“Samsung Electronics Co. began its attack on patents Apple Inc. has asserted in a $2 billion case by trying to convince jurors that the iPhone maker exaggerated claims about inventions allegedly copied by the Galaxy maker,” Joel Rosenblatt reports for Bloomberg.
“Samsung, trying to avoid a repeat of two years ago when jurors found infringement and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages, is calling on witnesses with smartphone technology expertise, including engineers from Google Inc., to argue that some of Apple’s technology is so obvious it shouldn’t have been patented,” Rosenblatt reports. “Apple claims that 10 Samsung products, including the Galaxy S3, infringe five patents covering a range of user-interface designs for the iOS software that powers iPhones and iPads, including features like the slide-to-unlock function and automatic spelling corrections. Apple seeks about $2.2 billion in damages.”
“Apple faces a bigger challenge this time because, unlike the 2012 trial that focused mostly on claims about the look and feel of its devices, the current case ‘requires the jury to dig into the nitty-gritty details of software that Samsung received’ from Google as the developer of the Android operating system, said Brian Love, a professor at Santa Clara University law school,” Rosenblatt reports. “‘Google’s involvement in the case seriously undermines Apple’s narrative that Samsung is a blatant copyist,’ Love said. ‘The Google brand is very strong and, more importantly, is associated with forward-looking innovation, not piracy.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: For smart people, the Google brand is most closely associated with the U.S. NSA, not to mention hair-raising creepiness.
Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
