The verdict is in: Samsung to pay Apple $120m chump change, but gets tiny rebate The jury in the latest case of Apple verses Samsung patent infringement has reached a verdict just in time for a balmy California weekend, fining the Korean firm $119.6 million for infringing on two of Cupertino's patents. "We are grateful to the jury and the court for their service," an Apple spokeswoman told The Register. " …
Maybe you should read a bit more yourself. Xerox decided to jump on the band wagon when Apple were fighting Microsoft. The courts looked at their case and threw it out. Part of the reason for that was that Apple had paid in pre-IPO shares to look at what Xerox were working on and commercialise it, partly because MacOS was very different to Xerox Star (Star didn't have the concepts of a file finder and redrawing uncovered windows for example).
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Perhaps someone should patent the ability to install software on a mobile device, perhaps from a preloaded "app store" after all - the first iPhone did not have the ability to do so. Oh... but wait... that's right - Apple already applied for a patent to install and manage software running on a mobile device. God help the rest of technology when that patent is granted...
Nearly every case I've seen in the last few years, relating to Apple, Samsung, Nokia or whoever else in this patent fighting party, seems to be frivolous and shouldn't have been brought. The reason being that the patents in question nearly always have at least one of these flaws:
1. Obvious and not innovative
2. Prior art exists before the patent was logged
The only cases that seem to have any merit are those regarding licensing of FRAND patents, and those are about things fundamental to the operation of phones using standards.
What we seem to be seeing though is that those foreign companies that hold FRAND patents seem to be treated like crap by the US justice system, and those who hold crappy "slide to unlock" patents get handed huge amounts of money. Those foreign companies aren't able to block sale of US produced goods, but US companies are able to block import of foreign devices.
The entire US system is flawed from a perspective of protectionism, from a faulty patent system and from a judicial system that seems unable to understand even the simplest of technologies.
Prior Art for the purposes of applying for and receiving a patent is not the same Prior Art used to defend oneself against alleged infringement.
The USPTO looks at a very limited number of sources for Prior Art when granting a patent. The source list is publicly available and is updated for each category/industry several times a year. If those sources nor the USPTO library don't contain Prior Art then it does not qualify as Prior Art for the purposes of granting a patent.
If somebody sued you for alleged infringement you can present any source you want to prove the patent should be nullified and the Judge will determine if that source is admissible.
I've been on all sides of this and the public is seriously misinformed about what Prior Art is and how it is used. I feel as though I've got a decent handle on it. The licensing from my patents is a considerable source of income for me. There are as many caveats, exceptions and special cases in Patent Law as there are with any other aspect of US law. Best not to get involved until you've been exposed to them. It is not a simple thing. Whether or not it should be simple is a matter of opinion. But the fact is it isn't simple and that's the reality you've got to deal with.
Whatever the system, it is broken. That's my point. If the USPTO isn't doing a proper search for prior art, then US patents aren't worth the paper they're written on.
It should be simple. If you invent something, and by invent I mean are the first person to come up with the idea of how to do something unique and innovative (not swipe to unlock), then you should be able to get a patent. In order to get that patent, a thorough search should be performed - at the claimant's cost. Just like if you go and buy a building, or whatever - the cost of doing it is entirely up to you as the buyer.
Anyone with any amount of credible technical knowledge knows that to patent such a thing as slide [sliding your finger across a touchscreen] to unlock [perform action] would have to declare it - therefore having knowledge and an opinion on the case means that they would be disqualified from the jury - as has already happened twice now (ignoring the fact that jury members objectivity relies upon their own testimony that they can be objective):
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/apple-v-samsung-jury-selection-cuts-one-apple-employee-and-a-googler/
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/tech-novices-set-to-determine-the-fate-of-apple-v-samsung/
What this means is you're left with a jury of people who have no understanding of how technology works - that it's all just magic inside a small casing with a screen - therefore if one screen does something the other screen does - then they must have copied!
So my question is, why hasn't someone yet filed a patent for "pull to catapult"? They could make a lot of money suing Rovio - Apple is 'sliding' to 'unlock', Rovio is 'pulling' to 'catapult' - totally and obviously completely different!
I don't think you understand how the legal system works. The idea is that the job of the lawyers is to convince a fair and impartial jury that their argument is correct. The jury don't need to be experts in the field (do you want people accused of murder to be tried by a jury of killers?), just to be able to understand the arguments. The arguments here weren't that technical or complicated, nor would have a juror having the technical knowledge of how to code this have disqualified them (bias toward either side, like you're showing, would).
