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Patent Trial of the Century

Patent trial of the century refers to a series of patent infringement lawsuit between two tech giants Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics regard the design of smartphones and tablets. Starting in April, 2011, this huge courtroom battle over patents has been squaring off in federal court in San Jose for more than two years and is often claimed as “Patent Trial of the Century” by a lot of industrial insiders. Backed to April, 2011, Apple filed its first lawsuit in California against Samsung for allegedly copy key features from the company’s iPhone and iPad. For example, Apple claimed that some of Samsung’s devices such as Galaxy S 4G and Galaxy Fascinate violated several iPhone’s hardware and software design patents in terms of their body shapes as well as the user interface. Overall, Samsung has sold 22.7 million smartphones and tablets that Apple claimed uses its technology. Also, as part of this lawsuit, Apple demanded the federal court to ban Samsung’s most popular smartphones and tablets in the U.S. marketplace. In August 2012, the so-called “Patent Trial of the Century” was finally drawn to an ending, the court in California awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages. The jury made a decision that Samsung had indeed infringed Apple’s patents with all 21 of its products in question.

History

By October 2011, Apple and Samsung have litigated 19 ongoing lawsuits in ten countries. By July 2012, the legal disputes between these two giant corporations have increased to 50 lawsuits worldwide, with billions of dollars in damages claimed between them. While Apple has an absolute advantages to be favored in the U.S., Samsung also have its ruling power in South Korea, Japan and some other countries.

On April 15th, 2011, Apple sues Samsung in San Jose court for alleging its smartphones and tablets "slavishly copied" the iPhone and iPad, claiming that the company needs to protect itself from patent violation. Soon after this breaking news, Samsung countersues Apple in courts in Seoul, Tokyo, Mannheim and Germany, alleging Apple for infringing its telecommunication technology patents.

In June 2011, Samsung continued to file lawsuits against Apple. In the United States, the company sues Apple in the International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington D.C. for infringing its patents. In South Korea, Samsung cited five of its patents and filed a lawsuit.

In late August 2012, the Seoul Central District Court decided that Apple infringed two of Samsung’s wireless patents, while Samsung violated one of Apple’s utility patents. The court also gives a temporary sales ban for the infringing products in the country and offers both companies small damages. However, the most essential claim from Apple lawyers that Samsung copied the iPhone and iPad’s design elements were denied by the judge.

On September 9th, 2011, the German granted Apple’s request to have a sales ban on Samsung’s popular computer tablet Galaxy Tab 10.1. The reason for this injunction is that the device interface infringed two patents from Apple. However, Samsung was given the opportunity to rework the design in order to continue selling the device. In late December, German Court said the revision of Galaxy Tab 10.1 by Samsung is fine and finally repealed its former decision.

In February 2012: Apple files second lawsuit accusing Samsung of copying designs in 17 smartphones and tablets, including the Galaxy Nexus smartphone.

In June 2012, Apple’s injunction request during its first lawsuit in Jan Jose to block Samsung smartphones such as the Droid Charge and Infuse 4G was denied because the judge thought that Apple couldn’t overcome Samsung's challenges to the patent's validity. Yet a preliminary injunction was granted in order to prevent Samsung from selling and importing its Google-partnered device Galaxy Nexus to the U.S.

On October 11th, 2012, the court in the U.S. agreed to remove the injunction on Galaxy Nexus smartphone and later, the Germany court also released the ban of Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet.

On August 24th 2012, federal jury in San Jose comes up with the conclusion that Samsung indeed infringed Apple's patents on more than a dozen smartphones and tablets, and awards more $1.05 billion in damages.

During the first trial

In recent years, Samsung has become one of the biggest rivals for Apple by introducing the Galaxy line of high-end smartphone and tablet. Two companies have a combination of more than half of global smartphone and tablets sales. During the first trial, Apple attorney Harold McElhinny pointed out that Samsung was having a crisis of design after the launch of iPhone 4 and Samsung executives obviously acknowledged and intended to take advantages of this revolutionary device. Samsung's lawyers countered that it was just simply giving its consumers what they want. They said Samsung didn't violate any of Apple's design patents. Although it is an undeniable fact that Apple makes great products, it shouldn’t have a monopoly on the design of phones with rounded corners. Also, they presented some evidence to show that further alleged innovations claimed by Apple were actually created by other technology companies such as Nokia, Motorola, and Sony, etc. Experts called this line of argument a high-risk strategy because of Apple's reputation as an innovator. While the legal and technological issues were complex, patent expert Alexander I. Poltorak previously said the case would likely boil down to whether jurors believed Samsung's products look and feel almost identical to Apple's iPhone and iPad.

After verdict

On August 24th 2012, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Apple. The court made a decision that Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents of its iPhone. It ended up with an award of $1.049 billion for Apple in damages and Samsung zero damages in its counter suit. An Apple spokesman said, "The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than even we knew." In reaction to his claim, Samsung said "Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer," and "It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices."