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Apple-Samsung Trial Verdict: Apple Wins Big, Jury Awards Apple $1 Billion Plus

2012-08-25T02:32:00.005-07:00

In a surprisingly quick judgement, the jury in the Apple-Samsung trial found Samsung infringed several of Apple’s patents and awarded the Cupertino company more than $1 Billion in damages.
Here are the decisions:
– On the question of patents on the bounce-back technology featured in Galaxy line of smartphones immediately following the launch of the iPhone, Samsung is liable.
– On the question of pinch-and-zoom technologies, mostly based on one-and-two fingered control, the jury finds Samsung is guilty. Not all of the phones and tablets have been tagged as liable but many of them. (The damage figures could be huge.)
– On the question of tap and zoom technologies, Samsung is guilty. There are fewer devices dinged.
– Jury finds Samsung should have known that its divisions were enabling infringement actions.
– Jury finds Samsung DID NOT infringe iPad patents. That’s one on the column for Samsung.
– On the question of UI, mostly based on the iconography of the front screen of the iPhone, the jury finds Samsung guilty.
– This might be the biggest one so far: On the question of willfulness on most of the infringement of patents, the jury finds Samsung guilty as well.
– The jury ultimately upholds most of Apple’s patents. Samsung is barred by “patent exhaustion” from using patents 516 and 941. In the original instruction form Apple denied “infringed claims asserted by Samsung” and argued claims asserted by Samsung were invalid. The jury agreed.
– The jury decides against awarding Samsung any damages. Zero.
– The jury finds Samsung did not break Apple’s anti-trust exception.
– After reviewing the verdict, Judge Koh noted discrepancies that wrongly gave Apple more money than it deserved. The first is a judgement on the Galaxy Tab. There was no infringement for the Tab patent but the jury had given more than $200,000 in damages. A second problem involved a trade dress judgement, which involves more than 2M dollars. Considering the judgement leveled more than a Billion dollars upon Samsung, a 2M dollar saving is strictly irrelevant.
The final damage amount is $1,049,343,540.
DAMAGES AWARDED TO APPLE PER PHONE
Samsung Prevail: $57,000,000.00
Samsung Infused: $44,792,974.00
Samsung Replenish: $3,350,256.00… more to come.
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The jury has reached a verdict in the Apple-Samsung trial and we’ll update with comments from reactions from tech luminaries from around the web.

Source: COFMAC

Apple-Samsung Trial Verdict: The Official Reactions

2012-08-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

Apple has won a massive damages sum of nearly $1.05 Billion in the patent trial against Samsung and the reaction from the technology community has been vast and swift.
In an email immediately following the verdict, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles Golvin told us the main takeaway from the verdict is the focus on innovation. Companies will now be forced to create legitimately different products, or at least engineer some without extravagantly similar features:

The jury particularly vindicates Apple’s software patents and their decision has implications not just for Samsung, but also for Google, other Android device makers like LG, HTC, and Motorola, but also potentially for Microsoft who employs features such as pinch to zoom, bounce on scroll, etc. These competitors are now forced to go back to the drawing board and come up with substantively different designs — or seek settlement terms with Apple. Since many of these controls are now built into the expectations of customers in how they work their phones, those are substantive challenges.

Gartner analyst and VP of Mobile Research Van Baker agrees the redesign of products in the long term is an issue but that it won’t affect any products anytime soon.

This is a clear win for Apple but it will have little impact on the market in the near term as it is highly likely that there will be an appeal so we will have to repeat the process. If sustained it has the potential to force Samsung to redesign a number of products and it will apply significant pressure on all smartphone and tablet makers to avoid trying to emulate the Apple designs as they bring new products to market.

Earlier, the two principals in the case immediately followed the shocking judgement with their own statements.

Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton gave a statement to the NYTimes, saying the verdict reflected the values of innovation instilled deep in the company:

We are grateful to the jury for their service and for investing the time to listen to our story and we were thrilled to be able to finally tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trail showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than even we knew. The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.

Samsung’s statement was defensive as expected and placed blame upon the court system. It also warned of a coming appeal.

Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies. Consumers have the right to choices, and they know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung products. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple’s claims. Samsung will continue to innovate and offer choices for the consumer.

