options, expanding the times of day it can be visited, for example oatmeal for breakfast… that allied with growth in developing markets has really helped that brand.”

Nineteen of the top 100 brands came from emerging markets, up from 13 last year.

Facebook entered the top 100 at number 35 with a brand valued at $19.1 billion, while Chinese search engine Baidu rose to number 29 from 46.

Toyota reclaimed its position as the world’s most valuable car brand, as it recovered from a bungled 2010 product recall. The survey was carried out before the March earthquake that caused massive disruption to Japanese supply chains.

The total value of the top 100 brands rose by 17 percent to $2.4 trillion, as the global economy shifted to growth.

Millward Brown takes as a starting point the value that companies put on their own main brands as intangibles in their earnings reports.

It combines that with the perceptions of more than 2 million consumers in relevant markets around the world whom it surveys over the course of the year, and then applies a multiple derived from the company’s short-term future growth prospects.

Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Tab, left, is displayed with at an advertising board, at the headquarters of South Korean mobile carrier KT in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 22, 2011.

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. says it sued Apple Inc. for patent rights violations, only days after Apple sued Samsung for the same reason.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. said it is suing Apple Inc. for patent rights violations, only days after Apple sued Samsung for the same reason.

Samsung is accusing Apple of violating its rights to 10 smartphone and computer patents. The company filed lawsuits Thursday in Seoul, Tokyo and Mannheim, Germany.

The lawsuits come only days after Apple sued Samsung in a California court. Apple alleges Samsung’s Galaxy line of smartphones and tablet computers copy Apple’s popular iPad and iPhone.

The lawsuits are the latest in a long string of patent disputes among phone makers. In recent years Apple, Microsoft Corp., Nokia Corp., HTC Corp. and others have taken legal action to protect their intellectual property rights.