Apple, Samsung Face New iPhone Damages Trial (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California issued her order late on Sunday, 10 months after the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a $399 million award against Samsung, whose devices include the Galaxy. The three Apple patents covered design elements of the iPhone such as its black rectangular front face, rounded corners, and colorful grid of icons for programs and apps. Koh's order is a setback for Apple, which called a retrial unnecessary and said the award should be confirmed. The $399 million represented profit from Samsung's sales of infringing smartphones, though the South Korean company has said it deserved reimbursement if it prevailed in the litigation. It was part of a $548 million payment that Samsung made to Apple in December 2015. The legal dispute concerned whether the "article of manufacture" for which Samsung owed damages included its entire smartphones, or only parts that infringed Apple patents.

Comments

Weak

[Tablizer]

The three Apple patents covered design elements of the iPhone such as its black rectangular front face, rounded corners, and colorful grid of icons for programs and apps.

All of these existed in other prior products, just not together. In my opinion, there should be more than just 3 (potentially existing) concepts to be considered a valid design patent. Three is weak.

Re:Weak

[Tablizer]

I think the "Zero Gravity Toilet" in "2001: A Space Odyssey" had all three in 1968. . .

4) Full of crap.

Re:Weak

[Solandri]

It's worth noting that Samsung won the same case regarding tablets - they convinced the jury that the elements in the Apple design patent for the iPad already existed in other products and popular culture (2001, Star Trek, etc) long before the iPad. In fact if you look at Samsung's digital picture frame from 2006, it's pretty clear their Galaxy Tab simply re-used that face design, rather than copying the iPad. And if anything, it was Apple who copied Samsung. (Except of course Samsung never got a design patent on a black rectangle with rounded corners - because that'd be silly and the USPTO would never grant it, right?)

The only reason Samsung lost to the design patent on phones was because they missed a filing deadline. They'd put together a document showing pre-production models and design concepts of Samsung phones prior to the iPhone's release. Demonstrating that their phone designs already incorporated all the elements in Apple's design patent before the patent was granted. Unfortunately, Judge Koh prohibited Samsung from showing that evidence to the jury because they missed the filing deadline.

BTW, a lot of other Apple patents should never have been granted. Here's pinch-to-zoom in 1988. And the "bounce" animation is just the transient response of an underdamped second order system that every freshman engineering student learns.

Insane patents

[markdavis]

>"The three Apple patents covered design elements of the iPhone such as its black rectangular front face, rounded corners, and colorful grid of icons for programs and apps."

Ridiculous. Every full touch screen phone both before and after the iPhone has been rectangular and with a black face with rounded corners. That is so generic that it should have been immediately rejected by the patent office. What, should phones have sharp corners that cut the user? Should they had a red or purple face for the LCD screen? I have never seen anything but a rectangular phone... or was circular or triangular the norm?

And "colorful grid of icons"? Really? Hasn't ANYONE at the patent office used a computer or phone for the last zillion years? Every PalmOS phone, which proceeded the iPhone had such a screen. Even generic flip phones of the time had such colorful grids of icons for programs and launchers.

Batman and Joker

[VY99]

These two are like the Batman and Joker...they're destined to do this dance forever

rounded corners?

[AndyKron]

Fuck this country if rounded corners are worthy of a patent.

Re:Lawyer Money Machine

[james_gnz]

I bet both sides have paid almost as much to their Attorneys, staff, legal fees, investigations, etc. as either stand to get from the lawsuit.

I wouldn't be surprised if the legal costs for both sides were four times higher than the potential damages for infringement. If we exclude patents on chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the overall cost of patent litigation to the defendant was around four times the overall profit from patent licensing in 1999, and rising (see p. 15 of the reference below). (I know design patents are different, but this is the most relevant study I know of.)

Bessen, James & Meurer, Michael J. (2008) Patent failure