Samsung to Pay Apple $548 Million Settlement in Five-Year Old Patent Trial

[KPOM]

That being said, South Korea prosecutors have relentlessly attacked Samsung and convicted the CEO on many accounts in the past. Now, let's look at how it's normally handled in the US -- remember Apple's option-backdating scandal? Steve Jobs walked away scott free, even when his own CFO testified against him. Anderson got all the blame and had to pay a huge lumpsum to settle. The gov't REFUSED to charge Jobs with any wrongdoing. Nobody in US goes to jail for any wrongdoing -- they just pay up settlement and everything is business as usual again. So, in that sense, the comparison is very flawed; certainly not the one presented by the VanityFair's article, written by Apple's own lawyers at MoFo

Tell that to Martha Stewart or Raj Rajaratnam. A mining CEO was convicted just yesterday of a cover-up over mine safety violations (albeit of misdemeanor charges).

I think the government didn't go after Steve Jobs because they knew they would lose in front of a jury. Steve Jobs micromanaged the tech side of the business, but didn't get into the nitty gritty of technical accounting and was open and upfront about the stock backdating. Remember, it wasn't the backdating itself that was illegal or against the rules. It was bad accounting that got companies in trouble (the backdating should have triggered a bigger expense recognition). Most of the backdating occurred pre-Sarbanes-Oxley before the CEO had to certify the financial statements, so ignorance of the accounting rules was a defense for Steve Jobs, but not Fred Anderson, who is a CPA and was in a "knew or should have known" situation. Apple did a thorough internal investigation, which the SEC acknowledged. Had they not done so, they might have sanctioned Jobs for some technical violation. In any case, the charges against Apple and Anderson were civil, not criminal. Samsung's CEO was actually convicted of criminal charges and had to get a pardon from the president to continue as CEO.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Then it isn't really a settlement if the appeals process continues. The whole point of the judge trying to force Samsung and Apple to settle is so they can stop wasting the courts time!

Not sure why Apple would agree to this anyway. It isn't like Apple needs the money now. So why not just wait for the appeals process to run it's course rather than take money now and then maybe have to "refund" money later...

Yeah, but think of the interest on that money,especially added to Apples, it'll be double the settlement,by the time the appeals end

 

[tito2020]

When is apple going to open up as a bank? Could start funding whole governments with the amount of cash they have on hand.

They payed already this is old news

 

[supercoolmanchu]

Then it isn't really a settlement if the appeals process continues. The whole point of the judge trying to force Samsung and Apple to settle is so they can stop wasting the courts time!

Not sure why Apple would agree to this anyway. It isn't like Apple needs the money now. So why not just wait for the appeals process to run it's course rather than take money now and then maybe have to "refund" money later...

Judges have indeed gotten very arrogant about having "their" time wasted. It's not their time however, their only purpose is to serve the people and the people being Apple and Samsung in this case. Judges exclusively control the pace of the proceedings, and slow the process with lots of foot dragging. They excel at wasting plaintiffs' and defendants' time, often by ordering needless and non-legally binding arbitration in these cases, and slowing any momentum to a trickle, everything they can to avoid the work of actually hearing cases themselves. Prima donnas, fat on a salary from a very cushy gig, with a lot of staff and personnel catering to their needs.

 

[MH01]

First of all, Microsoft and Apple have a cross-licensing arrangement on many patents. Apple has a patent on the Smart Cover that Microsoft has licensed. The latter added some patents on the keyboard that Apple may have licensed. For all the public bluster the two companies are really allied with each other against Google more than they compete against each other.

Also, unlike the Surface, the iPad deliberately does NOT run a desktop OS, nor has Apple indicated that they will. Apple hasn't copied the form of the Surface Pen, nor does their keyboard attach to the iPad Pro the same way the Surface Keyboard does to the Surface. Samsung went so far as to copy the look and feel of the charging port. Ever since the lawsuit was filed, they have made their designs a bit more distinctive (and its companies like Xiaomi who do more of the blatant copying these days, as China's IP laws in general are weak).

What Microsoft and Apple have is war chests of patents, meaning that they they tread carefully around each other where beneficial. As for thier alliance versus the evil Google, wishful thinking, dunno, Though with jobs gone....who knows..

