The patent cases involving mobile technology companies have recorded a tremendous increase over the past few years whereby the companies have accused one another on infringement of patents rights as well as violation of the safe competition as provided by various patent protection legislation in the United States and the rest of the world. The ruling of some of these cases end up either in favor of the appellate or the defendant depending on the validity of the evidence as well as to whether the arguments made by both sides is strong enough to convince the jury in their process of making the final decision on the case. As a way of protecting their android technological advancement, Apple Inc. has in the past filed several lawsuits accusing their competing mobile companies such as Motorola, HTC and Samsung on the basis of copyrights violation issues. The recent case on infringement of patent rights is that involving two prominent mobile and computer technology companies, Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Company limited. The two companies have sued one another on a series of legal cases involving violation of copyright in production of several models of Smartphone and tablets computers.
The subsequent Apple versus Samsung legal cases have led to a series of cases not only in the united States but also to other countries where the two companies have a strong market base including United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany and Australia among others. This case brief therefore focuses on the proceedings of this case including the claims that were presented before the jury as well as the supporting evidence that the two companies presented in their arguments. The analysis also focuses on the judge’s ruling on the case as well critique on the ruling of the case as to whether the ruling on compensations worth one billion dollars to Apple Inc. among other rulings involving the banning of some Smart phones and tablets series is justified or not.
Facts of the case
The case involves a series of claims made by Apple Inc whereby the initial lawsuit was filed on April 2011 at the District court of the Northern District of California of the United States. In their claim, Apple presented a federal complaint accusing Samsung Company of infringement of their patent rights, user interface, trademarks as well as the style of some of Samsung’s product specifically some Androids phones and the tablets as well issued a complaint that claimed that Samsung posed an unfair competition by using the complainant’s patent to make similar devices and selling them to the same market segment.
The accusations specifically targeted Samsung’s Galaxy S 4G, Nexus S, Epic 4G and the most used Samsung Galaxy Tab. This according to the plaintiff, the defendant had violated To support their complain, Apple Inc used side by side comparison of various devices form their company and those of Samsung which they argued they were copied from their patent and style. The most particular devices that were used to support the claimed comparison in similarity in the icons displayed for the apps as well as the devices’ packaging were iPhone 3G S from Apple Inc. and i9000 Galaxy S from Samsung Limited Company.
The plaintiff’s lawyers and researchers based their comparison on the two products’ features including the android phones’ applications features as well as their physical resemblance which they argued were similar and hence this indicated that Samsung had copied the features from Apple products to make their own android phone. This evidence was however nullified as it was found out that the applications were tampered with so that they look familiar and as such, the evidence was ruled to be misleading in the court of law.
The most critical claim presented by Apple is that of Trade Dress Infringement claim as indicated under 15 U. S. C. -1114 as well as the U. S. C. 1125 of the patent rights of the United States. This claim argued that Samsung had copied the physical visual aesthetics and iconic visuals packaging prefix design used by Apple in their products including the iPod, iPad and the iPhones in the sales technique which has made their brand unique and distinct. According to the two legal clauses, Apple argued that their Trade Dress specifically that of the unregistered iPad/iPad that had to be protected by law and as such, Samsung Company had violated the above mentioned legal clauses by using the same physical attributes in designing and packaging some of their Android phones and the Galaxy S 10 tablet computer model.
