Apple vs. Samsung Back story
Two companies recently involved in a monumental lawsuit, Apple and Samsung, both deal in electronics that are both in competition and in support of each other. Apple, founded in 1976, has been a manufacturer of computers, phones, music players, and other technology services. Samsung, originally founded in 1938, entered into the electronics market in the late 1960s, and has thrived by manufacturing electronics in several different technologies. Samsung is also a component supplier for Apple smartphones (DRAM and SSDs in MacBook Pros, the A4 and A5 processors in the iPhone, iPod touch, Apple TV, and iPad), making them corporate allies in a sense. However, despite being dependent on one another, as separate entities, they are competitors in the mobile phone market. Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. shows how serious the two are about their intellectual property regarding utility patents (Patel, The Verge).
The case began on April 15, 2011, when Apple filed a complaint in Northern California courts and cited the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab as allegedly infringing on three utility patents and four design patents. As a very basic definition, utility patents regarding software and design patents pertaining to trade dress. Apple filed the lawsuit based on the violation of several of its software functionality patents and the trade dress registrations of numerous of its devices and their packaging. There were also additional violations of intellectual property claims against Samsung Captivate, Continuum, Vibrant, Indulge, Mesmerize, Showcase, Fascinate, Gem, Transform, Intercept, and Acclaim phones based on the infringement of its intellectual properties. Apple has also claimed intellectual property infringement against the user interface of TouchWiz displayed on Samsung devices (Wingfield, 24 August 2012, NYT).
Samsung responded to these complaints by counter suing Apple arguing that Apple infringed on Samsung’s patents. Additionally, Samsung claimed many functions were created before Apple began using these functions. On August, 24 2012, $1.049 billion in damages was awarded to Apple. On the other hand, Samsung was rewarded with no money in damages regarding their counter appeal. The court decided the verdict by heavily favoring Apple and their patents (Wingfield, 24 August 2012, NYT; Gallagher, TechCrunch). In addition, on 21 September 2012, Apple filed additional requests to the courts for $707 million USD in damages to be paid by Samsung and a complete ban on 26 Samsung products, underscoring the fact Samsung had knowingly copied Apple’s products and unlawfully hurt their business income. A final ruling on 6 December 2012 will decide the final amounts to be paid by Samsung, including compensatory and punitive damages (Toor, 22 September 2012, The Verge).
On November 20th, 2012 Apple added Samsung's Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III Mini, Rugby Pro, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 WiFi, and the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 to the patent lawsuit that the company filed in the state of California. These device's were specifically added to the lawsuit because they use either Android's 4.2 Jelly Bean update or the Ice Cream Sandwich update as part of their operating system. Apple claims that these systems infringe on several of Apple's patents, many of which can be found under the "Patent Infringements" section of this portal (Etherington, The Verge, Nov 26, 2012).
In response Samsung added Appel's iPhone 5, iPad mini, 4th generation iPod, and the 5th generation iPad touch to their patent infringement counter-lawsuit. According to Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch.Com, (a reputable website that has followed the lawsuit very closely) "Samsung claims they infringe two UMTS wireless patents in the cellular variants, as well as patents related to features both cellular and Wi-Fi versions of Apple’s newest tablets and media player. The patent which affects the iPod touch specifically deals with volume control mechanisms on a portable media playing device" (Etherington, The Verge, Nov 22, 2012).
On December 7th, 2012 the United State Patent and Trademark Office sent out a preliminary notice to the office of Apple, Inc. to notify the company that one of the most important patents in the case has been found invalid. The patent in question is the infamous "multitouch patent" which was awarded for Apple's creation of "A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed" (Patent No.7663607) In summary, this patent essentially covers all of the iPhone's, iPad's, and iPod Touch's multitouch or "finger-gesturing" functionality. This is a very significant update to the case because Apple has used this patent in hundreds of lawsuits around the world. We can expect Apple to file for an appeal within the next couple of days and for the appeal and patent review process to begin shortly after. This situation is not unlike the situation that is currently taking place with Steve Jobs' iconic Rubber Band Patent which was deemed invalid by the USPTO on October 22nd, 2012, but has not yet significantly affected the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit because a review is still taking place (Etherington, The Verge, Dec 7 2012).
The case began on April 15, 2011, when Apple filed a complaint in Northern California courts and cited the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab as allegedly infringing on three utility patents and four design patents. As a very basic definition, utility patents regarding software and design patents pertaining to trade dress. Apple filed the lawsuit based on the violation of several of its software functionality patents and the trade dress registrations of numerous of its devices and their packaging. There were also additional violations of intellectual property claims against Samsung Captivate, Continuum, Vibrant, Indulge, Mesmerize, Showcase, Fascinate, Gem, Transform, Intercept, and Acclaim phones based on the infringement of its intellectual properties. Apple has also claimed intellectual property infringement against the user interface of TouchWiz displayed on Samsung devices (Wingfield, 24 August 2012, NYT).
Samsung responded to these complaints by counter suing Apple arguing that Apple infringed on Samsung’s patents. Additionally, Samsung claimed many functions were created before Apple began using these functions. On August, 24 2012, $1.049 billion in damages was awarded to Apple. On the other hand, Samsung was rewarded with no money in damages regarding their counter appeal. The court decided the verdict by heavily favoring Apple and their patents (Wingfield, 24 August 2012, NYT; Gallagher, TechCrunch). In addition, on 21 September 2012, Apple filed additional requests to the courts for $707 million USD in damages to be paid by Samsung and a complete ban on 26 Samsung products, underscoring the fact Samsung had knowingly copied Apple’s products and unlawfully hurt their business income. A final ruling on 6 December 2012 will decide the final amounts to be paid by Samsung, including compensatory and punitive damages (Toor, 22 September 2012, The Verge).
