South Korean Court Declares Samsung and Apple Violated Each Other's Patents, Halts Product Sales of Older Devices
The Wall Street Journal reports that a panel of three judges in a South Korean court rendered a split decision against Apple and Samsung, stating that the companies violated each other's patents. The court assessed fines and damages against both technology manufacturers, requiring Apple to pay approximately $17,650 to Samsung for each of two violated patents and cease sales of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 in South Korea, while Samsung must pay approximately $22,000 to Apple and stop selling its older Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy SII, and Galaxy Nexus smartphones as well as the 7-inch and 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab tablet devices.
The lawsuit filed by Samsung and the countersuit filed by Apple in South Korea focus on the same patents at issue in the high-profile case currently in process in a U.S. District Court in which Apple claims that Samsung infringed upon Apple's patents and trade dress while Samsung claims that Apple owes licensing fees for using 3G technology covered by its patents.
Interestingly, the South Korean court stated that Apple and Samsung smartphones were dissimilar enough that there would be "no possibility" for consumers to confuse the products of the two companies.
In the U.S., both Apple and Samsung have completed their presentations to the jury and the most recent update on the case earlier this week indicated that Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, and Samsung's CEO, Kwon Oh Hyun, would meet and discuss the issues in a last-ditch effort for resolution for the jury began its deliberations.
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Top Rated Comments
the lawyers!
Uh.. since when is iPhone 4 and iPad 2 new? iPhone 4 is 2 years old, iPad 2 is 1.5 years old. Or in other words just as old as Samsung's banned devices
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403459,00.asp
But don't let reality get in the way of spreading some FUD about Apple's competitor, carry on!
I found that all of apple related sites don't give full details of how the ruling went. It gives an impression that Apple and Samsung were tied. No it didn't. It hurt Apple more than Samsung.
Here's the full details that macrumors skipped/didn't let us know.
1.Only bounce back patent found that Samsung breached. Patents such as rectangular shape with round corners have been denied; judge ruled people can't confuse between iphone and SG and therefore, Samsung did not copy the iphone.
2. Grid of icons found is free of guilty as well due to similar art has been found.
3. Icons such as phone and texts icons were also found not copying because Samsung showed an evidence that the same exact icons(telephone drawing) in their prior phones back in 2005.
4. Apple has breached 2 patents related to 3g and mobile data transfering. Although those 2 patents are FRAND, as I mentioned above, Apple didn't show enough effort to license it. The burden is on Apple to license it not on Samsung.
So the final verdict was Samsung breached 1 patent(bounceback) and Apple breached 2 patents. Samsung will need to pay 25k USD(just converting simple 1 to 1000) while Apple needs to pay 20k USD per patent a total of 40k. The banned devices macrumors told are the devices that have breached each others patents. Samsung may lift the ban after a software updates showing there are no more bounceback and apple may lift the ban after licensing the 2 patents from Samsung.
So I believe these 2 companies will settle with cross licensing it or some sort of.
- That they have a license to the patents from their buying hardware from a 3rd party with a license. The licensing agreements Samsung hold with Broadcom and Qualcomm show this isn't actually the case, that the license is not transferrable with a hardware purchase. This is how they've won these cases in the past
- That the terms offerred, 2.x% of the cost of the device, is neither fair nor reasonable. Basically, Apple wants to pay no more 1% per chip they use, not per device and they want a flat fee with no cross-licensing deal. Samsung rebutes this by saying all their other licenses are based on per device pricing and that they have cross-licensing setup.
It's not abusing your FRAND patents when suing a player that is refusing to pay the proper FRAND terms for them after negotiating. Before you accuse either Motorola or Samsung of abuse of FRAND patents, wait until there's an outcome in the FCC's investigation about it. They aren't guilty until they've been proven to not have had good faith licensing talks with Apple. And no matter what, this doesn't mean Apple gets to use the technology for free.
Now, as for the Bounce back patent, the reason this might not hurt Samsung much is simple, this is the same patent that was used against them in the Netherlands for which Apple won an injunction last year :
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/8/25/dutch-court-grants-apple-preliminary-injunction-against-samsung.aspx
The thing is, Samsung removed the functionality before the injunction went into effect and got it lifted. They already have the software fix for it. Now they just need to update Korean devices too with it.