I don't defend Samsung at all, they are among the worst at copying the competition. I have tried their products, but have no interest in buying anymore.

I see the industry as a whole borrowing ideas from each other. cause Samsung is the worst cultprit does not mean apple or Microsoft don't borrow ideas from each other, and from google etc . In the last few years there really has been no innovative products from any party, just evolution of the existing ones. And a lot of borrowing ideas from iOS / android .

 

[nooaah]

Well. One company blatantly rips off another, and creates the main android rival, which many on here call crap cheap android phones.

Punishment 500 to go the naughty infringer

BEATS creates cheap crap plastic headphones for a premium price

Apples pays $3 billion.

I'm just having a laugh at Apple getting so little for getting copied and paying so much for so little

I believe Apple got screwed both ways and think the penalty is a joke....well this whole case, will not be surprised if Samsung pays very little of the $500 million, or given enough time the legal fees will surpass the settlement figure at this rate...

I'm in a bar, at and airport having a beer.... Bored ...

Clearly you know more about the Beats brand value than anyone else.

 

[gnasher729]

Oh no. It doesn't end here. Next headline: "Samsung pays all 548 million in pennies".

That joke is old, and it has some problems. 1. There aren't that many pennies. 2. Trying to hoard $548 million in pennies would get you into deep legal trouble. 3. 54 billion pennies are not legal tender that needs to be accepted for payment of a debt.

 

[jpgr15]

That joke is old, and it has some problems. 1. There aren't that many pennies. 2. Trying to hoard $548 million in pennies would get you into deep legal trouble. 3. 54 billion pennies are not legal tender that needs to be accepted for payment of a debt.

K

 

[coolfactor]

Please don’t go there. All tech companies have done this kind of thing. Including………..

If you're suggesting that Apple deliberately copied a competitor's product design in order to capitalize on that competitor's market advantage, then you don't understand exactly why Samsung is on the hook for this. Having similar features (ie. notifications, on-screen drawers for controls) is not the same as copying the product dress design that is recognizable to consumers. I'm not excusing Apple for any legitimate theft that they may be guilty of, but I do think that they have a right to protect the iPhone-like design and characteristics that they very successfully pioneered to the mass market.

 

[diegogaja]

He's correct that it's Samsungs MO. They've done the same in several sectors: electronics, tv, appliances, and now phones. They come in, violate patents or copyrights, etc adm then flood the market with cheap versions and corner the sector like that. They are sued but spend years in appeals while strengthening their position. Having lived in Korea for years, many Koreans are disgusted with them and abhor their unethical business practices. They've been found to falsify documents, buying politicians, corruption...and have always been pardoned or have everything overlooked by the Korean govt. The stories I've heard from close friends who work for Samsung are horrific. I've read articles in Korea and others...not familiar with the VF piece.

sounds like you read the VanityFair's article on Samsung, written by Apple's lawyers at MoFo (Morrison Foerster) -- who also represented Pioneer in the Eastern District of Texas.

Last I checked, there are over 90 pending patent lawsuits against Apple. Considering both companies revenue and range of products and their impact, it's not too difficult to see why they attract so many litigations.

 

[frw3545]

Yeah, Apple invented round corners and LCD touchscreens. It actually was present on the Motorola Simbian based smart phone, many years before the first I phone. Apple just had better legal representation and everybody in the jury lived in Apples home town where most of them have employment directly or indirectly with Apple. It was a fair court case, get real.

 

[tooltalk]

He's correct that it's Samsungs MO. They've done the same in several sectors: electronics, tv, appliances, and now phones. They come in, violate patents or copyrights, etc adm then flood the market with cheap versions and corner the sector like that. They are sued but spend years in appeals while strengthening their position. Having lived in Korea for years, many Koreans are disgusted with them and abhor their unethical business practices. They've been found to falsify documents, buying politicians, corruption...and have always been pardoned or have everything overlooked by the Korean govt. The stories I've heard from close friends who work for Samsung are horrific. I've read articles in Korea and others...not familiar with the VF piece.

