Patents used as a ‘SWORD’

INFRINGEMENT SCAM BETWEEN TWO RIVALS

SAMSUNG V/S IPHONE SCAM I PHONE

SAMSUNG

HONES

BEFORE

AFTER

Along similar lines Samsung released tablet7.o and 10.1

nfringement of patents by Samsung Galaxy ‘s’ and tablets

range of smart phones The war has raged across three continents with each company accusing the other of patent violations to retain their dominance in the $219 billion global Smartphone marketSamsung and Apple have been at war since April 2011, when Apple filed a suit in the US- san Jose California court accusing the South Korean company of slavishly copying the iphone and ipad's patented technologies

DETAILS OF THE SCAM• Apple tried to use Samsung documents to show its rival knowingly violated the iPhone maker's intellectual property rights, while Samsung argues Apple is trying to stifle competition to maintain 'exorbitant' profit, according to court

• Samsung, in this case, responded that Apple had used its patented technology for 3G wireless connectivity without permission, and that it used some of its patented methods, such as sending photos from a camera-equipped phone

• Samsung had denied the charges by apple claiming that it developed its devices independently, seeking $422million for infringement on its wireless patents

Samsung's counterattack against Apple using some of its patents, went nowhere. The jury found that Samsung's patents weren't infringed, and Samsung won't get any of the $422 million it was asking for.

An area of relief for Samsung was that the jury

decided its Galaxy tablets did not look so much like an iPad as to breach "trade dress". But they had to hit with damages for infringing Apple's "utility" patents

RIPPED OFF THEIR PHONE’S DESIGN WITH THE GALAXY RANGE

Apple reported that Samsung user interfaces mimicked its "trade dress", the general cosmetic appearance of its iPhone in a way that could confuse potential customers, document translation, scaling and rotation on a touch screen display," 

Jury also found Samsung infringing utility patents on iPhone's “bounce back effect” such as List scrolling when it comes to scrolling a long list of items “onscreen navigations”, “tap to zoom in $ out” and design patents that covers iPhone's features such as the “home button, rounded corners, tapered edges and onscreen icons.

CONSEQUENCES FACED

On 24th August 2012, the Jury was led by U.S judge Lucy H Koch in San Jose federal court room,

California awarded Apple more than $1.05bn in damages after they found that Samsung smart phones and tablets infringed the iphone’s trade dress, utility and design patents

Apple submitted a list of 8 Samsung galaxy phones

The Seoul central district court ordered Apple to remove the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1 and iPad 2 from shelves in South Korea, citing they infringed Samsung's telecommunications patents.

The court also ruled that Samsung ripped off their patents and banned sales of the Galaxy S2 in South Korea.

Sales of devices recently released by Samsung and Apple including the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S3 smart phones were not affected.

In a court filing, Judge Lucy Koh has denied Apple's request for a permanent sales ban on 26 Samsung products found to have infringed its patents in a jury verdict . Writing that "this Court had already performed significant irreparable harm analysis in this case“

Koh concluded that Apple didn't establish the case for a permanent injunction on Samsung's products. Apple needed to prove that the infringing features were what that were directly driving "consumer demand for the accused product" in order to obtain the ban.

Despite being a driving force in phone development since the iPhone was launched in 2007, Apple has only 19 percent share of the worldwide Smartphone market, according to IDC. Mainly the high price of the iPhone keeps it out of the reach of many consumers.

Samsung surpassed Apple as world's largest vendor of smart phones in 2012, and now has 30 percent of the global share.

Implications

Will the aftermath negatively affect the consumer’s directly?

Consumers have the right to choice and they know what are they buying when it comes to Samsung products

Thus, Samsung is taking all necessary measures to ensure the availability of their products and they continue to innovate and offer choices for the potential consumers

RECOMMENDATIONS

Samsung should keep a tap on the patented models and features of other company before designing or adding feature to its own model

Whenever the company designs some new models, it should get its patent claimed in the lawsuit as further delay could lead to violation of patents against other company

It should always try to redesign and come out with its new technologies