Updated: Apple Sues Samsung - Apple Wins Patent Case

[Dushie 30]

Guess, they are doing this because the Iphone 5 has more or less same specs as S3 and S3 has been in the market for some time now. So to compete and ensure Iphone 5 sells what better way than to ban the competition from selling the product this way everyone would buy Iphone.

[ami1 237]

^ Yes, that's the one & only reason.

Once Apple went rabid with their patent case on trivial issues, it was very clear that they wouldn't be doing this if they had a great new iphone5, since then they would actually be happy that others are investing billions in making phones inspired by their current model and thus would take more time & bleed more before catching up to iphone5 in maybe 2-3 years.

Almost all companies are happy to see their competitors invest in imitating their previous models if they have ground breaking new products to launch.

Just like Toyota always enters a market by introducing models in sub-segments where its large competitors are not present (even if that segment not the most profitable) & they even invest more on advertising/branding/service in these sub-segments to make them fairly successful, then when competitors start launching products in that sub-segment after having invested a few thousand crores and 2-3 years then Toyota enters the bulk or more attractive segment so that competitors are a little tied up recovering their investment before they can afford a big ticket investment to match toyota in the bulk segment.

Its only once the creativity has dried off and a company can't think of any disruptive products/features that it starts focusing on hindering competitors by various ways - like offering exclusive terms to distribution chains, mergers/takeovers, price undercutting to let a few others go bankrupt, massive advertising spends etc.

Off course, now-a-days easiest way to stifle competition is using patents/copyrights since the US now has a completely stupid IP system with the Govt having been bought by the Corporate and also because of the fear that IP is the only thing that US still produces.

Even Woazniak (apple co-founder) says that Apple's Claims are too trivial to be patented and it will not prevail in Appeal !

slashdot:

"'I hate it,' Wozniak told Bloomberg in Shanghai today, referring to the patent battle. He thinks the ruling will be overruled. Samsung will of course appeal, and this case will go back and forth for months still, but Wozniak just wishes everyone could get along. 'I don’t think the decision of California will hold. And I don’t agree with it — very small things I don’t really call that innovative. I wish everybody would just agree to exchange all the patents and everybody can build the best forms they want to use everybody’s technologies,' he said."

And here's something about Apple's deteriorating quality levels - from apple users

Forbes:

If you use Apple products, you know that in the past 6 months the quality has slipped quite a bit. I’m not talking about hot iPads or grips of death. I am talking about stability of the products. For example, if you use AirPlay to play music to your Apple TV, the new updates have it crashing quite a bit. It never happened before these new updates of a few months ago. I find myself closing apps and rebooting my iPhone or iPad to get things like Hulu or TuneIn to work properly. TuneIn worked just fine until these new updates. Indeed, iOS 5.1 seems to have introduced new bugs.

Edited September 15, 2012 by ami1

[sougatadc 358]

Now it is Samsung's turn to sue Apple. They have included iPhone 5 in their list of alleged patent infringement. And in the mean time US court has lifted the sales ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1.

www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-samsung-apple-galaxy-tablet-ban-20121002,0,2602765.story

[rajanmehta 4,056]

Appeals Court Reverses injunction On Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US

Source

According to Reuters, an appeals court has repealed the injunction on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US that was awarded to Apple in the patent lawsuit between the two companies. The ban was based on the '604 patent owned by Apple, which pertains to universal search features on a mobile device. The judge that awarded the ban back in June concluded that Apple would sustain irreparable damages and lost market share if the Galaxy Nexus were to remain on shelves. Samsung argued that the relatively low sales numbers of the Galaxy Nexus would present no harm to Apple, and it appears that the appeals court agreed, putting a temporary stay on the injunction back in July.

The court documents in today's decision claim that Apple was unable to present evidence that directly ties consumer demand for the Galaxy Nexus and this feature. "Apple has presented no evidence that directly ties consumer demand for the Galaxy Nexus to its allegedly infringing feature," noted the court. The court added that while Siri is a very popular feature in Apple's iPhone, "there is also no dispute, however, that the Galaxy Nexus does not have a feature equivalent to Siri."

