Second Apple v. Samsung Patent Trial Ends With A Partial Victory For Apple, But Far From What It Wanted

from the fizzled-out dept

Fri, May 2nd 2014 6:37pm — Mike Masnick

The second round of Apple v. Samsung patent battles hasn't received quite the same attention, and it appears that it mostly fizzled out with the jury as well. In a late Friday verdict, Apple technically won on two patents which the jury found Samsung infringed. However, three others it found that Samsung did not infringe. Meanwhile, Apple was found to have infringed on one of Samsung's patents. Apple had asked for $2.2 billion -- but the jury awarded it just $119.6 million. Still a significant sum, but only 5% of what Apple was seeking. As Joe Mullin notes:

While Apple "won" this trial, Apple simply lost on damages. There's the best way to describe a number that's such a low proportion of what it was seeking.

From the trial's very beginning, Apple lawyers said that the whole purpose of Samsung presenting two patents of its own and asking for the "small" sum of $6 million was a cynical one: to convince the jurors that patents aren't worth that much.

If that was Samsung's goal—today's verdict is "mission accomplished." Considering litigation at this level is something of a war of attrition; Samsung has shown that it can basically fight Apple to a standstill. It's doubtful that $120 million would cover Apple's legal bill for even this litigation, much less the whole worldwide patent war it launched.

Now, can we go back to actually competing in the marketplace? Eh, doubtful. This isn't over yet.

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Filed Under: patents
Companies: apple, samsung

31 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 May 2014 @ 7:25pm

As the say "If you cannot innovate, litagate"
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Anonymous Coward, 2 May 2014 @ 7:31pm

Apple announces it's latest release...
Apple proudly introduces iSue which is generously supported by iSheep everywhere.
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Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 2 May 2014 @ 7:32pm

Apple Is Neglecting Its Business
Ipad sales have been down year-on-year in 3 of the last 5 quarters. Basically Apple has just one growth product: the Iphone; and even that is not growing as fast as the overall market.

Android and other Linux-based systems are conquering the world, and Apple (along with Microsoft and Intel) really have no idea how to respond to this.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 May 2014 @ 8:47pm

Re: Apple Is Neglecting Its Business
SUE!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 2 May 2014 @ 8:55pm

"Samsung presenting two patents of its own and asking for the "small" sum of $6 million"

6 million? That's it? Those dirty thieves at Apple should be imprisoned for life!

Samsung should have at least asked for (presses the generate button on random number generator) ... Two trillion dollars!!! (Dr. Evil look).
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That One Guy (profile), 2 May 2014 @ 8:58pm

Re: Apple Is Neglecting Its Business
Oh they know how to respond, it's 'Unleash the lawyers, if we can't beat them in the marketplace, we'll attack them in the courts!'
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That One Guy (profile), 2 May 2014 @ 9:02pm

Re:
Actually Samsung's move there was an extremely well played one, by asking for 'only' 6 million for their two patents, while Apple was asking for 2.2 billion for theirs, they make it so Apple is seen as both overvaluing their patents, and being greedy by trying to get as much as they think they can get away with.

Judging by the amount the jury awarded, I'd say it was a gambit well played, and more than paid off.
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That One Guy (profile), 2 May 2014 @ 9:07pm

Rock solid priorities. Sandstone to be specific
'It's doubtful that $120 million would cover Apple's legal bill for even this litigation, much less the whole worldwide patent war it launched.'

Boy, it sure is a good thing they're so focused on 'protecting' themselves that they're willing to throw so much money at the problem, I mean, can you imagine what a waste it would have been had they put that money to other uses, like, I dunno, research and development?
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trparky (profile), 2 May 2014 @ 9:21pm

Re: Rock solid priorities. Sandstone to be specific
But that makes too much sense, we can't have that.
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aldestrawk (profile), 2 May 2014 @ 9:22pm

jury pool
I believe I was going to be on the jury pool for this trial. I had been called to show for a trial on March 31st, just the time this started and the estimate was 6 weeks for it's length. Odds are I would have been dismissed from the jury because I know too much about the issues involved. As it happened, I was hit by a car and fractured my pelvis so I couldn't easily get to court. Was I better off?
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Anonymous Coward, 2 May 2014 @ 9:38pm

