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German court rules in favor of Motorola and Samsung on Apple’s ‘touch event model’ patent

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by Robert Nazarian on
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Apple claims that both Samsung and Motorola infringed on their touch event model patent (EP2098948), but the Mannheim Regional Court just came down with a decision in favor of Samsung and Motorola. The touch event model patent shouldn’t be mistaken for multitouch. This one is a fairly broad patent (not like all the others aren’t) that covers the way the operating system reports or disregards touch events to applications. This could have been a mess for both Samsung and Motorola because if Apple had won, the result would be a need to rewrite, recompile, and reinstall a lot of apps since numerous applications rely on the operating system functionality.

The defense was based on the fact that Android does not store a multi-touch flag in association with each “view”, and this same argument was already successful in the UK and the Netherlands. I’m sure Apple will appeal this ruling just like they did with those.

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Apple blatantly copies the Swiss Federal Railway clock for iPad clock app

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by Robert Nazarian on
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock or on a different planet you already know that Apple has accused many for blatantly copying their UI and hardware. Of course Samsung is at the top of that list and already owes Apple $1 billion. Yesterday, Apple released iOS 6 and it appears the clock on the iPad is an exact copy of the station clock at the Swiss Federal Railway.

The iconic clock was originally designed by Hans Hilfiker in 1944 and the railway owns both the trademark and copyright for the design. It looks like the railway is already aware of the situation and is demanding compensation from Apple for its usage. I highly doubt Apple has any artwork dating back to the 1940′s showing this design, and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter based on how the courts look at things. Just how much the Swiss Railway could be awarded for this is anyone’s guess, but with the amount of iPad’s in existence, it can’t be cheap.

source: gizmodo

Samsung Claims Android’s Multitouch Software Is Not As Good As Apple’s In Dutch Courts

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by Roy Alugbue on
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Android’s multitouch software is not as good as Apple’s multitouch software? That’s what Samsung is claiming in order to avoid a recall and sales ban of its Android smartphones in a patent suit in the Dutch Court of Hague. In this round of the Apple vs. Samsung saga, Apple argues Samsung infringes on a certain multitouch patent called the “touch event model”— which prevents users from pushing two buttons at the same time on the screen. So as a result of the alleged infringement, Apple believes the Dutch courts should intervene and enact a sales ban of Galaxy products that operate on Android 2.3 or higher. Of course Samsung respectfully disagrees with Apple’s notions. Samsung lawyer Bas Berghuis van Woortman believes “the Android based method is more hierarchical the system is more complex and therefore harder for developers to use”. Apple respectfully disagrees as Apple lawyer Theo Blomme highlights Samsung’s claim of having a lesser solution “is simply not true“, while adding the technique that Android uses essentially makes its software the same as Apple’s.

Samsung is seemingly living on the defensive, isn’t it? After losing its epic battle Stateside, it is doing its best to try and try and have the upper hand on Apple this time around. There won’t be too long of a wait however— as the Hague court will deliver a judgement and ruling on October 24th regarding this matter.

source: PC World

Apple patent lawsuit targets more Samsung devices including Samsung Galaxy S III

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by Jeff Causey on
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You may have thought things were over for Samsung after last week’s loss to Apple in the highly-covered patent lawsuit between the two. Surely the $1.0+ billion judgment and ensuing stock losses for Samsung are enough to drive them out of the smartphone and tablet markets. For all the hype, last week’s jury verdict in favor of Apple was just one battle in a war. Even Apple recognizes this. Rather than sitting on their laurels and waiting for Samsung and the rest of the world’s Android manufacturers to slink off in defeat, Apple was back to work in a San Jose federal court filing documents on Friday. This time, it is a request to add more devices from Samsung to a case filed back in February 2012 alleging a variety of patent infringements. The original lawsuit covered 17 devices that had been produced between August 2011 and the filing. The new request adds four more devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III. Nor word or response from Samsung yet regarding the latest filing.

source: Reuters

Samsung gets the upper hand with Apple in Japan

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by Robert Nazarian on
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It’s not all doom and gloom for Samsung after losing one of the biggest tech cases of the year because they just scored a victory in Japan. A Tokyo court ruled that Samsung did not violate an Apple patent that involved syncing mobile devices and computers.  It was obviously the Kies software that Apple was going after.

Samsung said, “We welcome the court’s decision, which confirmed our long-held position that our products do not infringe Apple’s intellectual property.”

