Samsung vs Apple verdict is in.........

[Apathy]

Apple wins HUGE

 

We've been watching Apple and Samsung hammer each other for what feels like eons over who ripped off whom. And now the jury is in (shockingly soon): Samsung just lost almost everything.

 

Apple has contended that the entire mobile industry had nothing but messes of buttons and switches before Steve Jobs descended with the iPhone—after which point a unadorned glass face with rounded, bouncy icons became the de facto standard for pretty much every phone and tablet, for the rest of time. Samsung says they came up with this stuff on its own before the iPhone ever dropped. Apple, of course, claims the opposite.

 

http://gizmodo.com/5...ng-big-updating

[Mavric]

(**cue Dr. Evil voice**) One BILLION dollars!

 

Ouch, that's got to hurt.

[strigori]

That's going to get appealed. I'm sorry, you can't copyright a shape. Juries are great from criminal trials, but this kinda thing John Q. Public is just not smart enough to decide.

 

Patent law needs a revamp. The general kinds of concepts that they allow patents on is just stupid. If it ran 100 years ago like it does now we would have one maker of cars with 4 wheels.

[NUance]

Samsung brought a knife to a gunfight. Apple used a team of lawyers from Morrison Foerster and Wilmer Hale--both firms that are well versed in patent litigation. Samsung used Quinn Emanuel, a California firm know more for business matters than for complex patent litigation. Samsung saved a couple million dollars in legal fees. At the cost of a $1 billion judgement. A very expensive lesson. Here's a decent article on the trial. LINK

[carlfense]

That's going to get appealed.

It will be appealed but it's almost certain that the appellate court will affirm the verdict. It's quite possible (maybe even likely) that the amount of damages will be reduced but this is a huge loss for Samsung either way.

 

Appellate courts don't like tossing jury verdicts.

[carlfense]

Samsung brought a knife to a gunfight. Apple used a team of lawyers from Morrison Foerster and Wilmer Hale--both firms that are well versed in patent litigation. Samsung used Quinn Emanuel, a California firm know more for business matters than for complex patent litigation. Samsung saved a couple million dollars in legal fees. At the cost of a $1 billion judgement. A very expensive lesson. Here's a decent article on the trial. LINK

Agree to disagree, I guess. If anything QE has better reputation for this type of litigation. WH and MF are full service law firms that are much less specialized than QE.

 

The problem for Samsung is that they shamelessly copied Apple's products and not that they hired the wrong attorneys.

[NUance]

That's going to get appealed.

It will almost certainly be appealed but it's almost certain that the appellate court will affirm the verdict. It's quite possible (maybe even likely) that the amount of damages will be reduced but this is a huge loss for Samsung either way.

 

Appellate courts don't like tossing jury verdicts.

True. But since this is a patent case it goes to the Federal Circuit rather than one of the dozen numbered federal appellate circuit courts. The Fed Circuit has far more patent expertise than the district court that just ruled--or any district court for that matter. If the trial court reached the wrong decision the Fed Circuit won't hesitate overturn it.

 

Here's my prediction: The parties will litigate this in the Fed Circuit until the eve of a decision than then settle for somewhat less than the $1 billion trial court judgement. That way, all the lawyers make out like bandits and both sides can claim a win.

[carlfense]

True. But since this is a patent case it goes to the Federal Circuit rather than one of the dozen numbered federal appellate circuit courts. The Fed Circuit has far more patent expertise than the district court that just ruled--or any district court for that matter. If the trial court reached the wrong decision the Fed Circuit won't hesitate overturn it.

It's still likely that they will defer to the jury. Right or wrong . . . that's the way the system works.

 

Here's my prediction: The parties will litigate this in the Fed Circuit until the eve of a decision than then settle for somewhat less than the $1 billion trial court judgement. That way, all the lawyers make out like bandits and both sides can claim a win.

Quite possible. Apple can probably assume that the appellate court will reduce the damage figure. The parties will have to play a little guessing game about what that number would probably be. I don't think Samsung will be able to claim a win in any scenario . . . this was one of the more lopsided verdicts that I've seen.

[NUance]

Samsung brought a knife to a gunfight. Apple used a team of lawyers from Morrison Foerster and Wilmer Hale--both firms that are well versed in patent litigation. Samsung used Quinn Emanuel, a California firm know more for business matters than for complex patent litigation. Samsung saved a couple million dollars in legal fees. At the cost of a $1 billion judgement. A very expensive lesson. Here's a decent article on the trial. LINK

Agree to disagree, I guess. If anything QE has better reputation for this type of litigation. WH and MF are full service law firms that are much less specialized than QE.

 

The problem for Samsung is that they shamelessly copied Apple's products and not that they hired the wrong attorneys.

When you say this "type" of litigation do you mean patent litigation? I believe both of the firms Apple used are thought more highly of than Quinn Emanuel. I'm talking about patent litigation--not patent prosecution, antitrust litigation other types of business litigation.

 

 

edit: As I look them up I see Quinn Emanuel is high ranked in patent litigation--surprisingly ranked #3 in one ranking (LINK) while Morrison Foerster is #6 and Wilmer Hale is #12. All three firms are top tier. I guess my bias against California lawyers is showing through. Seems like I've met more than a few California attorneys who are total goofballs.