not sure why your poisoning-the-well fallacy is relevant here. Sure, I spent well over a decade in South Korea in my youth, so I know why & how South Koreans are disgusted by the gov't and conglomerates collusion. Despite that, Samsung is also by far the most admired and hire many best of the bests there -- akin to Apple's popularity here, despite their unethical, though not illegal, tax avoidance scheme or abusive labor outsourcing strategies. I also know a few people who used to work for the Korean intelligence, so I am also quite familiar with their political situation as well (especially during somewhat more tumultuous times in the 80's) and why it was impossible to do business without bribing or doing something unethical. Their unethical business activities are really influenced by regional corrupt politics -- likewise, I don't hear Samsung accused of falsifying or bribing in the US or UK.

Sure, Samsung's success really had more to do with their collaboration (especially with Sony, as they moved from manufacturing to product development) and the massive transfer of the Japanese tech than anything else, who had been also often accused of copying the Western tech a few decades back. Samsung in fact became Sony's largest supplier in the late 90's and it actually surpassed Sony's sales and technologies (ie, IP) less than a decade later. That's how they became so big, contrary to how you described.

But I'm not quite sure why Samsung's IP infringement is so much worse than Apple's 90 other pending lawsuits at work. Not only Apple's patent claims frivolous (and subsequently removed by Samsung), but also the only court siding with Apple was Apple's own hometown court -- the rest of the world basically said Apple's claims are BS. Samsung clearly infringed on Apple's trade dress claims (though this part of the lawsuit was reversed by the appeals court), but this $548M won by Apple is a complete horse manure.

 

[tooltalk]

Tell that to Martha Stewart or Raj Rajaratnam. A mining CEO was convicted just yesterday of a cover-up over mine safety violations (albeit of misdemeanor charges).

I think the government didn't go after Steve Jobs because they knew they would lose in front of a jury. Steve Jobs micromanaged the tech side of the business, but didn't get into the nitty gritty of technical accounting and was open and upfront about the stock backdating. Remember, it wasn't the backdating itself that was illegal or against the rules. It was bad accounting that got companies in trouble (the backdating should have triggered a bigger expense recognition). Most of the backdating occurred pre-Sarbanes-Oxley before the CEO had to certify the financial statements, so ignorance of the accounting rules was a defense for Steve Jobs, but not Fred Anderson, who is a CPA and was in a "knew or should have known" situation. Apple did a thorough internal investigation, which the SEC acknowledged. Had they not done so, they might have sanctioned Jobs for some technical violation. In any case, the charges against Apple and Anderson were civil, not criminal. Samsung's CEO was actually convicted of criminal charges and had to get a pardon from the president to continue as CEO.

your double-standard is confusing me a bit. Sure, you don't have a CPA to understand what an option-backdating is, just in the same way that the CEO of Samsung is not required to be an expert in corporate accounting to commit a tax evasion (and convicted).

 

[MH01]

Clearly you know more about the Beats brand value than anyone else.

just pointing out ripping others work pays, and so does marketing crap products. Don't take it as too meaningful, it was a sarcastic comment, with apple in the middle .

Could not care less if they paid 6 billion for Beats to be honest... It's just a really large number compared to $550 million, see my point ? Anyway as I said it was a sarcastic comment made having a few beers waiting for a flight....

 

[KPOM]

your double-standard is confusing me a bit. Sure, you don't have a CPA to understand what an option-backdating is, just in the same way that the CEO of Samsung is not required to be an expert in corporate accounting to commit a tax evasion (and convicted).

Apple wasn't sanctioned for back-dating options. Neither was any company in Silicon Valley. It isn't illegal to do so. What led to civil sanctions was failure to record the effects properly in the financial statements. That was a complex technical accounting issue. Back then there were easy ways to issue stock compensation without recording an expense. So much so that, yes, it's reasonable to me that a CEO wouldn't know which awards did or did not qualify for that special treatment.

 

[gnasher729]

Yeah, Apple invented round corners and LCD touchscreens. It actually was present on the Motorola Simbian based smart phone, many years before the first I phone. Apple just had better legal representation and everybody in the jury lived in Apples home town where most of them have employment directly or indirectly with Apple. It was a fair court case, get real.

The first part of your post shows that you either have no clue or that you are deliberately trying to mislead people.

