“Apple Inc., after seeking $2 billion in damages, won only $120 million from Samsung Electronics Co. in a jury trial over smartphone technology,” Joel Rosenblatt reports for Bloomberg. “The verdict sets the stage for the iPhone maker to seek a judge’s order banning U.S. sales of its rival’s devices that infringed its patents. The jury also found that Apple infringed one Samsung patent, awarding it $158,000 in damages.”
“‘It is hard to view this outcome as much of a victory for Apple,’ Brian Love, an assistant professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, said in an e-mail. ‘This amount is less than 10 percent of the amount Apple requested and probably doesn’t surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case,'” Rosenblatt reports. “Jurors found that Samsung infringed two of the four Apple patents it considered in a case, which revolved around whether the maker of Galaxy phones used features in Google Inc.’s Android operating system that copied the iPhone maker’s technology. A finding that Samsung infringed the auto-correction patent was issued by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh before the trial.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier today:
An iPhone with a larger screen option will hurt Samsung immeasurably more than myriad, unending traipses through the legal morass.
Moral of the story: Crime pays. Very, very, very well. And patents are basically useless in protecting intellectual property when the advance made is too significant. As with the Mac, Apple could not, would not be allowed to totally dominate unit sales with their revolutionary iPhone. Period. (Even though Apple does dominate where it counts: Profit share.)
So, knock off at will, thieves. You’ll get away with it and make far, far more than you’ll ever lose (even though thinking people with consciences will look down upon your wares and never consider buying them).
And, Apple: Good luck finding the motivation to change the world yet again when you know, for a fact, that it will be knocked off by some scumbag company somewhere that knows even more clearly today that, in the end, it’ll get away with it pretty much scot-free. Luckily for the world (and the criminals like Microsoft and Samsung), Apple seems to be motivated to please themselves and their customers, even though they know in the hearts that what they are inventing, what is supposed to be their intellectual property, will begin to be pilfered by greedy thieves the moment it is released.
If any good comes out of this verdict, it’s that a precedent has been set. One thing Apple doesn’t need is money.
Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
Hhere’s what cellphones looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
BS! No justice in the “justice system”.
Anyway you look at it, samdung owes Apple nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars; that’s not chump change, change from a chump I guess is appropriate. The sooner Apple begins selling larger screen iPhones the better. Get rid of samdung parts, that’s 4 billion a year.
It’s because the average unintelligent moron makes the calls.
I doubt half the jury even knows the difference between a billion and a million. Hell, some of them probably thought they awarded apple more money than they asked for.
Totally agree!
No justice for Apple. Ever.
The way I look at it what Samsung will lose after losing Apple completely as a parts & supply customer is essentially billions of dollars worth of lost money aka “fines.” And there aren’t many other customers out there the size of Apple to replace them.
Ahh the Fandroid will feel boldly vindicated today completely lost on the evil that copiers do. I never understood why the dark geeks want to embarrass themselves and follow so badly the likes of the dishonest people who run Samsung and the clueless Steve Ballmers of the world. Steve Jobs was indisputably way cooler and an iVisionary by a country light year.
People incorrectly criticize Tim Cook for a lot of things, but the one thing that gets me is that he keeps using Samsung for components even in 2014. He could have built his own display factory and chip fab and hired every fab expert worth anything years ago.
WE WANT YOU TO CRUSH SAMSUNG INTO PASTE, TIM, NOT CONTINUE SENDING THEM BILLION-DOLLAR PRODUCTION ORDERS.
BE A MAN! A HEALTHY, LIVING STEVE WOULD HAVE NIXED SAMSUNG OUT OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN COMPLETELY YEARS AGO.
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
Ditto.
You’re not looking at the big picture. Your view is simplistic. Apple and Samsung affect the worldwide availability of components. Apple cannot stop buying components from Samsung (as a way to hurt Samsung) any more than Samsung can stop selling components to Apple (as a way to hurt Apple).
If Samsung offers the best price, volume, and quality, Apple MUST buy from Samsung. If Apple does not buy from Samsung to take Samsung’s huge production capacity “off the market” for at ultra-low volume purchase price, Samsung has excess capacity, and will sell to Apple’s competitors. Apple’s competitors are able to buy those components at a lower price, because Apple is intentionally avoiding Samsung as a supplier. Meanwhile, Apple is forced to buy those same components at a higher price, because Apple is making supply intentionally (and artificially) scarce, just for itself.
