Samsung and Apple have come to an agreement in a patent dispute so protracted it's become a running joke. Following seven years of verdicts and appeals, a California judge has filed a motion stating the case has been settled, and any further claims will be dismissed. The sum of the settlement hasn't been disclosed.
Read MoreHere's a new development in the patent case that absolutely will not die: a California jury has ruled in favor of Apple, and Samsung is to pay damages to the tune of $538 million for violations primarily of Apple's design patents. Apple had been seeking more than $1 billion.
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The San Jose Mercury is reporting that as part of a retrial in the infamous Samsung v. Apple lawsuit in California, a jury has awarded Apple a revised damages figure of $290 million after Judge Koh found the original jury made errors in its calculations, resulting in the vacating of $450 million of the original $1 billion-plus verdict. With the new figure, the total is still sky-high at just a hair under $900 million.
The new jury used (presumably) the correct theories to calculate this new award, and the result, while lower than the initial figure of $450 million, is a decided win for Apple.
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Samsung has officially sought to end all of its claims requesting bans of Apple products in Europe, according to a company official. The decision comes on continued probing by the European Union's anti-trust body, on allegations that Samsung is abusing its standards-essential patents by seeking product bans for their infringement. Note that this does not mean Samsung has dropped its lawsuits - merely the injunction demands involved in them.
Standards-essential patents have played a pretty important role in the mobile patent wars to date, though that role has been one which is increasingly under question. SEPs are patents on technologies that are used across broad parts of an industry (such as the underpinnings of 3G connectivity, for example), and because of their value as technological standards, are required to be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis to anyone seeking such a license.
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Breaking news coming out of California's Northern District Court tonight, as Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the now-infamous Apple v. Samsung trial, has issued post-trial rulings on the parties' respective motions.
Judge Koh ruled that no jury misconduct occurred during the Apple v. Samsung trial, and that she would refuse to entertain the issue further. The judge will not even hold an evidentiary hearing on the matter, meaning Samsung failed in even at the most basic level in arguing its case for a new trial on account of Vel Hogan's alleged biases. This issue can be appealed, but the bar for overturning a post-trial motion for a new trial on the grounds of juror misconduct is abuse of judicial discretion - meaning you can probably consider this issue dead and buried.
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The word "unredacted" is experiencing quite a spike in usage this morning, on news that HTC and Apple are being required to produce the full, uncut version of their patent licensing agreement for use by Samsung's legal counsel. The document in question, which had previously been provided sans 33 words (some of which were, presumably, numbers), was requested by Samsung last week for the purpose of arguing against Apple's post-trial motions for permanent injunctions against infringing Samsung products. To be clear, this request is a part of the already-gone-to-verdict $1 billion trial that happened this summer.
Samsung's request is evidentiary in nature, and because of the highly sensitive material involved, HTC and Apple's settlement will be for "attorney's eyes only," meaning any references to it in the record will be filed under seal, and redacted from any publicly released documents.
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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.
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In a request to amend its second California lawsuit against Samsung today, Apple asked a judge to the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, and Android 4.1 as it appears on the Galaxy Nexus.
At first glance, it may seem like Apple is now drawing in the entire Android operating system into the suit, but really, it's been like this from the beginning. The Galaxy Nexus was accused from the date of filing in this lawsuit of infringing eight Apple software patents, and today is still accused of infringing those 8 even with its update to Android 4.1. The most we can glean from this is that Google apparently didn't take very convincing steps to avoid any of Apple's software patents in Android 4.1.
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After months of media hype and courtroom battles, Samsung was finally ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion by a U.S. court a couple of months ago, for infringing the company's design patents. On the other side of the pond, however, things haven't been quite as clear cut, with a UK judge ordering Apple to publish ads stating that Samsung did not copy the iPad at all.
Today, Apple has posted a statement on its UK website saying just that, but its PR team has also taken the opportunity to say a few more words about Samsung as well.
After noting that "the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple’s registered design No.
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In perhaps its soon to be most-publicized decision in decades, FOSS Patents is reporting that the USPTO has issued an initial finding of invalidity on every claim in Apple's patent for "rubber-band scrolling," that is, the scroll bounceback patent which anyone with half a brain knows is about as patent-worthy as any purely aesthetic user interface element is.
The claims were rejected on findings of prior art from two sources - an AOL patent, and a patent previously filed by Apple. All of the claims of the '381 patent were either rejected as being anticipated (previously described) by prior art, or being obvious in light of it.
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