Apple's not the only guilty party here, no matter how much Samsung wants to play the victim. They added the iPhone 5, 4th gen iPad and iPad mini to this lawsuit. And I believe some of what they claim Apple is infringing on are FRAND patents which would be covered between Qualcomm and Samsung, no? How can Apple be infringing if its Qualcomm technology and Qualcomm is paying royalties to Samsung?
Samsung tried that the tactic in the San Jose trial. They claimed Apple used an Intel chip and hence infringe on Samsung patent. The interchange between Apple lawyer and the expert witness is interesting (given the same witness has testified against Apple before, Samsung lawyers should have known how Apple is going to destroy the testimony). The way Apple rebut the claim is even more bizarre. Samsung lawyer should have known that the receipt exist in the discovery phase. So the legal team that represent Samsung are making some really strange decision on the case against Apple that end up hurting their defensive case as well..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieg...-to-talk-once-more-says-its-time-for-peace/2/
The following is a play-by-play of what happened in court today. (Times noted are California time).
9:10: Samsung is focusing on defending its patents and calling witnesses to show how Apple is infringing on those patents.
Samsung calls its next witness via video deposition. Markus Paltian works in Intels Mobile Communications group and has developed firmware that implements the 3GPP standard that Samsung says takes advantage of its patented technology for helping to reduce the number of dropped calls. Samsung says Apple is using that technology in its devices.
Next witness, also via video, is Andre Zorn, who also works in Intel Mobile Communications and was responsible for implementing technology to support the 3GPP standard.
9:34: Samsung now calls Dr. Tim Williams, a longtime mobile technologies developer who worked at Motorola and has sold companies to Intel and Qualcomm, as an expert witness to talk about Samsungs high-speed data patents. He says he now helps startups. He has 27 issued U.S. patents in the area of wireless communications systems. Hes being paid $550 an hour to testify on behalf of Samsung. Says he doesnt need the money, but that he is testifying to help support a strong U.S. patent system for my children.
Williams is now being asked to comment on Samsungs on high-speed data Patent 516 (again, patent numbers refer to the last three numbers of each patent). He says its concerned with uplink service sending information from a mobile phone to the network and how much power is required to do that data transfer. Hes going through a discussion now of how the patent creators came up with a way to allocate a budgeted amount of power to the voice-data channel in order for users to be able to make call. He says the patent is important because it came up with a way to reducs the amount of power that mobile devices need to use to transmit voice calls over a wireless network, extending battery life, and also improves call quality.
He now says that Apple is using an Intel broadband processor in the iPhone 4 and iPad that allows them to gain access to the cellular network. Williams is now talking about whats built in to those Intel processors used by Apple. They include the 3GPP technical specification (3rd Generation Partnership Project), and hes asked to talk about the part of the spec that talks about how mobile devices access a wireless network and the power requirements for doing that.
Williams says that Apple infringes on Samsungs patent because Intels chip was written to support the 3GPP standard, as Intels employees acknowledged via their video depositions. Hes giving a technical review of how Apples products are infringing. (Hard to say if all of the nine-member jury is following along some yawns, some head scratching).
10:15: Discussion now turns to Samsung Patent 941, which Williams says deals with efficient transmission of information from mobile phone to the network (reducing the number of packets, or containers of information, from the mobile phone to the wireless network. Now he goes into another technical discussion of how the alternative e-bit interpretation covered in the patent works.
Williams says that he looked at the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G, which contain an Intel baseband processor. He says the baseband processors rely on the methodology in the Samsung patents, which leads him to conclude that Apples products do infringe on Samsungs patents. Hes now launching into another technical discussion (3GPP is involved) of how he came to that conclusion.
10:30: Court is taking a 15-minute break.
10:52: Williams returns to the stand, picking up on his technical discussion of Samsungs patent 941 as it applies to Apples iPhone 4 and iPad 2 (talk of re-assemblers, packets, transmitters). More yawns by some members of the jury. The Samsung lawyer is having Williams comment on Intel source code, which the courtroom is not allowed to view because of confidentiality.
Apples lawyer, Bill Lee, now gets to cross examine Williams. He asks Williams whether he had ever heard about the alternative e-bit interpretation before Samsungs lawyers called him. Williams said no.
Lee is now asking Williams about the Intel chip and that his assertion that Apples infringement is based completely on the Samsung technology being implemented in the Intel baseband processor.