Eh, doubtful. This isn't over yet until the fat lady sings

i fixed the article
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Wally, 2 May 2014 @ 11:06pm

I'm sure I'm likely to get flogged for saying this...but I'm glad at least that Apple did win this case. Even if Apple didn't get the amount they wanted, if they hadn't won, a victory for Samsung would've opened the FRAND market to double-dipping through wholesale production.
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Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 3 May 2014 @ 12:14am

Re: a victory for Samsung would've opened the FRAND market to double-dipping
I must admit some of Samsung�s patent counterclaims seemed very questionable. Apple had much smarter lawyers at every turn.

Pity their product-development teams are no longer as smart...
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Wally, 3 May 2014 @ 12:58am

Re: Re: a victory for Samsung would've opened the FRAND market to double-dipping
Well, Apple doesn't have to focus on hardware as much in the smartphone market...They're focusing on OS development for that. They fired the entire iOS team that developed iOS6 and put in a few people from OSX development for iOS7...

This whole thing basically stems from a certain 3G antenna used in the CDMA version of the iPhone 4...You see, Infineon was the designer of that 3G Antenna...and they were allowed to sell those chips to Apple as wholesale. That meant Apple didn't have to pay royalties on the standard essential patents used to design the chips...Specifically, all Samsung did was write the optional BIOS embedded into the logic of those chips. That equated to less than 1/1000% of the patent...

I do have it on good authority that Apple does in fact have a metalergy patent for the graphite-based heat sinks it uses in its mobile devices to dissipate heat. Hardware design might not change externally by design, but the arangement and guts of the devices do.
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G Thompson (profile), 3 May 2014 @ 2:42am

Re:
No.. not the fat lady. Apple will have none of her singing... probably sue her then too.

You see she does have rounded corners
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David, 3 May 2014 @ 5:22am

Re: Rock solid priorities. Sandstone to be specific
Throwing money at "research and development" is not what Apple does. That's the kind of thing Samsung did, coming out with a dozen different products to choose from nobody gets excited about all that much.

What Apple does is figure out which of the dozen products has the best chance for getting traction, then they improve it for a year or two totally in secret, and then they make a big spectacular launch for just that single product that all fanboys then lock onto.

That's the actual problem about their patent sprees: they don't actually have technology which they developed to lock onto. They focus their patents of the 1-2 years of finetuning they did.

And they are right that they are in part responsible for creating a market focused on a particular product (that has been basically available before). But that does not mean that they get to own that market by law.
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broken, 3 May 2014 @ 11:37am

re
Proud to be an American today. Will take any win we can get with the world misunderstanding our superiority in our brain power and all. It's only right that Apple won on two patents and those patents owned by Google were not seen as infringing. Jury was fair to both Apple and Google, and now even to Samsung to have a small claim of victory. Only if the world would be so fair with American activities... like NSA stuffs... /sarcasm

Litigation is never about justice, but about a perception of the application of the law. On criminal side, the innocence project reminds us that juries and judges often get the verdict wrong. In civil litigation, especially on patent on patent trolling, it's never about right and wrongs, but getting most out with very little effort. Apple see the cost of lawyers and litigation fees as cost of doing business-not even a chump change.

Apple also know that they could not careless about those who cannot afford iphones. They have conceded the low cost smartphone market segments to Android. Just like GOP with Tea Party folks, this is all about getting the fanbois and fangirls excitement notched up so that they can keep them loyal and keep pumping money into ieverything.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 May 2014 @ 3:58pm

Re: Re:
Well ... the purpose of the patent system isn't to create 'valuable' patents. Of course govt established monopolies are valuable to those that receive them but that doesn't make those receiving them any more deserving. No one is entitled to a govt established monopoly. Patents should exist only to the extent that they promote the progress and serve a social good. The value of a monopoly privilege to the receiver is irrelevant, the only relevant question when considering the existence and award of a patent is the social value.