The appeals court ruled that the district court, which initially awarded the injunction against the Galaxy Nexus, "abused its discretion," and that Apple did not establish a causal nexus between the unified search feature and sales of the Galaxy Nexus. "To establish a sufficiently strong causal nexus, Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the ’604 patent — not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search, " explained the court. As a result, the injunction has been permanently reversed and Samsung is free to sell the Galaxy Nexus in the US.

[krishnendu halder 24]

Instead of r& d companies are more busy in court cases now a days.

[rajanmehta 4,056]

US Patent Office invalidates Apple Rubber-Band Scrolling Patent Used in Samsung Trial

Source Source

Good news for Samsung this morning, as a preliminary U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruling has declared that Apple's "rubber band" scrolling patents invalid. According to reports from TNW and FOSS Patents, the ruling isn't yet set in stone, but it means that, for the moment, 20 patent violation claims against Samsung relating to patent no. 7,469,381 no longer stand. Crucially, FOSS Patents says, this includes one claim involved in Apple's recent courtroom victory against the Korean manufacturer.

The USPTO is reported to have found evidence of prior art in some cases, and in others the inventions were deemed to have been obvious.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has good news for Samsung, and Samsung has already shared it with Judge Koh in a late-night filing. In a non-final Office action the USPTO has declared all 20 claims of Apple's rubber-banding patent (U.S. Patent No, 7,469,381 invalid, including claim 19, which Apple successfully asserted against Samsung in the summer trial in California. In fact, claim 19 is one of several claims to be deemed invalid for two reasons, either one of which would be sufficient on its own.

[rajanmehta 4,056]

Apple's MultiTouch Patent Declared Entirely Invalid On Preliminary Basis

Source

For the second time in less than two months, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a first Office action tentatively declaring a key Apple multitouch patent invalid. In late October, a first Office action in a reexamination proceeding stated the preliminary conclusion that all 20 claims of Apple's rubber-banding (overscroll bounce) patent are invalid. Back in August, a California jury held Samsung to infringe that patent, and according to interviews jurors gave later didn't make much of an effort to ascertain its validity.

This week, the USPTO issued a first Office action rejecting all 20 claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949 on a "touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics", which has been referred to by many people, including Apple's own lawyers, as "the Steve Jobs patent".

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

Next to look into the Rounded-Square and SlideToUnlock patents... Patent Troll, GoTo HELL...

[csmart 472]

The judge has denied to ban the sale of Samsung phones citing that these phones have many more features than those infringed. The infringed featuers are just small part of overall device. Source

[csmart 472]

ITC judge says Samsung infringes key part of Apple patent

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON | Fri Apr 5, 2013 12:18pm EDT

(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd infringed a key portion of an Apple Inc patent by including a text-selection feature in its smartphones and tablets, an International Trade Commission judge said in a preliminary decision.

South Korean-based Samsung did not infringe portions of a second Apple patent that allows a device to detect if a microphone or other device is plugged into its microphone jack, the judge said in a decision that was issued on March 26 but kept confidential until late Thursday to allow the companies to redact sensitive business information.

The full commission must now decide if they will uphold it or overturn the judge's decision. A final decision is expected in August.

If it is upheld, the ITC can order any infringing device to be barred from importation into the United States. Apple has alleged that Samsung's Galaxy, Transform and Nexus devices, among others, were among those made with the infringing technology.

Apple had filed a complaint in mid-2011, accusing Samsung of infringing its patents in making a wide range of smartphones and tablet.

ITC Judge Thomas Pender said in a preliminary decision in October that Samsung infringed four Apple patents but did not violate two others listed in the complaint. There had been seven listed initially, but one was dropped during litigation.

The full commission then said it wanted the agency's judge to take a second look at portions of two patents where he had found that Samsung infringed. That remanded decision, issued in late March, was unsealed on Thursday.

