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Apple v Samsung

13 'Apple v Samsung' stories November 2013 - September 2015
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Apple’s never-ending court cases continue with extra win against Samsung and final ebook appeal

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Sep 18 2015 - 5:32 am PT
2 Comments

Apple has scored a belated additional victory against Samsung in its endless patent trial battle with the smartphone rival. Apple had originally asked the court for two remedies: financial compensation, and an injunction forbidding Samsung from continuing to sell devices which infringed its patents. The court said yes to the first, no to the second.

As the WSJ reports, a federal appeals court judge has ruled that the court should have also granted the injunction.

“Samsung’s infringement harmed Apple by causing lost market share and lost downstream sales and by forcing Apple to compete against its own patented invention,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said[…]

The appeals court [ruled that] a California trial court that previously denied Apple’s request “abused its discretion when it did not enjoin Samsung’s infringement” … 


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Large tech companies side with Samsung in its appeal against award for infringing Apple’s patents

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Jul 21 2015 - 4:19 am PT
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In the latest news in the patent case that feels like it will never end, a number of tech giants have taken Samsung’s side in its appeal against the damages it was ordered to pay for infringing Apple’s patents.

It’s almost three years since Apple was awarded $1B in damages after a jury found that Samsung infringed five of its patents. $450M of that award was later vacated and a retrial ordered to determine a revised sum, with Apple awarded a lower sum of $290M – for a revised total of $930M. The US appeals court later ruled that while Samsung did indeed copy iOS features, it should not have been penalised for copying the general look of the iPhone. The court now needs to once again revise the amount awarded.

The amount awarded in part reflected the profits Samsung was deemed to have made by infringing the patents, and it is this aspect that Google, Facebook, Dell, HP, eBay and other tech companies say is unreasonable … 
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Samsung appeal against Apple’s $930M award for patent infringement begins today

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Dec 4 2014 - 4:01 am PT
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The latest court battle between Apple and Samsung begins today, with Samsung appealing against the $930M it was ordered to pay Apple for patent infringement in the first trial between the two companies. Samsung is arguing that the amount awarded was “excessive and unwarranted.”

It’s of course not the first time that the sum awarded has been disputed. Apple was initially awarded $1B in damages, with $450M of that later cut and a retrial required to determine a revised sum. The retrial awarded Apple $290M instead for that element of the case, giving Apple a revised total award of $930M … 
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Future patent battles could be fun as Apple patents Samsung Air Command style menus …

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Sep 2 2014 - 7:13 am PT
7 Comments

Future patent battles between Apple and Samsung could take an entertaining turn as Apple has been granted a patent on radial menus for touchscreen devices – using an illustration that bears a notable resemblance to the Air Command menu used by Samsung on the Galaxy Note 3.

Lest anyone accuse Apple of copying Samsung, Apple first patented the menu approach back in 2012 – a year before Samsung adopted it. The reason for the second patent granted today is that Apple seemingly had in mind OS X rather than iOS when it first came up with the idea, illustrating it in a desktop environment.

The second patent specifically references using the menu based on “input from a touchscreen.”

As ever, the fact that Apple has patented something provides no evidence at all that it will ever see the light of day in an Apple product – OS X or iOS. Apple plays around with all kinds of ideas and patents thousands of them, only a tiny minority of which are ever used.

With Apple possessing a patent for a particular menu approach used by Samsung, but patenting touchscreen application of the approach after Samsung launched it in a tablet, the legal arguments could get interesting should the matter ever end up in court …

Via GigaOM

Opinion: Is the case for Apple ending its patent battles with Samsung stronger than ever?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Aug 8 2014 - 7:25 am PT
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Steve Jobs famously declared back in 2010 that Android was a stolen product, and he was willing to “go thermonuclear war” in order to “destroy” it.

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Back in April, I suggested three reasons it might be time for Apple to settle its Android disputes and move on. The relatively small damages award in the most recent case (and which now looks set to be further reduced) provided a fourth reason not long after I wrote that piece. But I think the case today is even more compelling … 
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Samsung and its lawyers fined $2M for leaking details of Apple/Nokia patent deal

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Jun 24 2014 - 4:57 am PT
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Samsung, together with its lawyers, will have to fork out a little more cash following its loss in its second patent battle with Apple. A court has fined lawyers Quinn Emanuel and Samsung a total of $2M for misusing confidential details of a patent deal struck between Apple and Nokia.

