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Samsung Must Pay Apple $539 Million For Infringing iPhone Design Patents, Jury Finds (cnet.com)
Samsung must pay Apple $539 million for infringing five patents with Android phones it sold in 2010 and 2011, a jury has found in a legal fight that dates back seven years. "The unanimous decision, in the U.S. District Court in San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley, is just about halfway between what the two largest mobile phone makers had sought in a high-profile case that reaches back to 2011," reports CNET. From the report: The bulk of the damages payment, $533,316,606, was for infringing three Apple design patents. The remaining $5,325,050 was for infringing two utility patents. Samsung already had been found to infringe the patents, but this trial determined some of the damages. The jury's rationale isn't clear, but the figure is high enough to help cement the importance of design patents in the tech industry. Even though they only describe cosmetic elements of a product, they clearly can have a lot of value.
Samsung showed its displeasure and indicated the fight isn't over. "Today's decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages. We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers," Samsung said.
Samsung showed its displeasure and indicated the fight isn't over. "Today's decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages. We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers," Samsung said.
They already fought it all the way up the chain. The Supreme Court overturned a previous award of $399M and sent it back to the lower court for re-adjudication, because they agreed with Samsung that the 3 design patents for minor little details like rounded corners, a screen that takes up most of the front face, and a shiny black finish were not a substantial enough part of the overall product that Apple should be entitled to their entire profits under a 19th century law intended to protect the designs of ornaments with very simple functional purpose and deriving most of their value from their ornamental design. And now the home jury decides to punish Samsung further for daring to ask for fairness in the award amount by raising it beyond the total amount of profit.
Watching on from the other side of the world, it is sad to see America reduced to tribalism in their political and judicial decision making like this. Everything has become about supporting the home team, and sticking it hard to the opposition.
I have observed (tech, pharma, oil, steel, agri..) American courts are favouring home companies with govt too eager to support cases. Fair trade rules are becoming a myth in land of freedom.
For some unknown reason, probably dating back to the creation of the USPTO, in the United States an Industrial Design (a form of IP) is, uniquely, referred to as a Design "Patent", even though it's not a patent but instead describes some aspect of a product or item's appearance. For example if you try to copy a Ferrari you will be infringing on the Industrial Design (Design Patent in the US), not on some functional mechanism.
One rather famous Design Patent is for the Q-Ray Bracelet, which covers the shape of the bracelet itself, but in advertising it's implied that there is a "Patent" on it's function as a healing device. There isn't.
Every other nation on Earth refers to this form of IP as a (registered) Industrial Design.
Well, Samsung copied the phone design, the UI and even the box it shipped in. They also debated it in internal emails.
Now, in a court of law you can't just stand up with a phone in each hand and say "look how alike they are, your Honor, what do you think?", instead you have to argue in great detail for each individual bit, such as corner shape/radius, button shape or feel, individual icons, etc. etc.. and then finally bring it to a conclusion. Thus, out of context we end up with the silly rounded corner debacle while the real case covered a lot more ground.
That Samsung copied Apple is no longer in dispute. The court has ruled that they did on these 3 design patents and 2 utility patents (I don't remember how many patents Apple originally claimed they had infringed) and Samsung has already exhausted or given up its appeals on that. The question now is how much is Apple entitled to for that infringement. For the two utility patents, there seems to be no dispute that $5M is the right ballpark, but for the 3 design patents - 1. a shiny blank rounded rectangle front face, 2. A tapered bezel, speaker hole and button, 3. a grid of icons on a screen (one of 139 screenshots in the design patent at issue) - the amount of $539M (Samsung's profit on the disputed products was $399M) is a bit ridiculous. Samsung actually prevailed in this case in getting the first two patents limited to the portion of the phone that was included in the design patent, not the whole phone, but somehow this jury came up with a bigger figure than the previous amount that was based on the whole phone infringing. And apparently since they can't see where the software physically applies to, the icons are still judged to apply to the whole phone (Samsung was trying to argue that only the display should be included).
Except in this instance both Samsung and LG released products that look similar to the iPhone long before it was even announced.
Shiny slab that is mostly screen is just where the market was going. Apple's bullshit design patent is just patent trolling. They took something trivial and obvious that others were already doing and used it to extract money from their victims.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If you knew you had a point, you wouldn't feel the need to insult the person you are talking too.
The Supreme Court ruling was actually in favor of Samsung, and it was 8-0.
The question before the Court was how damages were determined. The jury had not read the jury instructions and in fact violated those instructions in multiple ways. Samsung asked for a retrial and SCOTUS unanimously agreed the $1 billion award in favor of Apple was arrived at improperly and reversed. In other words, Samsung won 100% at the Supreme Court.
The German manufacturer, Braun might like a word if it still had an independent existence. Dieter Rams their industrial designer was an inspiration to Jony Ive and in particular the rectangular device and display with rounded edges. If you have a display with rounded edges, then rounded icons are a an obvious extension.
Yawn. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/te...
Dieter Rams on Apple
I have always regarded Apple products – and the kind words Jony Ive has said about me and my work – as a compliment. Without doubt there are few companies in the world that genuinely understand and practise the power of good design in their products and their businesses.
https://www.macrumors.com/2016...
Dieter Rams and Over 100 Top Designers Support Apple in Longstanding Samsung Lawsuit
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
It's California, where being a successful corporation is a crime unles you produce Hipster products like Apple.
Funny how Samsung wasn't even a successful phone company until they copied Apple's phones.
That is entirely incorrect. Samsung was making cell phones several years before Apple had released any phones at all. They were the third largest manufacturer in 2005 and 2006, and in 2007 they passed Motorola for second (Nokia was still way ahead of everyone else at the time).
All designs are the sum of their individual elements. The thing is, when you hold up item A and item B and you can't tell them apart, it starts to become fairly obvious that one copied the other. Especially when internal memos back up those claims.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Honestly dont see how a box shape for a cellphone wouldn't be obvious. but as my subject line says.....
Jack of all trades,master of none