Apple often pays in advance to tie up future production capacity, making components more scarce and more expensive for everyone else. This practice is one reason Apple can produce higher quality iPhones and iPads at a price that meets or beats the competitions’ equivalent products (except during a “fire sale”). That is an integral part of Apple’s strategy. Apple can certainly expands its list of suppliers, but intentionally avoiding Samsung as a supplier hurts Apple just as much as it hurts Samsung.
You sir are too damned logical!
Thank you Ken, for a remarkably cogent assessment of why Apple cannot dump Samsung as a supplier. I get very tired of MDN’s juvenile demands that Apple stop using Samsung’s parts without even the most basic understanding of how global supply chain management works.
What prevents Apple from competing with and beating Samsung Electronics to a pulp? Apple has $160 billion dollars on hand. Apple already designs the best mobile processors on the planet. They could destroy Samsung Electronics if they had the will. Apple does NOT have to buy from Samsung. This is proven by the fact that Apple alreadys buys components that could be sourced from Samsung from TSMC, Japan Display, Sharp, LG Display, etc. instead.
Apple could hurt Samsung by eliminating Samsung Electronics completely as iOS device component suppliers. That business cannot be replaced.
“If we don’t beat our opponent in the first few moves, we’re doomed!”
Seriously, this is a slow methodical win for Apple. They have the resources.
Amen brother! Their short term gain, deserves them long term loss. As the Brits like to say: A penny wise, and a pound foolish. Samsung’s dishonesty will haunt them for years to come.
I’m sure Tim Cook would pull out of Samsung if he could. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of suppliers that can deliver a lot of the things Apple needs from them.
Even if Apple were to bring production in house, it’ll take years to get production installed. Expect Apple to quietly phase out Samsung in small phases. They’ll start out with the easier things and continue on to other facets of their components as time and technology allow. Cook won’t cut off his nose to spite his face.
Unfortunately, for right now Apple still needs Samsung. I expect that to change over the next few years. I think everybody at Apple is mad enough to want to see them out of the picture.
He’s not stupid. He would if he could. It’s as simple as that. He will eventually.
Brought to you by Imo’s Pizza and Ted Drews world famous frozen custard.
Nooo Consequence for being a Serial Infringer.
Where is the Justice !!!!
Crime pays.
Apple needs to sue Google with a dream team of lawyers that deliver.
Yeah I had that foolish dream too… But then I woke up – to the real world where legal or ethical justice is a fantasy that owes everything to luck and nothing to innate fairness.
It’s time for the brilliant, but slightly naive folk at Apple to face the facts that there will always be plenty of criminals and sociopaths like the ones running SlimeSung, and that they will never be able to rely on legal redress to make those criminals pay.
Apple needs new strategies to protect their ideas and investments.
“…let Luca handle this one.”
Another travesty.
As with the Mac, Apple could not, would not be allowed to totally dominate unit sales with their revolutionary iPhone. Period.
So true, yet so sad.
Google = Android.
Android is a stolen product. Apple needs to nail the parent not the children.
Apple needs real shark lawyers that don’t stop at nothing but victory and understand every little detail of this theft.
Maybe I’m naive but surely if nothing else the decisions in this and the previous trial, assuming they are upheld will force any other android phone maker (beyond HTC) infringing these patents to pay up too.
End business with Samsung TODAY! Make iron clad deal with another chip company with serious anti-copying of intellectual property language & very large billion dollar penalties for any copying or any leaking of IP to anybody…period.
Eric mole Schmidt is laughing his ass off.
Well, not exactly. Android is in a terrible state as a public OS. Google directly lose money on Android by devoting coders to the project while giving it away. Google gathers cash by surveilling Internet victims and selling their behavior to advertisers. It’s not clear, to me at least, how Android contributes to Google’s bottom line any better than iOS does the same. Well, apart from the fact that Apple has been competing with Google for advertiser revenue.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in court,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the airwaves, we shall defend our IP, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender.
Yes we shall
Mac Users today unite with RAINBOW arm bands & swear to never EVER buy any Samsung OR Google products EVER in the future worldwide. No Phones, TVs, Refrigerators, Appliances, Radios, DVD Players, Monitors, Computers, Services, Internet Services, Music, NOTHING period worldwide from millions of Apple fans! Spread the word that these thieves will starve for lack of money & not buy any of their products & encourage all your friends & family to do likewise. FINISH THE THERMONUCLEAR WAR that Steve Jobs declared on Samsung & Google. RAINBOW JIHAD!