The documents were supplied by Apple to Samsung’s lawyers purely so that it could see that Apple was telling the truth about its patent deals with other companies. The documents were marked “for attorney’s eyes only” and were not to be revealed to Samsung executives … 
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Samsung’s lawyers calling Apple a “Jihadist” and the trial “Apple’s Vietnam” not helping settlement talks …

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy May 20 2014 - 5:40 am PT
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While FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller may be confident of Apple and Samsung reaching an early settlement on their patent disputes, a court-mandated update on the talks seems to tell a different story, with each side explaining why talks were not going well, reports The Verge.

For Apple, that includes statements made by Samsung’s lead attorney John Quinn, who referred to Apple as a “jihadist” and called the protracted trial “Apple’s Vietnam” in a pair of interviews …


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Apple in talks with Samsung to settle all future patent disputes out of court

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy May 19 2014 - 5:02 am PT
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Korea Times (via Fortune) is reporting that Apple and Samsung are in talks designed to settle all future patent disputes out of court. FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller believes that a settlement will be reached “very soon.”

“Things should come to an end during the summer. Apple doesn’t have an endgame strategy. Its agreement with Google shows that its management is looking for a face-saving exit strategy from Steve Jobs’ thermonuclear ambitions,” Mueller said …


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Samsung acknowledges one Apple invention: there’s an Apple II in its Innovation Museum

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 21 2014 - 5:07 am PT
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Photo: The Verge

Samsung and Apple may spend rather a lot of time arguing about who invented what in patent trials, but Samsung does at least acknowledge one Apple invention. The Samsung Innovation Museum, opened to mark the 45th anniversary of Samsung Electronics, includes an Apple II, described as “the first home computer.”

Opinion: Should Apple settle its Android disputes and move on?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 15 2014 - 6:59 am PT
119 Comments
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With Apple in the midst of its second major court battle with Samsung over alleged patent violations, and all but one of the five claims relating to Android rather than to anything Samsung-specific, it’s gotten me wondering whether further cases of this kind are truly beneficial to Apple.

I understand it emotionally, of course. It’s galling to work hard on a hugely popular hardware design or user-interface only to see someone else copy parts of it, and the desire to hit back at that is a natural one. But I’m not sure that it makes too much sense rationally … 
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Internal emails reveal Phil Schiller shocked by response from Apple’s ad agency over marketing direction

Avatar for Zac Hall Apr 7 2014 - 10:46 am PT
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Phil Schiller at WWDC 2013

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the latest Apple v. Samsung trial, it’s that Phil Schiller isn’t as cool, calm, and collected at Apple HQ as he appears at each Apple keynote. We’ve already seen the Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing fret over Android marketshare and Media Arts Lab not being on par with Samsung’s advertising, and Business Insider has covered an additional email exchange revealed in the trial where an irate Phil Schiller proves he is most definitely a product of Steve Jobs. We’ve already learned that Schiller was so shaken up by Samsung’s ‘Next Big Thing’ ad campaign that he forwarded a Wall Street Journal article to Apple’s ad agency, but Schiller was furious with the agency’s somewhat defensive response…
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Judge denies Apple injunction for patent infringements by Samsung, sets worrying precedent

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 6 2014 - 5:22 am PT
5 Comments

I know, your eyes are probably glazing over by now at yet another Apple v. Samsung patent story. It seems scarcely a week goes by without one of the two companies winning a point, losing a point, filing an appeal, winning an appeal, losing an appeal or applying for some kind of court order. And if you were losing count, the latest news reported by FOSS Patents that a California court has rejected Apple’s application for an injunction against Samsung still relates to the original patent battle between the two companies which began back in 2011.

Apple was originally awarded almost a billion dollars in damages for patent infringements by Samsung. Apple had argued that monetary damages were insufficient, and that the court should also have ordered that the infringing products be withdrawn from sale … 
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Samsung accuses Apple’s attorney of racist remark during closing arguments in damages case

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Nov 20 2013 - 12:01 am PT
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As the retrial to settle the damages in the Apple vs Samsung patents case reaches its closing arguments, Samsung’s lawyer Bill Price accused Apple attorney Harold McElhinny of a racist remark, asking for a mistrial to be declared, reports Bloomberg.

Harold McElhinny, Apple’s attorney, spoke yesterday of his memory as a child of watching television on American-made sets, and how because the manufacturers didn’t protect their intellectual property their products no longer exist. “We all know what happened,” he said at the conclusion of a damages retrial […]

McElhinny was “appealing to race,” Price told the judge. “I thought we were past that.” … 
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