To make matters worse for Apple, Tokyo District Judge Tamotsu Shoji ordered Apple to pay the costs of the lawsuit after his verdict.

source: bloomberg

 

Apple-Samsung jury foreman Vel Hogan on the jury: ‘Nobody owned an iPhone’ [Video]

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by Robert Nazarian on
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There has been a lot of talk about Apple getting “home field advantage” in the recent Apple vs. Samsung case on patent infringement. Recently jury foreman Vel Hogan sat down with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West”, and said that none of the jury members owned an iPhone. Of course that wasn’t all as the interview was roughly 17 minutes long. You may wonder what evidence seemed the most damaging, and Hogan mentions the fact that Google warned Samsung that their prototypes resembled Apple’s, but Samsung ignored it. He also mentioned J.K. Shin’s internal email that said the comparison between the iPhone and Samsung’s prototypes was that of “heaven and earth.”

source: bloomberg

 

Samsung Shares Drop $12 billion In Light of Verdict and Potential Ban

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by Dominick DeVito on
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Samsung Electronics Co.’s market value dropped a whopping $12 billion today in lieu of Friday’s ruling which ordered the Korean electronics company to pay over $1B in damages from patent infringement. Despite Samsung’s wide array of products and services, phones and tablets make up roughly 70% of the company’s earnings.

The ruling isn’t the only factor affecting the plummeted shares as Apple is currently seeking a ban on eight of Samsung’s smartphones, among them the widely popular Galaxy S II. In addition there is growing concern that the verdict may lead to Apple bringing on a second lawsuit which could lead to a ban of Samsung’s current flagship phone, the Galaxy S III, which has already accounted for sales over 10 million units since its May debut. Apple is planning to file a sales injunction against Samsung on September 20.

According to an internal memo sent this morning to its employees and the media, Samsung is trying to rally its employees and hasn’t given up the fight. What do you think? Is this a hurdle Samsung can easily jump over? Will this hurt Samsung, Google, and the Android operating system? Tell us what you think!

Source: Reuters

Samsung releases internal memo in the wake of the $1 billion U.S. patent verdict

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by Sean Stewart on
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I know, we’ve all had it up to here with the continuous reaction of the jury’s recent decision in favor of Apple over Samsung. Following Google’s first official statement regarding the $1 billion patent verdict, Samsung released an internal memo on its blog which highlights a not too surprising opinion of the decision by the US District Court for the Northern District of California (NDCA). Samsung highlights the District Court made a decision which it respectfully disagrees with and contradicts other decisions made by courts in other countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Korea who all sided with Samsung regarding similar patent cases. This internal memo appears to be the first step in rallying Samsung’s employees as well as trying to ease their customers’ concerns following the $1 billion gut punch. You can read the full internal memo after the break. » Read the rest

Google Responds to Samsung-Apple Verdict with Official Statement

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by Dominick DeVito on
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Samsung and Apple both released statements after Friday’s $1.05B verdict in the world’s most watched tech trial in history. But the 800lb elephant in the room that remained quiet was Google, until late last night.

So what does Mountain View have to say about all of this? The Verge was provided with an official response from Google last night. In a nutshell, they do not want the recent court decision to limit consumers from accessing innovative products, and that the patent claims do not reflect on the core Android OS experience.

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Apple wins, consumers lose, and the USPTO should be ashamed

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by Robert Nazarian on
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I’m not sure I can say that I’m shocked at yesterday’s verdict, but I can say I’m thoroughly outraged. Anyone reading this knows I’m on the Android side of the fence, but that has nothing to do with it. I’ve already stated that if things were reversed, I wouldn’t want to see Samsung win either. I know readers probably won’t believe that, but it’s true. Yes, I want Android to always be the leader, but never at the expense of innovation.

Now with that said, the jury isn’t at fault here. The verdict was correct based on the patents that Apple owns, and there’s no question that Samsung was guilty of infringing on them. In fact Samsung never had a chance to win this case, so I’m not sure why they invested so much trying to fight it. The problem is the patents themselves and the patent system as a whole. Samsung argued that Apple’s patents we are all based on previous innovations and therefore weren’t valid, but it was unlikely the jury would overturn what the United States Patent and Trademark Office already issued. Assuming that’s the case, the jury had no choice but to find that Samsung did in fact infringe on the patents. If anyone is guilty of any wrong-doing it’s the USPTO for issuing the patents in the first place.

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