Rainbow? Sounds gay.
Missed my point Timc JIHAD Samsung + Google to finish the Steve Jobs Memorial Thermonuclear War that he started. BOYCOTT them & spread the word worldwide.
You sound homophobic…
Let’s do navy blue or something that everyone would feel comfortable wearing instead.
You still sound homophobic.
Just because I don’t want to wear a rainbow and be misidentified immediately as a homosexual, doesn’t make me homophobic. Just like I wouldn’t wear a beret around. I’m not French, either. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 😉
I want lavender.
blue, dilly dilly.
It’s been a couple of years I bought anything from Samsung, except for their components in Apple devices. I’m not about to give up on purchasing Apple products because they carry Samsung parts in their machines.
But I will boycott them on everything else. Spread the word ask colleagues, friends, and family, to do the same.
While I like the idea of completely boycotting Samsung, I would like to suggest that there is an even better way to hurt their profits AND their image.
I work in the AV industry and it is a well known fact that (as I’m sure most of you are aware) there is next-to-no money in displays 50″ or smaller. Sharp is cutting manufacturing of anything smaller than 60″. It might be worth considering buying displays smaller than 50″ from Samsung only, thereby not only limiting their profit but also labeling them the company that can’t sell anything other than cheap displays. Actions like this will do more to burn into the minds of consumers the fact that samsung is worthless and incapable of innovation because it will be realized at a subconscious level and not just at a cognitive level. That is where the real battle is and where Apple always wins. Why else do we buy Apple products?
How about white, and not armbands (who the hell wears those?) but wrist bands, which are now ubiquitous.
If you want to kill somebody, kill a hundred.
If you want to run a crooked scheme, do it in a way that will tank the world’s economy.
If you want to copy an idea from Apple, copy the whole thing.
White-collar crime massively outweighs what we usually think of as “crime”. On the very rare occasions it gets punished, it’s usually with a slap on the wrist.
Never thought I’d think of kim jong un in a hopeful way … nah, I just want to target Samsung execs.
Better thought:
Success is the best revenge.
Apple is winning. This is a chess game, not a first-person shooter. Samsung is not the King, merely a pawn in Apples way of getting to Google.
Well said. That’s why these small patents are being used. Now that Samsung and Google have been linked together and has been proven to be infringers of iPhone ip, the thermonuclear war can start. Samsung and Google will have to defend on all fronts of this war now that Android was exposed as fraudulent ip.
rook would be a more apropos analogy, I think.
*rook
verb [ with obj. ] informal
take money from (someone) by cheating, defrauding, or overcharging them.
ORIGIN Old English hrōc, probably imitative and of Germanic origin; related to Dutch roek.
Wow. Slap in the face for Apple. Samsung won.
If you think $120,000,000.00 is nothing, you must have enough money to send me some. This was never about the damages, but about establishing the principle that Apple will vigorously defend its intellectual property even when it doesn’t make strict economic sense to do so. Samsung is the only one of Apple’s competitors that is making money. Nobody else could remotely afford a Pyrhic War like this, so they are now more likely to heed Apple cease and desist letters.
You’re right. What I meant was in monetary terms. Samsung should be fined at a much higher amount.
As far as proving samsung is a thief. That’s a big WIN for Apple!
This is why they need to keep vertically integrating the part supplies. All the part designs and processes to manufacture them will be known only to Apple.
Apple can afford buying AMD the chip maker company. Problem solves.
The patent system is broken and the courts don’t seem to care or give credit to the patents that actually are valid so why even patent anything if it is worthless even in court. Samsung wins and now will copy everyones products and the stupid people that buy them will make them even more rich and the bad behavior is rewarded even in the court system. Very bad, very sad. Boycott Samsung, power to the people is the only way to make them pay.
Goes to show, justice is not blind but stupid. I would like to know what infringement the jurors found that Apple stole from Samsung? O.o I feel that the jurors were using the misguided “in fairness” doctrine from the first award and decided that Apple can’t be the winner all the time “in the name of fairness”. Seems you can be a thief and seen as Robin Hood and be successful and be seen as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Justice is not stupid, American jurors are stupid.