The article said something like ''$119.6 million isn't that much in the overall scheme of things, they've spend half that amount on legal fees".
Then that's twice as good as they hoped. Trolls (non producing litigators) aside, they're different, corporate law underwent a massive shift during the late 1990's. Prior to dotcom v1 in house legal was mostly a cost center like IT still is. You've got to have them, but they don't generate any revenue by themselves (like facilities maintenance and security) and they're really expensive. Doubly so because they don't bring anything in.
Conversations at conferences during the mid-90's morphed into their own mini-conferences and everything changed. Now, instead of having legal teams that just sucked money, you had a revenue generating business unit that paid for itself (including all their regular bullshit tasks) and could potentially turn a profit. That's a big, big deal you know. Accountants and investors go home and masturbate over things like that.
As with most revenue producing business units, Legal now operates fairly autonomously within the company. They pick and choose who to sue, for how much and allocate the resources to get it done. Most companies have Legal as a unit of Operations and it's extremely rare that any of the Executives, including the CEO and Board know who they are suing or being sued by. The general public knows as much about most ongoing litigation as a company's top officers, at least until cases are settled. Ongoing litigation doesn't affect anyone's financials until the case is closed and no appeals are occurring or available; but that's an entirely different matter
My point, is that if Legal covers just their costs the results on the books are far larger than they would be if the same money came through product/service sales. If Legal gets a big win like this the bottom line impacts are staggeringly large.
I felt the distinction in how Legal has evolved was important to note. You can't compare the dollar amounts of Legal directly with the amounts of sales or margins. Legal has no inventory tied to it or support costs it doesn't cover itself (ideally) and a nine or ten figure expense becomes just another cost of revenue. Not that it makes a difference to consumers, they get fucked either way, but hopefully the information at least sheds some light on why IP litigation has become so popular. It's a 3x win over sales.
Samsung's own lawyer said Apple would be dancing in the streets of Cupertino if they got $100 million.
They got $120 million.
The bottom line is that Samsung has once again been labeled a thief and a copycat in a court of law, and world opinion.
Samsung spent substantially more than $158,000 to go out and buy a couple of patents so they could even have a countersuit against Apple. Even when they "won", they lost.
Let the dancing begin!
Are the lawyers. What a ridiculous pointless court case. The judge should fine both companies 100% of 1 years worldwide revenue for being such a ridiculous waste of resources and wasting court time, that would stop them bringing any more ridiculous cases again. Neither of them invented any of the ideas in question with these patents, they both stood on the shoulders of giants before them, so they both deserve nothing.
"http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/04/10/how-samsung-google-teamed-up-to-steal-apple-data-detectors-for-android"
I am sure that article makes many an outraged Apple fan feel very pious, sadly it doesn't explain how Apple (and others) infringing Wireless FRAND patents with impunity is going to encourage Samsung et al to continue sinking $bns into developing mobile standards so that we don't have to use the same brand of phone to communicate with each other.
My coat contains a 1999 vintage Samsung phone that shamelessly identifies phone numbers in texts and offers to add them to the contacts list. ;)
It has been widely reported that the patents that Samsung asserted in this case were purchased from a 3rd party specifically to have something to throw at Apple. I have no idea whether they were FRAND or not (I cannot be bothered to check at this point).
Apple is not obliged to allow itself to be gouged on FRAND patents and while they are obligated to pay for those patents that are not extinguished through the purchase of the implementation from 3rd parties who themselves have already paid (think comms chips and Motorola's reprehensible attempts to accomplish this), there is a requirement for all the elements of the FRAND acronym to be in place.
If you read up on Samsung, you will discover they have a long history of 'copying' their competitors products, getting sued by competitor, suing back at competitor and then dragging the whole legal stuff out in the courts for as long as possible.
If it hadn't been Apple, it would have been another phone company. Would the vitriol thrown against Apple be quite as strong if it was Nokia suing Samsung for patent infringement?
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/06/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent-war
Excellent article.
I had forgotten about a couple of those Shamsung episodes. They are, and always have been a tawdry little copyist, willing to bet that no fine will be big enough to dent the profits available to them by stealing others' work.
A pity more of their executives and employees have not been gaoled. More crooked executives behind bars for long sentences is the best way forward to improve corporate behaviour.
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