Here it's not hard to see that patents aren't really doing society much good. These companies aren't releasing new products because they want patents and they certainly aren't looking to patents to figure out how to build these products (they don't need patents) so the patents are essentially socially useless. The only thing they are resulting in is getting lawyers rich which directs money away from more productive and innovative endeavors and towards litigation.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 May 2014 @ 4:11pm

Re: Re:
The patent is worth whatever my random number generator says it's worth. You dare question the authority of my random number generator app?
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Wally, 3 May 2014 @ 6:17pm

Re: re
I don't quite understand what you're getting at. Samsung lost the case they had against Apple due to wholesale laws. The case was not about fanboyism at all because if Samsung would've been able to collect FRAND royalties off of something wholesale that a company had license to sell...meaning that the company selling wholesale already paid the royalties...it would've set a nasty precedent to allow double dipping...meaning a company could collect on royalties more than once for the same standards essential patent under FRAND.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 May 2014 @ 11:36pm

Re: Re: Re:
Yes, because IP maximalists have rigged it to give large numbers, just Like NSA rigged one to give easy to crack numbers.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 May 2014 @ 11:42pm

Re: re
Litigation is never about justice, but about a perception of the application of the law.

In cases like this it is more like emperors fighting to see who extracts tribute from the most people. Their chosen armies are lawyers, and the field of battle is the court, and the objective is to defeat the opponent, rather than get compliance with the law.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 May 2014 @ 12:18am

$100 million for slide to unlock and making phone numbers clickable? They shouldn't have gotten a single penny!

These patents are so fucking obvious they should never have been granted. Apple's posturing about their brilliantly innovative designs rings hollow, and, together with its portrayal of Samsung as an mindless copycat, comes across like the schoolyard whining of a spoiled brat.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 May 2014 @ 12:26am

Apple to English translator
"Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products."

translation:

"Moooooom... Samsung is copying meeeee!"
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Wally, 4 May 2014 @ 9:49am

Re:
So Samsung wanting to set a precedent to FRAND double dipping through third party wholesale doesn't raise any concern?
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BunkTech, 4 May 2014 @ 2:07pm

cheeky bastards
"Now, can we go back to actually competing in the marketplace? Eh, doubtful. This isn't over yet."
Mike, you are a genius. LOL .

So Apple blaims their crappy product lost sales because samsung copied something ? NAAAAH. Samsung was doing alright even without plagiating. I'm not taking sides, I use NONE of their products both apple and samsung, but apple i acting like a drama queen haha.
I really tend NOT to mention apple and its crappy products when I write about gadget news
Too bad Samsung paid the bill.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 May 2014 @ 5:21pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's not 'rigged' to give large numbers. It chooses a number and the majority of numbers fall in the range of your subjective opinion of large. My random number generator is unbiased. It doesn't know the meaning of 'large' and 'small'. It just picks a random number.

See, with Samsung's patent it picked a relatively smaller number. With Apple's patents it picked a relatively larger number.

You must also consider the range of numbers that it chooses from. If it chooses between zero and a trillion the majority of numbers are going to be larger than if it chooses between zero and a thousand. That's not being 'rigged' that's just giving it more variables to choose among. If anything allowing for larger numbers in the range of numbers to choose from is less rigged because now more numbers have an opportunity to be chosen at random. No number left behind, every number has an equal opportunity to be chosen. If I have it choose between one and a thousand that would be unfair to all the numbers higher than a thousand and that would be rigged.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 May 2014 @ 8:11pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I just got a brilliant idea!!! Maybe I should have it choose between zero and infinity. Then the average number will be [infinity / 2] = infinity. The patent lawyers will be infinitely wealthy.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 5 May 2014 @ 11:12am

Re: Apple announces it's latest release...
Why not just call them what they are: iDiots?
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 5 May 2014 @ 11:51am

Re: Apple Is Neglecting Its Business
If by "the world" you mean "the handheld devices space" then yes. But real computers aren't going anywhere, pundit blowhardery notwithstanding.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 May 2014 @ 12:54pm

Re: Re: Apple Is Neglecting Its Business
Real computers? Seriously?
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