On November 20th, 2012 Apple added Samsung's Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III Mini, Rugby Pro, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 WiFi, and the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 to the patent lawsuit that the company filed in the state of California. These device's were specifically added to the lawsuit because they use either Android's 4.2 Jelly Bean update or the Ice Cream Sandwich update as part of their operating system. Apple claims that these systems infringe on several of Apple's patents, many of which can be found under the "Patent Infringements" section of this portal (Etherington, The Verge, Nov 26, 2012).
In response Samsung added Appel's iPhone 5, iPad mini, 4th generation iPod, and the 5th generation iPad touch to their patent infringement counter-lawsuit. According to Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch.Com, (a reputable website that has followed the lawsuit very closely) "Samsung claims they infringe two UMTS wireless patents in the cellular variants, as well as patents related to features both cellular and Wi-Fi versions of Apple’s newest tablets and media player. The patent which affects the iPod touch specifically deals with volume control mechanisms on a portable media playing device" (Etherington, The Verge, Nov 22, 2012).
On December 7th, 2012 the United State Patent and Trademark Office sent out a preliminary notice to the office of Apple, Inc. to notify the company that one of the most important patents in the case has been found invalid. The patent in question is the infamous "multitouch patent" which was awarded for Apple's creation of "A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed" (Patent No.7663607) In summary, this patent essentially covers all of the iPhone's, iPad's, and iPod Touch's multitouch or "finger-gesturing" functionality. This is a very significant update to the case because Apple has used this patent in hundreds of lawsuits around the world. We can expect Apple to file for an appeal within the next couple of days and for the appeal and patent review process to begin shortly after. This situation is not unlike the situation that is currently taking place with Steve Jobs' iconic Rubber Band Patent which was deemed invalid by the USPTO on October 22nd, 2012, but has not yet significantly affected the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit because a review is still taking place (Etherington, The Verge, Dec 7 2012).
Relevance and Importance of the Case
The relevance and importance of the case is based upon Apple accusing Samsung of patent infringement relating to utility patents, and more specifically software utility patents. Apple claimed that Samsung had infringed on a number of its utility patents, may of which can be found under the "Patent Infringements" section of this port. Apple claims that Samsung not only infringed on these software utility patents, but that these utility patents were found on the majority of Samsung's products on the market and vital to Samsung's success in the mobile market. Apple's claims have now led to possibly the largest and most significant software utility patent lawsuit in U.S. history.
To remedy the situation, Samsung turned their focus to the appeal process and begun to brainstorm how to convince the court to overturn their decisions. The United States Patent and Trademark Office simplifies patent infringement by explaining, “infringement of a patent consists of the unauthorized making, using, offering for sale, or selling any patented invention within the United States or U.S. Territories, or importing into the United States of any patented invention during the term of the patent. If a patent is infringed, the patentee may sue for relief in the appropriate federal court. The patentee may ask the court for an injunction to prevent the continuation of the infringement and may also ask the court for an award of damages because of the infringement. In such an infringement suit, the defendant may raise the question of the validity of the patent, which is then decided by the court. The defendant may also aver that what is being done does not constitute infringement. Infringement is determined primarily by the language of the claims of the patent and, if what the defendant is making does not fall within the language of any of the claims of the patent, there is no literal infringement.”
This case will be held as a precedent for thousands of cases in the near future and will ultimately define the United States’ stance on both the registration and enforcement software utility patents. Up until this point there has not been a court case of this magnitude dealing with software functionality patents, so the court’s decision will be used a guideline for almost every case dealing with this issue in the future. We can certainly expect for the “Opinion of the Court” section of the court documents to be an especially important section as it will outline how the court and jury came to its conclusion. The final result of this case (not only the original case, but also the stemming appeals) will affect not only the mobile device industry, but also the entire technology industry.
To remedy the situation, Samsung turned their focus to the appeal process and begun to brainstorm how to convince the court to overturn their decisions. The United States Patent and Trademark Office simplifies patent infringement by explaining, “infringement of a patent consists of the unauthorized making, using, offering for sale, or selling any patented invention within the United States or U.S. Territories, or importing into the United States of any patented invention during the term of the patent. If a patent is infringed, the patentee may sue for relief in the appropriate federal court. The patentee may ask the court for an injunction to prevent the continuation of the infringement and may also ask the court for an award of damages because of the infringement. In such an infringement suit, the defendant may raise the question of the validity of the patent, which is then decided by the court. The defendant may also aver that what is being done does not constitute infringement. Infringement is determined primarily by the language of the claims of the patent and, if what the defendant is making does not fall within the language of any of the claims of the patent, there is no literal infringement.”
This case will be held as a precedent for thousands of cases in the near future and will ultimately define the United States’ stance on both the registration and enforcement software utility patents. Up until this point there has not been a court case of this magnitude dealing with software functionality patents, so the court’s decision will be used a guideline for almost every case dealing with this issue in the future. We can certainly expect for the “Opinion of the Court” section of the court documents to be an especially important section as it will outline how the court and jury came to its conclusion. The final result of this case (not only the original case, but also the stemming appeals) will affect not only the mobile device industry, but also the entire technology industry.
Timeline of the Apple vs. Samsung Case
This is an interactive timeline. You have the ability to zoom in and out, scroll left and right, and click on events to bring up details and links.