Apple has design patents on the design of the iPhone 3 (and probably on newer iPhones as well). Just as Samsung has design patents on the designs of their Galaxy phones, except for one model (for good reason). The design patent lists a long list of design choices, one of them being rounded corners. You infringe on a design patent by copying _all_ of the design choices. Which is what Samsung did, and the result was a phone looking exactly like an iPhone 3.

Samsung for example has a design patent for the Galaxy 2 phone design, which among other things includes rounded corners. Plus a whole list of other design choices, some of which are different from iPhone designs, which make these phones look different. There is nothing stopping anyone from making phones with rounded corners. What you can't do is to take _all_ of the design choices in a design patent and copy _all_ of them simultaneously.

Rounded corners as part of a design patent don't need to be "invented". It's actually quite the opposite; if Apple had invented rounded corners for some technological purpose then these rounded corners couldn't be part of a design patent. (For example, rounded wheels cannot be part of the design patent for a car because there is a technical reasons why the wheels are round). So your cynical claim that Apple did something wrong because they didn't invent rounded corners is totally missing the point.

 

[frw3545]

The first part of your post shows that you either have no clue or that you are deliberately trying to mislead people.

Apple has design patents on the design of the iPhone 3 (and probably on newer iPhones as well). Just as Samsung has design patents on the designs of their Galaxy phones, except for one model (for good reason). The design patent lists a long list of design choices, one of them being rounded corners. You infringe on a design patent by copying _all_ of the design choices. Which is what Samsung did, and the result was a phone looking exactly like an iPhone 3.

Samsung for example has a design patent for the Galaxy 2 phone design, which among other things includes rounded corners. Plus a whole list of other design choices, some of which are different from iPhone designs, which make these phones look different. There is nothing stopping anyone from making phones with rounded corners. What you can't do is to take _all_ of the design choices in a design patent and copy _all_ of them simultaneously.

Rounded corners as part of a design patent don't need to be "invented". It's actually quite the opposite; if Apple had invented rounded corners for some technological purpose then these rounded corners couldn't be part of a design patent. (For example, rounded wheels cannot be part of the design patent for a car because there is a technical reasons why the wheels are round). So your cynical claim that Apple did something wrong because they didn't invent rounded corners is totally missing the point.

You don't get it. You are way to much in to details. Nobody cares about the actual patents, as both sides had them.
Both sides have patents on technology and designs which are not Apples or Samsung's inventions. The patent office just can't judge such applications as they have to much on the plate.
The entire thing was only good for the legal team as they got paid , win or loose. Apple had the better team and a favorable jury.
If the proceedings where held in lets say New York, it likely had different outcome.

 

[furi0usbee]

That's a rounding error for Apple...

 

[nooaah]

just pointing out ripping others work pays, and so does marketing crap products. Don't take it as too meaningful, it was a sarcastic comment, with apple in the middle .

Could not care less if they paid 6 billion for Beats to be honest... It's just a really large number compared to $550 million, see my point ? Anyway as I said it was a sarcastic comment made having a few beers waiting for a flight....

No, I don't. That kind of thinking is from someone who would not run a business well. You don't throw away half a billion dollars because you have $200b cash on hand. If Apple made a habit of that, they wouldn't have $200b. Spending a few billion on Beats, whether it's crap to you or not, was done to bring in more money than spent and increase brand recognition for related products. A big issue was also Apple's penetration into young/urban markets, which were dominated by Android. If you look at trends, Apple made up the gap in recent years amongst younger adults.

Apple did nothing illegal or even unethical with the acquisition of the Beats brand. Completely irrelevant point.

 

[Solomani]

From things I read in the past....not just the mobile division. I don't have the link, but I remember reading a similar story about a lawsuit involving them and Pioneer over home theater receivers. Steal, drag out in court forever, etc.

It's a company business model / tactic seemingly.

Sammy did the same thing to older American, Japanese, and European manufacturers in a wide variety of products like refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc.

Even the much-vaunted British vacuum company Dyson has vehemently lashed out at Samsung for blatant copycat practices. This Samsung-copies-Apple situation is not unique to the smartphone industry. Samsung has been doing this to other companies for years before the iPhone came into existence.

