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Jury Finds Apple and Samsung Infringed Each Other's Patents
An anonymous reader writes "A U.S. jury concluded Friday that Samsung had infringed on two of Apple's patents and that Apple had infringed on one of Samsung's patents. Prior to the trial, the judge had ruled that Samsung had infringed on one other Apple patent. Samsung will receive $158,400 in damages, although they had requested just over $6 million. Apple will receive $119.6 million in damages, although they had requested just over $2 billion and a ban on certain Samsung phones. Some say that a sales ban is unlikely to be approved by the judge. The jury is scheduled to return on Monday to resolve what appears to be a technical mistake in their verdict on one of the patents, and Apple may gain a few hundred thousand dollars in their damages award as a result."
Totally worth it. (For the lawyers making baaaaaaaaank)
Samsung will receive $158,400 in damages, although they had requested just over $6 million. Apple will receive $119.6 million in damages, although they had requested just over $2 billion [...]
Samsung demand a reasonable about and is granted peanuts. Apple make obscene demand and is granted smaller, but still obscene, amount. THE SYSTEM WORK!
1. A method for doing stuff on a thing. Actually it's a modern patent, so the mere idea of using a thing to do stuff without bothering to elucidate the useful information which is how.
2. The claim of (1) but like on a computer.
3. The claim of (2) but like totally using the internet.
4. The claim of (3) but like on a device but with a means of communication.
5. The claim of (4) where the device is also portable.
6. yeah and battery powered too.
7. and uses like a radio.
8. like 7 but may or may not do voice communication.
9. like any of the above with with a touch screen.
10. The claim of (9) whereby the touch screen represents physical elements
11. And the claim of 11 where it doesn't,
12. ooh and maybe rounded corners too.
13. The claim of (1) but this one is so obtusely worded that if you manage to read it correctly (and we're pretty sure neither the judge, patent examininers or jury will) we atually managed to patent the idea of using buttons on a portable device so lolz to you.
Sure I'm cynical, but whenever I see a patent in my area of speciality it's either the vague idea of doing something that people have been trying to do unsucessfully for ages, a totally obvious aggregation of two things that really is obvious to anyone in the field who happens to have that problem and of course, completely not novel in any way at all and has simply been done before in its entirety.
Not to say all patents are bad, but it's the woeful 99.9% giving the remaining .1% a bad name.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You think if Samsung do the gangnam style, the jury will realize their mistake and overturn the verdict ?
Out of my mind. Back in 5 mins.
Its us the consumer who ends up picking up the tab for the legal bills, and in the end we just find out what we all knew already, they all steal each others ideas. Thanks Apple.
What the mods failed to see with the GP is that the American jury is going to have some prejudices against the foreign company - especially an Asian one.
All in all, Apple has this great reputation in the US, it's considered to be the poster boy for innovation and how USA is still #1!
Most Americans have the view that Asian companies do nothing but copy American companies' products, cheapen it, and sell it for less; while costing the jobs of red blooded Americans.
Rule based on law? Ah, the subconscious is an amazing thing. Dan Ariely, Daniel Kahneman and other Behavioral economists have quite a bit of data on how we humans are anything but rational and our decisions are mostly made unconsciously.
Samsung had no chance.
I would have thought the "Look and Feel" --type patent suits were dead and buried after Microsoft won vs. Apple back in the Win3.1 days.
Nope. Microsoft skated on that because of a poorly-worded license contract that was intended to permit them to use Apple's UI ideas in their Mac products.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The NY Times has a summary of the 6 patents involved.
They are:
Which of those 6 patents covers a non-obvious idea?
Yeah more laws is what we need.
Just think of how we got to where we are....
Rick B.
I think that scenario has already played out before a South Korean court.
The summary from the Wall Street Journal:
The Seoul Central District Court rejected all of Samsung's claims against Apple, including a request to pay 100 million won (about US$95,000) in damages. It noted that the two patents are invalid because they can be easily developed using existing technologies.
You can read about it here: http://online.wsj.com/news/art...
In 2012, a Korean court had found that Apple did infringe on 2 standards essential Samsung patents. This is what got Samsung into trouble with the European Union regulators, because you cannot volunteer your technology to become part of a standard and then later hold the industry (or competitors in the industry) to ransom by selectively refusing to license that technology on FRAND terms - this is the same reason that Obama overturned the iPhone ban, by the way.
you cannot volunteer your technology to become part of a standard and then later hold the industry (or competitors in the industry) to ransom by selectively refusing to license that technology on FRAND terms
You're got it backwards. It's Samsung that has "essential" patents and demanding payment but it's Apple that's refusing to pay anything for them. So ironically, thanks to the US's obvious native-company favouritism, a company with essential patents (like Samsung's) can't get money or redress, while a company with trivial, obvious patents (like Apple with rounded corners, hyperlinks, search bars, etc) can sue, and sue, and sue, and sue till the sun dies. Basically, Apple gets to pirate Samsung's essential patents in the US, thanks to govt protectionism.
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