In 2012, Sumsung was ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages for infringing on their patents. Samsung ended up countersuing Apple for $422 million, a case which is still ongoing.
In the lawsuits that Apple has won so far, they accused Samsung of patent infringement ranging from “pinch and zoom” to “bounceback effects” when you scroll down a page. Some of the patents included functions that let you drag documents, rotate by twisting, and other basic tasks. Apparently patent 915 in the case even covered scrolling through documents by only using one finger. Patent 163 covered tapping-to-zoom features. You get the point. Apple patented just about any function that makes it possible to use a touch-screen phone as we know today.
In April, 2013, Samsung released their newest smartphone, the Galaxy S4. Now that Apple wants to add the S4 to their newest patent case against Samsung: Judge Koh ordered Apple to limit patent claims to only five per side, and infringing products to only ten per side.
Judge Koh
The last patent lawsuit (of 2012) featured hundreds of products and patents. In 2012, Judge Koh was so surprised with the audacity of Apple that she said something really surprising herself.
“I mean come on. 75 pages! 75 pages! You want me to do an order on 75 pages, (and) unless you’re smoking crack, you know these witnesses aren’t going to be called when you have less than four hours,” Koh said.
Lee replied “Your honor, I can assure you, I’m not smoking crack,” in a very matter of fact tone. So that’s why this time around Judge Koh is limiting the lawsuit to a handful of products.
Apple is claiming these following Samsung products are infringing their patents:
- Admire
- Captivate Glide
- Conquer 4G
- Dart
- Exhibit II 4G
- Galaxy Nexus
- Galaxy Note
- Galaxy Note 10.1
- Galaxy Note II
- Galaxy Player 4.0
- Galaxy Player 5.0
- Galaxy Rugby Pro
- Galaxy S II
- Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch
- Galaxy S II Skyrocket
- Galaxy S III
- Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
- Galaxy Tab 8.9
- Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
- Illusion
- Stratosphere
- Transform Ultra
Samsung on the other hand claims these Apple products infringe on their patents:
- iPhone 3G
- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 4
- iPhone 4S
- iPhone 5
- iPad
- iPad 2
- iPad 3
- iPad 4
- iPad mini
- iPod Touch (5th generation)
- iPod Touch (4th generation)
- iPod Touch (3rd generation)
- MacBook Air
- MacBook Pro
- iMac
- Mac mini
- Mac Pro
- iTunes (including iTunes Match)
- iCloud
- Apple TV (3rd generation)
- Apple TV (1st generation)
If you look at the lists above you’ll realize that both of these companies are attacking their competition’s entire product lines. You’ll also realize that these patent lawsuits are getting more and more ridiculous every year.
Apple’s second patent trial is scheduled for Spring, 2014. We can only speculate that every single product Apple and Samsung will release up until that date will somehow find its way onto this patent case, or the patent case of 2015, or the patent case of 2016, or 2017. You get the point…
The real question is whether these patent lawsuits actually help the consumer, or harm them.
Article written by Octavian Ristea.
LOL! I’ve been following this suing spree between Apple and Samsung, and all I have to say is I’m glad I’m not Judge Koh, who gets snowed under by tons of paperwork from both sides. Apple came up with truly innovative products and had the foresight to patent every single little thing, then Samsung came along and wanted a piece of the pie (and who could blame them? It’s a huge pie), and Apple had to defend itself (which you can’t blame them for doing either – billions are at stake here).
And what you said cracked me up:
“Apple’s second patent trial is scheduled for Spring, 2014. We can only speculate that every single product Apple and Samsung will release up until that date will somehow find its way onto this patent case, or the patent case of 2015, or the patent case of 2016, or 2017. You get the point…”
As for your question of whether these patent lawsuits are harming consumers – I believe competition is healthy and can motivate manufacturers into making their products better. But when so much money is being wasted on lawsuits instead of being invested into research and product development…who knows what the overall effect will be on the consumer.
Yeah that’s totally right. Apple can’t just “give away” their hard earned patents.
But as you said: “But when so much money is being wasted on lawsuits instead of being invested into research and product development…who knows what the overall effect will be on the consumer.”
We won’t truly know until a century from now. Whereas we know about the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Imperialism, etc. Our present will be dubbed as “Patent Wars” or something. Then someone will be able to look at all the details and see whether it was helpful or not.
http://arstechnica.com/search/?query=patent+troll
Looks like Apple still cares about the consumers:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/10/judge-rules-apple-conspired-to-raise-e-book-prices