14
Nov
apple-rotten1

Samsung Mobile Chief's Refusal To Negotiate With Apple Is Posturing, And It's Probably Not Even True

Posted by in Editorials, Legal, News, Samsung

I can't say I'm the biggest student of Gandhi, but that whole "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind" bit sure came to mind this morning when I read that Samsung's head of mobile, Shin Jong-kyun, said the company "[does not] intend to (negotiate) at all" with Apple. This came on news of HTC's settlement with Apple on Saturday, which I contend is objectively good for the industry and consumers, no matter how you spin it.

First, let's look at the backstory. Apple and Samsung are involved in probably over a dozen various legal entanglements across the world.

08
Oct
motorola-logo-big

Motorola Pulls All Android Devices Except Upcoming RAZR i And RAZR HD From German Website, Patents To Blame?

Posted by in Legal, Motorola, News, RAZR HD / RAZR MAXX HD, RAZR i, RAZR M

Update: AllThingsD, reaching out to Motorola, and received the following response:

“As we have previously stated Motorola Mobility is focusing on fewer mobile devices ... As a result we have phased out some of our lower tier devices in Europe/Germany.”

Motorola spokeswoman

Sounds like we won't be seeing any of those devices return.

-- Original Story --

I haven't been following Motorola's ongoing patent spats in Germany particularly closely in the last year, but I do know the company hasn't been doing well there. Failures to assert standards-essential patents against the likes of Microsoft and Apple (though Apple can't use push email in Germany because of Moto), as well as a number of losses in countersuits resulting in injunctions, have probably set back Motorola's ambitions in Deutschland.

01
Sep
Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-UK-preorder

Yes, Apple Is Accusing The Galaxy S III Of Infringing Its Patents, No, This Is Not Surprising Or Really All That Important

Posted by in Legal, News

Have you heard?! Apple now says the Galaxy S III is infringing on its patents. Woe is us!

Except, this is a.) completely unsurprising, and b.) not really important in the grand scheme of things. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Apple had tacked on the Galaxy S III (including the Verizon version specifically, for whatever reason), the Note 10.1, and the original Galaxy Note to its upcoming California lawsuit against Samsung. And yes, they'll probably add the Galaxy Note II just as soon as Samsung gets around to releasing it here in the US.

GALAXY-S-III-Product-Image-5_B

But, innovation! Thermonuclear war! The Galaxy S III was designed around avoiding Apple patents, right?

28
Aug
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Samsung Is Working With US Carriers To Strip Phones Of Features Infringing Apple's Patents

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News, Samsung

According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung isn't wasting time on keeping the eight smartphones Apple is demanding injunctions against on store shelves. And no, I'm not talking about an appeal.

Samsung is currently working with the carriers selling at least five of those phones in order to strip them of the features described in the software patents they were deemed to infringe as part of Friday's verdict in Apple v. Samsung. This includes things like scroll bounceback, tap-to-zoom, and multitouch scrolling.

The problem? It may not help at all. Apple is just as (if not more so) entitled to injunctive relief under the design patents Samsung was deemed to infringe, so these efforts may be for naught.

24
Aug
upload

Apple Just Obliterated Samsung - What Happens Now?

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News, Samsung

If you were following our meta-live coverage, you'll know that the outcome of Apple v. Samsung was basically really, really bad for Samsung. To the tune of slightly over a billion dollars. Yikes. Samsung did escape any successful allegations of infringement through its tablets, but on the smartphone front, they really did get destroyed.

Samsung was found to infringe on two major iPhone design patents on almost every device Apple accused, including the D'677 patent, which covers the front fascia of the iPhone, pictured below. They also successfully asserted that Samsung infringed the design and layout of the iPhone's homescreen, another design patent.

24
Aug
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Breaking: Jury In Apple v. Samsung Reaches Verdict - Apple Winning On Multiple Devices And Counts

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News, Samsung

Breaking live from TheVerge, who are in the courtroom, we're hearing that the jury in Apple v. Samsung has rendered a verdict. Now, this is complicated - there were around 700 questions for the jury to answer on the instructions they were provided, so there are a lot of issues to go through here.

Apple's Claims

  • Samsung has been found to infringe on many of the accused devices for all three of Apple's asserted software patents. These patents can result in injunctive relief (decided at a later date), but are relatively small in terms of monetary implications. These include things like Apple's patents for scroll bounce back.

24
Aug
iphone4-vs-galaxy-s-head_thumb

Apple And Samsung Swap Patent Violations In South Korea - Galaxy Nexus, iPhone 4, And Others Banned

Posted by in Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Legal, News, Samsung

While the tech world waits with bated breath for the conclusion of Apple's United States case against the world's most prolific smartphone maker, another case is just wrapping up in Samsung's home country of South Korea. The Wall Street Journal reports that a Seoul court found both Apple and Samsung in violation of each other's patents, with the former violating two of Samsung's patents and the latter violating one of Apple's.

seoul lawsuit

Samsung must pay 25 million won to Apple while they get 20 million won in return for each patent violation - in U.S. dollars, that's $22,000 and 2x$17,650, respectively. More interesting are the device bans put in place.

17
Aug
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Google's Motorola Files New Lawsuit Against Apple At The ITC, Seeks Import Bans On Pretty Much Everything Apple Makes

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, Motorola, News

According to Bloomberg, Motorola Mobility has just filed a new lawsuit against Apple at the ITC. Now, ordinarily, we might not report on the filing of such a suit - especially when the complaint hasn't been made public (we have basically zero details). What makes this particular filing important, though, is that it is the first lawsuit filed by Motorola now that it is officially, 100% a part of Google. That's a big deal.

It means Google signed off on this action. It means Google isn't interested in playing a purely defensive role in the mobile patent wars. And while this is sort of by proxy (MMI is in many senses separate from Google), the fact that Motorola filed this suit at all says a lot.

27
Jul
iphone4-vs-galaxy-s-head

A Complete Overview Of The Apple v. Samsung Trial: Things Aren't Looking Great For Android's Biggest Manufacturer

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News, Samsung
Last Updated: July 30th, 2012

With Samsung and Apple's California trial scheduled for Monday, more and more information is being unearthed about the parties' respective claims. Yesterday, though, AllThingsD parsed out a few pieces of evidence from an unedited version of Apple's filing (not publicly available) that look quite bad for Samsung. I'll just quote them as they appear, because they really don't need much context:

  • In February 2010, Google told Samsung that Samsung’s “P1” and “P3” tablets (Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”
  • In 2011, Samsung’s own Product Design Group noted that it is “regrettable” that the Galaxy S “looks similar” to older iPhone models.

25
Jul
download

Editorial: Samsung Has Given Up On Fighting Apple's Unified Search Patent - Where Do We Go From Here, Google?

Posted by in Editorials, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S III, HTC, Legal, Samsung

Update: It appears Samsung sent out the update removing universal search from international Galaxy S III's mistakenly. I'd say the point still stands for the United States, though.

On December 1, 2004, a patent was filed in the United States naming Apple as asignee (owner). Its title is "Universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system." This patent, which you can find here, has become Apple's most effective weapon in its fight to see Android dubbed an iOS "ripoff" by courts and consumers.

And effective it has been - Samsung just removed the local search feature from the international version of the Galaxy S III, having already removed it from the US versions on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.

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