[carlfense]

Samsung brought a knife to a gunfight. Apple used a team of lawyers from Morrison Foerster and Wilmer Hale--both firms that are well versed in patent litigation. Samsung used Quinn Emanuel, a California firm know more for business matters than for complex patent litigation. Samsung saved a couple million dollars in legal fees. At the cost of a $1 billion judgement. A very expensive lesson. Here's a decent article on the trial. LINK

Agree to disagree, I guess. If anything QE has better reputation for this type of litigation. WH and MF are full service law firms that are much less specialized than QE.

 

The problem for Samsung is that they shamelessly copied Apple's products and not that they hired the wrong attorneys.

When you say this "type" of litigation do you mean patent litigation? I believe both of the firms Apple used are thought more highly of than Quinn Emanuel. I'm talking about patent litigation--not patent prosecution, antitrust litigation other types of business litigation.

QE (if I'm remembering correctly and it's quite possible that I'm not!) is basically a litigation only firm. Apple's firms are full spectrum.

 

I don't know if QE is known for this exact type of patent litigation. I probably know as little (or less) about patent law as anyone on HB. I find it extremely boring. That said, in my experience the choice of attorney is rarely determinative in litigation. The facts usually determine the outcome . . . not the attorney. In this case, the facts that I saw looked rather damning.

[NUance]

Samsung brought a knife to a gunfight. Apple used a team of lawyers from Morrison Foerster and Wilmer Hale--both firms that are well versed in patent litigation. Samsung used Quinn Emanuel, a California firm know more for business matters than for complex patent litigation. Samsung saved a couple million dollars in legal fees. At the cost of a $1 billion judgement. A very expensive lesson. Here's a decent article on the trial. LINK

Agree to disagree, I guess. If anything QE has better reputation for this type of litigation. WH and MF are full service law firms that are much less specialized than QE.

 

The problem for Samsung is that they shamelessly copied Apple's products and not that they hired the wrong attorneys.

When you say this "type" of litigation do you mean patent litigation? I believe both of the firms Apple used are thought more highly of than Quinn Emanuel. I'm talking about patent litigation--not patent prosecution, antitrust litigation other types of business litigation.

QE (if I'm remembering correctly and it's quite possible that I'm not!) is basically a litigation only firm. Apple's firms are full spectrum.

 

I don't know if QE is known for this exact type of patent litigation. I probably know as little (or less) about patent law as anyone on HB. I find it extremely boring. That said, in my experience the choice of attorney is rarely determinative in litigation. The facts usually determine the outcome . . . not the attorney. In this case, the facts that I saw looked rather damning.

Yeah, it seems like the facts should always determine the case. But in a huge patent trial like this I think it can be easy for the jury to get flummoxed and not properly weigh the facts. That, and it's really, really difficult to precisely define the scope of an invention in a sentence--as is purportedly done in the claims of a patent.

 

It's funny (odd) that there is a billion dollar trial over a patent issued by a GS-13 gov't bureaucrat who spent less than a week's worth of labor examining the patent before it issued--about $2k worth of effort.

[strigori]

Apple has no interest in the money. They have more money than they know what to do with. They want a block of all sales of competing smart phones that are rectangular and have a touch screen interface. Which is a disastrous outcome for everyone on earth except Apple. Like the car analogy I made earlier, if the current way things are done had existed then, all internal combustion engine cars with four wheels would have to be Ford.

[ZRod]

Admittedly I know next to nothing about patent law but to me this thing just reeks of incompetence on either the lawyer's part or the jury. I own a samsung phone and everybody I know has an iphone, other than both being colorless rectangles with rounded edges they are most certainly different animals. The initial interface where all the icons are is about the only part where I think one could legitimately argue samsung copied apple. And even then they had to write their own code, so the idea of how to display information has to be patented which sounds ludicrous to me.

[Enhance]

Admittedly I know next to nothing about patent law but to me this thing just reeks of incompetence on either the lawyer's part or the jury. I own a samsung phone and everybody I know has an iphone, other than both being colorless rectangles with rounded edges they are most certainly different animals. The initial interface where all the icons are is about the only part where I think one could legitimately argue samsung copied apple. And even then they had to write their own code, so the idea of how to display information has to be patented which sounds ludicrous to me.

Apple is just upset that the Samsung Galaxy S3 is superior to their crappy iPhone 4s in about every way imaginable.

 

Maybe they should cry some more, ffs.

[NUance]

Admittedly I know next to nothing about patent law but to me this thing just reeks of incompetence on either the lawyer's part or the jury. I own a samsung phone and everybody I know has an iphone, other than both being colorless rectangles with rounded edges they are most certainly different animals. The initial interface where all the icons are is about the only part where I think one could legitimately argue samsung copied apple. And even then they had to write their own code, so the idea of how to display information has to be patented which sounds ludicrous to me.

Apple is just upset that the Samsung Galaxy S3 is superior to their crappy iPhone 4s in about every way imaginable.

 

Maybe they should cry some more, ffs.

lol. Exactly. Unfortunately, these days it's not about who has the best products. It's about who has the strongest patent portfolio. And the best patent lawyers.