“Three years ago to the day, Apple filed its original California patent infringement complaint against Samsung,” Florian Müller writes for FOSS Patents.
“I’ve been watching this dispute for three years. I downloaded countless filings from electronic dockets in the U.S. and attended well over a dozen German Apple v. Samsung and Samsung v. Apple trials, plus an injunction hearing in France. And I can’t tell you how tired I am of this,” Müller writes. “After three years and dozens of filings in at least 10 countries, there is still no endgame in sight. Later today, these two companies will square off again in the San Jose court, where a jury will have to render a verdict that, no matter the outcome, won’t have the potential to resolve this global dispute.”
Müller writes, “At the current juncture (and the ongoing trial is unlikely to have a material effect on this assessment), these are the terms I would propose if I were a mediator:”
• Apple should pay $1 per cellular device to Samsung.
• Samsung should pay $3 per device to Apple.
• This is more favorable to Apple than it appears at first sight because Samsung’s volumes are higher.
• These terms should also apply retroactively to the last 36 months.
• Samsung should additionally make a one-time payment of $750 million to settle any past infringement issues relating to design patents (basically, the first California case). Design patents would not be licensed going forward.
• There should be an anti-cloning provision (something that most of the readers who gave my input stressed), but it would have to be very reasonable.
• This proposal is a “package deal”, so these two parties might very well make rather different demands in licensing negotiations with third parties.
Read more in the full article here.