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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.
Here'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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Mobile Chief's Refusal To Negotiate With Apple Is Posturing, And It's Probably Not Even True
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just when you thought this whole Samsung vs. Apple case couldn't get any weirder, we're now hearing that Vel Hogan, the jury foreman on the case who helped guide the jurors on patent law and owns some patents himself, was once sued into bankruptcy by Seagate. Samsung, as it turns out, just happens to be the largest single investor in Seagate, owning 9.6 percent of the hard drive company's stock. While it doesn't guarantee that a juror's judgment could be clouded, it is the kind of information one would expect to be volunteered to a courtroom. Mr. Hogan, however, did not disclose this information.
After winning a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung for alleged trade dress dilution and patent infringement, Apple has filed a motion with the presiding judge of the tech world's biggest trial requesting a massive increase in the initial jury award.
Reuters is reporting that Samsung will be amending its counterclaims against Apple in the two companies' second lawsuit in California, currently scheduled for trial in March 2014. Here's what Samsung is saying:
Have you heard?! Apple now says the Galaxy S III is infringing on its patents. Woe is us!
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.
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.
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.