The second claim Apple accused Samsung of infringing their patents including that of their design patents that were similar to their products. The complainant argued that Samsung had violated patent number D504, 889 commonly known as the D889 of the United States in making their Galaxy Tab 10.1 that had similar software contents as those found in Apple’s ipad Tablet. The tablets also had similar design that the consumers could find it difficult differentiating the two products which were from two different manufacturers. Other claims included the infringement of D’604 involving the content universal search method applied in Samsung Galaxy S II. However in their argument, Samsung presented several differences between the products produced by the two companies including several differences including the physical features as well as the internal software features and apps that were displayed in a clearly distinct outlined features. Apart from the claims on the infringement of the products design patents, Apple also presented claims on infringement of the utility patents that had resulted to the dilution of the Claimant’s trade dress and market of their products. These included patent numbers
As a result of the claimed copying or in other words the infringement of the designs and the utility patents, Apple Inc had suffered losses of billions of dollars and thus they demanded for compensation of damages amounting to 2.75 billion Dollars from Samsung Electronics Ltd. The damages were to compensate for the estimated 500 million net loss incurred by Apple as a result of the patent infringement, and the other unreasonable damages amounting to 25 million dollars among other unaccounted damages that resulted from a willful competition by Samsung who had willfully decided to copy Apple’s trade designs and patents as a competitive strategy. In addition, Apple Inc. demanded that Samsung to stop selling their infringed products to the United States mobile technology market as they had a direct impact in confusing Apple’s loyal customers not mentioning the loss in market for their products as well as the forecasted net profits.
Held
After a thorough presentation of verifiable evidences and arguments, the jury ruled the verdict which was in favor of Apple Inc. The evidence presented before the jury on the infringement of Apple’s utility and design patents namely the patents number ‘381 involving the Bounce Back Effect, ‘163 which features the ‘Tap to Zoom’ effect and the On Screen Navigation represented by patent no. 7,844,915 were validly infringed. These features presented before the jury under Judge Lucy Koh found the Samsung Electronics Ltd guilty of willfully infringing these patents and using them on their devices. This according to previous patent legal cases was liable to payment of the damages up to a certain amount.
However, according to the motion and evidence presented by Apple on the infringement of patent number D 087, the jury found that the accused had not violated the trademark and patent right willfully as the complainant had argued. The evidence presented had no scientific fact since Apple had only based their argument that Samsung had copied their patents whereas they did not submit any evidence that showed that Samsung had clear knowledge that they were infringing the products. This ruling was further drawn from the Allen Engineering Corp Vs. Bartell Industries, Inc (Case no. 299F. 3d 1336, 1351, Fed. Cir. 2002).
Ruling
The case was ruled in favor of Apple Inc. whereby it was ruled that Samsung had willfully infringed patents number ‘915 and ‘163 in making some of their products. To this effect, the defendant was demanded to pay 1.049 billion dollars worth of damages to the claimant for the partial compensation of the total damages that claimant suffered as a result of the infringement. The judge however denied the motion presented by Apple Inc. that aimed at stopping the sales of all the Samsung products that had violated the requirements of the US patents rights including that of Nexus sales motion which Samsung won after an appeal. This verdict was reached after Samsung had won a similar case in South Korea where the court ruled that both companies had copied each other’s patents and hence, they had to pay damages to each other as well as the management for both companies to sit down and discuss the future production of Smartphone and tablets technology.
The ruling in favor of Apple Inc. claims is controversial whereby it affects the Smartphone’s future market as well as the future technological development on the devices. This is because there are various electronic companies producing android phones ant tablet computers which share almost similar features with their competing companies. This means that enacting damages on the patent claim gives one company a monopoly advantage over the other company. On the positive side, the ruling that denied banning of the sale of the accused infringed products gives the electronic companies a potential to fully enact a fair competition whereby the consumers will also have a chance of buying the best product. This at the same time gives both companies a chance to develop new technologies that aim at differentiating the features and the designs of their products.
Conclusion
The case of Apple vs. Samsung is an example of copyright protection issue that encourages companies to observe all the patents rights’ of other companies before creating their own designs. The case however leads to distrust between various companies in the same industry whereby the essence of fair competition is affected by the resemblance of the company’s products and services. In addition, the disagreements resulting from the case creates unfavorable business relations especially since Samsung is the main electronics supplier for Apple Inc. Therefore, it is necessary for the two companies CEOs come together and set a lasting agreement on future development of products and services that respect each other’s patent rights and trademarks.
References
Wall, M. (28th July, 2007). Apple vs. Samsung: Case Overview for the Patent Trial of the Century. Retrieved from www.brighthand.com.
