“As the global patent battle between Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. heads back to courts in South Korea and Australia, Samsung’s legal team is attempting to blur the line between innovations that are shared and those that aren’t, outside attorneys say,” Evan Ramstad reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“At the heart of the issue is Samsung’s effort to counter Apple’s claims of design copying by trying to show that Apple used ideas behind some of Samsung’s technical patents without paying for them,” Ramstad reports. “With that argument, Samsung will question whether so-called standards patents, which companies forge to assure basic levels of compatibility in products, are properly valued.”
Ramstad reports, “The legal action, to be presented in before courts in nine countries, also raises the question of whether standards patents can be used to force a competitor to give up rights from patents that cover unique ideas. Adding to the legal drama, intellectual-property attorneys say, is the prospect that Samsung doesn’t want either question settled—because it also holds unique patents—but is merely raising the issues to create uncertainty so that Apple settles the broader dispute instead of risking a court ruling that devalues its innovations.”
MacDailyNews Take: What innovations? Sticking an iOS wannabe into hardware that clearly mimics Apple’s designs in not innovation.
Ramstad reports, “Apple sued Samsung in the U.S. in April alleging that it copied important design elements of Apple products in its smartphones and tablet PCs. Samsung countersued in several other countries, saying Apple was using some of its technical patents without authorization.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Why is Apple holding back? Dump on the real villains. Dump on Google. Full-strength.