Samsung is the world's largest smartphone maker, while Apple is in second place, according to Gartner Inc, a technology research firm.

Apple is waging war on several fronts against Google Inc, whose Android software powers many Samsung devices. The legal battles between Apple and Samsung have taken place in some 10 countries as they vie for market share in the booming mobile industry.

Google's Android software, which Apple's late founder Steve Jobs denounced as a "stolen product," has become the world's No. 1 smartphone operating system. Apple's battle against Google's Android software has dragged in hardware vendors that use it, including Samsung and HTC.

Samsung is also a parts supplier to Apple, producing micro processors, flat screens and memory chips for the iPhone, iPad and iPod. Apple has reduced orders from Samsung for chips and screens.

The case at the International Trade Commission is No. 337-796.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

[rajanmehta 4,056]

German court Rejects Apple's "Slide To Unlock" Patent Claim

Source

05 April 2013

A German court has rejected Apple's "slide to unlock" patent claim, including the 14 amendments that the company suggested for salvaging the patent application, delivering another setback for the iPhone maker in its legal battle with rivals after the US Patent Office recently invalidated its ''bounce back'' patent.

According to Foss Patents blogger Florian Mueller who is a paid consultant for several tech companies, German federal patent court, Bundespatentgericht, has invalidated all patent claims related to Apple's "slide to unlock" user interface.

Apple had filed cases across Europe seeking ban of sales on some of Samsung and Motorola devices claiming that several of their smartphones infringed on its "slide to unlock" patent.

Although Apple can appeal the ruling, the court ruled that the description given by the company for its European Patent EP1964022 application for "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image" lacked the technical innovation to be granted a patent.

The court said that the invention described by Apple in the patent is an old software module that several mobile handset manufacturers have brought out similar design workarounds to do the same basic slide to unlock functionality and Apple's application does not meet technical requirement under European patent law.

The ruling comes after the Munich Regional Court in early 2012 granted Apple a permanent injunction against Motorola for infringing its slide to unlock patent, but the Mannheim Regional Court had just a month later rejected a similar plea by Apple against Samsung.

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‘Bounce-Back’ Patent Bounces Back On Apple … And its Samsung Lawsuit Win

Source

April 2, 2013

The USPTO may just have made a billion-dollar decision. Or at least several hundred million.

Ever scrolled to the bottom of a long page on your iPhone, then watched the page lift up from the bottom of the screen and then bounce back? Apple patented that rubber-banding effect, and it was reportedly one of Steve Jobs’ favorite things about the iPhone, since it adds verisimilitude, making what is virtual act as if it is real.

That specific iPhone behavior was one of the issues in Apple’s billion-dollar courtroom victory over Samsung, seven months ago. Now, that patent is on shaky ground, and so is Apple’s legal win — or at least part of the proceeds of that win.

According to a recent Samsung court filing, Apple patent 7,469,381 patent has been invalidated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in a statement called a “Final Office Action:”

This Final Office Action by the USPTO is relevant because it finally rejects multiple claims of the ‘381 patent …

This final rejection includes claim 19, which is the only claim of the ‘381 patent at issue in this action. The jury found at trial that 21 accused Samsung products infringed claim 19 of the ‘381 patent.

Claim 19, along with 18, comprise the bounce-back portion of this patent — the ability of the iPhone to show a surface “beneath” a document when the end of the document is reached and then bounce the document back over it.

Apple’s original billion-dollar victory, of course, was reduced by Justice Koh a month ago to $450 million. And a new trial is expected to determine the final value of the judgement. With Samsung arguing that one of Apple’s key patents has now been ruled invalid, the amount could go down yet again. Both companies are, of course, posturing, with Apple claiming in late 2012 that the billion dollar settlement was $700 too little. Originally, Apple had requested $2.5 billion in compensation.

According to Samsung, the USPTO rejected the patent on March 29 of this year. Apple is likely to appeal the ruling.

The never-ending trial of the smartphone giants continues …