Apple vs. Samsung Case to Return to Lower Court for Possible Damages Retrial

[samcraig]

Phew - I thought Apple's lawyers weren't making enough money or didn't have enough to do.

 

[tooltalk]

To me this is a way more comical look at the US Justice systems.. What is going on here? I know I don't have all the details but it seems like they ruled a verdict way back and keep undermining their own verdict and ruling?

Well, that's what appellate courts are for, to correct mistakes made by lower courts. You are also right that you don't know enough to understand the situation.

 

[kdarling]

Must have been a pretty big chocolate chip piece! The lawsuit was quite thorough. And that 132 page internal Samsung document confirmed what most people already suspected.

Only people who didn't read or check it. Most of that document was not about directly copying Apple, and almost none of the Apple specific suggestions were used.

Moreover, everyone does comparisons and tries to copy the success of competitors. For instance, we know from the trial that Apple made the iPad mini because an Apple VP used a small Samsung tablet, and we also know that Apple saw iPhone sales being lost to Samsung phablets... even though Apple claimed that they had picked the perfect size with their 9" tablet and 4" phone:

It's a little easier now to look back and gloss over the iPhone's influence. Smartphones today are ubiquitous.

Apple definitely made smartphones more well known in the USA. But the worldwide smartphone sales trajectory didn't change much when Apple came along. It wasn't until Android phones came out that smartphone sales really took off.

But Samsung copied as much as they could.

Samsung clearly tried to get as close as they could without direct copying. That's much harder to do, and should've been okay, especially since Apple did not invent anything that hadn't been done before somewhere.

It's okay to copy something that itself copied prior art. (In the US lawsuit, the prior art was not allowed due to a timing technicality. Apple lucked out, big time, in the US. They lost everywhere else where prior art was shown.)

Not just icons and UI, but packaging and all the rest.

Most of the stuff that uninformed people commonly claim was copied from Apple, had already been done by others. That goes for the basic phone shape, icons, finger friendly UI, pinch zoom, slide to unlock, and yes, even the packaging. E.g. that phone icon everyone tries to bring up:

Apple dropped its own dialup icon and went with what everyone else had been using since phones began: green and a phone shape. They even copied Skype and HTC's left leaning direction. No attempt to differentiate their iPhone.

 

[macsba]

I wonder if Samsung is trying to beat this record.

http://cincinnatilaw.blogspot.com/2012/09/longest-running-civil-law-case-in-us.html

 

[kdarling]

wonder how long until lawyers make more money than the case itself.

It's said that Apple spent $60 miliion on lawyers for the first trial.

Altogether, Apple has 500 lawyers on staff at an average salary around $200k. That's 100 million a year just on lawyer salaries (and probably actually double that if including SS, offices, bonuses, insurance, etc.).

Interestingly, Cook got rid of all the other lawsuits. He saw them as a waste of money and time. This is the main one left, and Apple's head counsel says it's always been used mostly for its PR value, not for awards.