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Recent Patent Ruling Likely Won't Phase Apple or Samsung
San Diego – The latest round in what has amounted to a legal boxing match between two of the world’s leaders in smartphone technology has concluded, though many are speculating that the result will do little to cool the dispute. The ruling by a federal jury in California turned up no clear winner, as it found that Samsung copied two of Apples patents and that Apple, in turn, had infringed one of Samsung’s. To further even the score, the jury of four women and four men found that Samsung did not violate two other patents held by Apple.
As a result of the findings, Apple was awarded a fraction of its original demand, with the jury finding it entitled to just under $120 million, a far cry from the $2.2 billion it sought. For its infringement of one of its Korean counterpart’s patents, Apple was ordered to pay Samsung $158,400. Though the damages awarded to Apple likely rivaled the costs the company spent to litigate the matter, the Cupertino giant categorized the outcome as a win, with its spokesperson commenting, “Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products. We are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers.”
The month long trial was finally decided after two days of jury deliberations. On Apple’s side, its allegedly infringed patents included those having to do with its slide to unlock feature, autocorrect, and program synching functions, among others. Samsung focused its accusations against Apple on technology for video features in its smartphones.
Throughout much of the trial, Samsung argued that Apple’s real problem was with Google, which manufactures the Android operating system that the vast majority of all smartphones, not just Samsung’s, run on. Indeed, Samsung’s lawyers even introduced into evidence an email from Steve Jobs, which declared a “holy war” against Google for making Android look and feel so similar to Apple’s iOS. Apple’s team countered that Google had nothing to do with the infringement matters and insisted to the jurors that Samsung’s “illegal strategy has been wildly successful” in its attempting to pass blame to Google.
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