 

[MH01]

No, I don't. That kind of thinking is from someone who would not run a business well. You don't throw away half a billion dollars because you have $200b cash on hand. If Apple made a habit of that, they wouldn't have $200b. Spending a few billion on Beats, whether it's crap to you or not, was done to bring in more money than spent and increase brand recognition for related products. A big issue was also Apple's penetration into young/urban markets, which were dominated by Android. If you look at trends, Apple made up the gap in recent years amongst younger adults.

Apple did nothing illegal or even unethical with the acquisition of the Beats brand. Completely irrelevant point.

You missed my point, and continue to. As I have stated it a number of times now, it was a sarcastic comment, if you really want to turn this into a debate, about legal/ethical and relevance, ummm no... It was "Sarcastic".

Please look up sarcasm. Your reply is spot on, though.....being sarcastic, "humour" I'm not going to defend my point.... On a serious note, YES I am Wrong

 

[CPx]

sounds like you read the VanityFair's article on Samsung, written by Apple's lawyers at MoFo (Morrison Foerster) -- who also represented Pioneer in the Eastern District of Texas.

What are you talking about? The article was written by a journalist with a long and notable career (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Eichenwald).

If you have details, do tell.

 

[RobertMartens]

Apple fan boys are going to rejoice!

No one actually says 'fan boys' any more. Didn't you get the memo?

 

[tooltalk]

The first part of your post shows that you either have no clue or that you are deliberately trying to mislead people.

Apple has design patents on the design of the iPhone 3 (and probably on newer iPhones as well). Just as Samsung has design patents on the designs of their Galaxy phones, except for one model (for good reason). The design patent lists a long list of design choices, one of them being rounded corners. You infringe on a design patent by copying _all_ of the design choices. Which is what Samsung did, and the result was a phone looking exactly like an iPhone 3.

Samsung for example has a design patent for the Galaxy 2 phone design, which among other things includes rounded corners. Plus a whole list of other design choices, some of which are different from iPhone designs, which make these phones look different. There is nothing stopping anyone from making phones with rounded corners. What you can't do is to take _all_ of the design choices in a design patent and copy _all_ of them simultaneously.

Rounded corners as part of a design patent don't need to be "invented". It's actually quite the opposite; if Apple had invented rounded corners for some technological purpose then these rounded corners couldn't be part of a design patent. (For example, rounded wheels cannot be part of the design patent for a car because there is a technical reasons why the wheels are round). So your cynical claim that Apple did something wrong because they didn't invent rounded corners is totally missing the point.

@gnasher729 : Firstly, nobody patents a long list of "design choices" -- each design patent is for for very specific, narrow design element and none of Apple's design patent covers an entire product, like the iPhone 3. Or not even Apple's entire portfolio of design patents would cover the iPhone 3, not even a small fraction of it. This is simply impossible, given the complexity of modern mobile devices with 250,000+ active patents. Samsung certainly didn't infringe on "all of the choices" and certainly not "simultaneously" -- it was for very few specific design elements such as "rounded corners" of icons, etc, contrary to your nonsense.

The closest thing you are describing here is "trade dress," or overall visual impression, infringement -- which Apple won in 2012, but was reversed and remanded by the appeals court this year, on the basis that no "functional" (or "non-ornamental") visual components can be "trade marked."

 

[tooltalk]

Sammy did the same thing to older American, Japanese, and European manufacturers in a wide variety of products like refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc.

Even the much-vaunted British vacuum company Dyson has vehemently lashed out at Samsung for blatant copycat practices. This Samsung-copies-Apple situation is not unique to the smartphone industry. Samsung has been doing this to other companies for years before the iPhone came into existence.

We already went over Dyson's recent failed lawsuit against Samsung. Dyson had to drop the case because of their patent invalidation -- someone else had already done it -- but cried afoul when Samsung sued them for Dyson's misleading lawsuit. So after the court threw out the case and now sued by Samsung, Dyson's excuse?

"... It is surprising that a company over 100 times bigger than Dyson is so worried. The patent system offers us some protection, but not enough: with an army of lawyers, hidden prior art is occasionally found and ways to design around existing patents identified."