True but do not forget to include the judges also. Overall a justice system is made up of people entrusted to make decisions. Sometimes it works and sadly sometimes it does not.
Not much discussed here about Apple infringing patents as well and getting fined. Apple are also thieving hypocritical scumbags as well,period.
Infuriating.
120 million. It almost sound like a joke ! It is laughable !
Do they even comprehend the scale of economics involved here?
The jurors sent a loud message to the world today.. As did the justice system of US of glorious A :
“HEY YOU ALL. YOU ARE BETTER OFF STEALING THAN INNOVATING. THE INNOVATORS ARE SUCKERS TO BE LAUGHED AT .. DONT BE A SUCKER JUST STEAL ! ”
arent we all so proud of the justice system in this country .. With bribed judges ( as in the doj case ) and ignorant jurors and ignorant law !
Wow!
This is truly bad.. Not only for Apple.. But for anyone who is motivated to invest in innovation !
I think im more pissed at the justice system than i am of samdung!
And i am REALY pissed at samdung!
goog and samdung. You have been off my list.. You shall stay there forever ! You are not getting a dime of my money directly !
You sound like a true samdung level lowlife .!
Proves once again that these cases are inappropriate for Jury Trials. There is no way that non-technical people can appreciate these issues. In any case, as an attorney friend of mine says, the US system of Justice is NOT about getting justice; it is about winning.
Time to buy up some more small technical resources further integrate the supply chain. Reduce business with known shady corrupt companies such as Samsung or Google.
Adding all the various jury awards from the previous trials etc Apple has made over a billion dollars from Samsung (1st trail was : 639 + 290 million for a total of 929 million).
to put that into context: Amazon last quarter made about 100 m and Netflix 50 m. in profits.
Plus as people has said Apple has spent tens on millions on lawyers SO HAS SAMSUNG! Apple has at least recovered it’s lawyers fees and more. Samsung has to ADD the lawyers fees to it’s billion dollar plus loss.
No other Android maker on the planet can afford that kind of loss to Apple, (Samsung and Apple make up near 100% of the profit of smartphone world because the other manufacturers make little or lose money) so nobody else will try to infringe as Apple has shown it is willing to go all the way . HTC knowing it can’t fight has already signed deals with Apple and pays apple royalties.
So effectively Apple has put the Kaboosh on Android infringers it is concerned with: i.e the HIGH END phones. the little cheap Android flip phone makers that is not in Apple’s market, apple is less concerned with BUT who knows where apple will focus on next! It has put the fear of God into infringers, who can afford hundreds of millions in lawyers fees or possible multi million dollar jury awards ? (HTC has lost money in the last three quarters, Motorola now sold has lost money for years, Apple just made 10.2 billion – that’s ten thousand million – in profit — that’s net after expenses — last quarter alone. Apple can play the lawyer game all day long… ).
The really long term disaster for Samsung is that because Copying and Stealing is in it’s DNA, it can’t INNOVATE anymore! look at the horrible Samsung Stupid Watch! and when it doesn’t copy apple exactly like it’s new S5 fingerprint sensor it DOES NOT WORK! lol. Samsung is so bad at innovation that without apple showing it the way, it uses Qualcomm processors in it’s own top of the line phone the S5 (so Samsung’s top phone has a processor Snapdragon by qualcomm, an OS Stolen by Google via Android and a body stolen from Apple . So Samsung innovated what in the S5? LOL. Samsung can only do good work when it is masterminded by Apple like apple telling it how to build the A series chips. )
and none of the other high end android makers who don’t copy Apple’s designs exactly (like HTC) make any money.
Also All people outside the tech world gets is that Samsung is losing patent trial after patent trial (the first one was divided into 2 trials. so this really the third in the USA it’s lost. ) So the IMAGE Samsung is putting out is that it’s a Copycat! Even the so called Apple ‘flop’ the iPhone 5C (i.e a repackaged iPhone 5) OUTSOLD THE Galaxy S4!! Even Samsung’s designers, managers etc must be demoralized ….
At the end of the day, the trial doesn’t matter. Every product or company that has ever failed is due to lack of customer purchasing.
We can’t make Samsung truly disappear, but we can give them a nice “bag of hurt” by showing we support Apple. How, you ask? That’s simple.
STOP. BUYING. SAMSUNG. PRODUCTS.