Q: Has Apple implemented the standard in anything other than the Intel processors? A: No.
Q: Are these processors made by Intel? A: Yes.
Q: Does Intel sell those baseband processors to Apple? A: Yes.
Q: Apple engineers dont have anything to do with designing the Intel chips? A: Correct.
Q: Do you have any evidence that Intel engineers knew anything about the Samsung patents? A: No.
Lee says that no one has accused Intel executives of copying Samsungs patent 914. Williams said hes not aware of that.
Do you know if Samsung has accused Intel of infringing its patent? Williams said he didnt know.
Intel and Samsung have a cross license, Apples lawyer says. Q: Were you aware of that? A: No. Q: Did you ask? A: Its not important to my analysis. Im looking at the accused products, now what Intel has done.
Apple purchases the Intel chips for $10 a chip, Lee says. Samsung is requesting $350 million in damages. Did you know that? William says he did not know that.
Apples lawyer is now talking about Intels standards engineers and what their jobs are (to go to standards meetings and to try to get Intel patents into standards because thats part of how they get their compensation.) Williams says he doesnt know how it works.
Lee is now asking Williams about his background and how many times hes been an expert witness in court. He says about 28 times in the past four years. How many hours has he worked on this case? Williams says he doesnt know. But Apples lawyer says he does know that he made $1 million last year and $1 million the year before testifying in court. Williams says yes He also acknowledges that he has testified several times in cases against Apple.
Lee is asking Williams, who has been involved in standard settings processes, if participants in standards setting are required to disclose IP rights that might be important to the standard so that others may know and be aware if any patents might be involved.
Now looking at Samsungs patent 516 and noting that the first patent was filed on June 9, 2004. Apples lawyer Lee is asking about the development of the 3GPP standard and timing for it and whether Williams studied it. Williams says yes. He brings up a document by Samsung dated Aug. 2004 about the standard. Judge says he cant go into detail at this point about what Samsung did/didnt do in the standards setting process for 3GPP.
Now looking at the Samsung patent and the claims that Williams says Apple is infringing. Discussion is getting somewhat technical, with talks about the power used by various channels. This again all goes back to the 3GPP standard and how Intel has implemented it. There seems to be a dispute between how many channels are included in the 3GPP specification and how many channels are discussed in the Samsung patent. Williams says he doesnt agree with the number of channels that Apples expert from Carnegie Mellon says are in the standard. More arguments over Williams interpretation of the standard, versus Apples expert (who is being called up via a printed deposition transcript).
Lee has brought up a document from the patent office about Samsungs patent. Williams and Lee disagree about what it says. Williams is excused.
http://www.ipnav.com/blog/why-samsung-lost-the-lawyers-picked-the-wrong-patents/?printPDF
Samsung claimed up to $399 million in royalties for two patents related to 3G wireless technology that it claimed Apple infringed. One
claim involved the baseband chip in the iPhone and the 3G version of the iPad.
Just one little huge, glaring problem: Apple bought those infringing chips from Intel. And Intel made them under a license from
Samsung that included Samsungs agreement not to sue companies that bought those Intel chips including Apple.
Samsungs lawyers made a technical legal argument that the chips were designed and built in Germany and shipped to China, and
the law requires that chips be sold in the US for the doctrine of patent exhaustion (and those license terms) to apply. So, Samsungs
lawyers argued, the agreement not to sue turned on where the chips were sold.
But Intel wouldnt have taken a license from Samsung under those terms i.e., knowing its customers (including Apple) would get
sued for infringing Samsung technology.
So Samsungs lawyers seemed to be suggesting the company was trying to pull a fast one on Intel agreeing not to sue its
customers and then repudiating that agreement based on a technicality.
The lawyers thus made their own client look sneaky and it seems unlikely that Samsung had any such skullduggery in mind when it
licensed its technology to Intel.
In any case, Apple introduced the receipts from Intel for the chips, showing that they were sold to Apple in California and Chicago --
regardless of where they were made and delivered.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the jurors easily rejected Samsungs lawyers argument about Apples alleged patent
infringement, citing that oh-so-obvious license.
We figure that this weak argument probably trashed Samsungs credibility for the rest of the trial.
So why did the lawyers choose to litigate those two patents when they undoubtedly had numerous others to pick