Comments from people in the industry keep trickling in.
One of the most loud critics of the verdict so far is tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who’s unleashed a series of angry tweets the last few hours:

Thx Apple, it’s now mandatory for big tech companies to sue each other. Prices go up while competition and innovation suffer #appleflation
Dear Apple, what do you really accomplish with all of these patent lawsuits? Signed a former customer.
Dear Apple, Xerox PARC called, they want their interface back.
If the IBM PC was created in this patent environment there would be no Apple. They would have sued them out of existence.

We’ll keep updating this post with comments from other major figures as we find them. Please let us know in the comments if you find any.
Photo: emutold/Flickr/CC2.0

Why It Makes Sense For Apple To Hold Two Separate Events For The iPhone 5 And iPad Mini This Fall

2012-08-23T21:53:00.004-07:00

For months rumors have been saying that Apple is getting ready to launch two major, new products this fall: the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Both of these names are placeholders for what will be the sixth-generation iPhone and a 7-inch version of the current iPad. Everyone pretty much agrees that the new iPhone will be announced on September 12th, but opinions are split on the possibility of Apple also announcing the iPad mini during the same event. While it’s nearly 100% confirmed that a unibody iPhone 5 will be announced on the 12th and then ship on the 21st, specific dates have not surfaced for the elusive iPad mini—we haven’t even seen so much as an incriminating part leak.
While some think that Apple will announce both the new iPhone and iPad mini at its September event, it actually makes more sense for Apple to hold two separate media events this fall for each product. Here’s why.

Fighting For Attention

First off, Apple doesn’t need to announce both products at once. Sure, Amazon may announce the Kindle Fire 2 next month, but you can bet your tuchus that Apple doesn’t care. There’s been so much hype built up around the iPhone 5 and iPad mini that it’s going to be hard for Apple to not dominate the tech news cycle until Christmas. But why put all your cards on the table at once? Why not deliberately unleash a new iPhone (which a lot of people want) and then wait to unleash a smaller, cheaper iPad (which a lot of other people want).
John Gruber of Daring Fireball theorizes:

I’m thinking it makes more sense for Apple to hold two events. First, an iPhone event, focused solely on the new iPhone and iOS 6. Then, the iPhone ships nine days later, and there’s another wave of iPhone-focused attention as the reviews come out. Then, in the first or second week of October, Apple holds its traditional “music event”, exactly along the lines of the events at which they’ve been debuting new iPods for the last decade. (Maybe more of an “iTunes event” than just “music event”, given the rise of other media like TV shows, movies, and books.)
An event where the iPad Air (cool, but just a smaller thinner cheaper iPad), new iPod Touch (cool, but just an iPhone without the phone), and maybe even new or at least updated iPod music players (eh) share the stage, tied together with the theme of consuming iTunes media content — that I can buy.

Gruber notes that the iPhone is worth more than the entirety of Microsoft. A new iPhone—and what’s more, the major iPhone redesign people have been anticipating since the iPhone 4—deserves its own spotlight. Reviews will be written, and the news will be talking about it nonstop for a solid month. Once the noise starts to fade, a cheap, 7-inch iPad comes out, thereby triggering another solid month of nonstop news coverage.
That’s September and October. Seems like plenty of momentum to propel Apple into a record-breaking holiday season.
Jim Dalrymple, another well-sourced pundit in the Apple community, seems to agree with Gruber’s premise. A new iPhone and iOS 6 release next month, followed by an early-October iPad mini (Air?), iTunes-centric event.
If you comb through the rumors, iMore is really the only site that’s predicted a new iPhone and iPad mini announcement for September 12th. Back in May, iMore said that a 7-inch iPad was shipping in October. The September 12th date wasn’t reported until July:

The iPad mini will be announced at the same September 12 event, as will the new iPod nano. We haven’t heard a release date for the iPad mini yet, but it could be the same as the iPhone 5. It seems likely the new iPod touch will make an appearance on September 12 as well, though we haven’t heard any specific information about that yet either.

Bloomberg has only said that a smaller iPad “may be” announced “by October.” All The Wall Street Journal really said was that “a launch for the device is near.”
There’s no need to overwhelm the press and consumers with two major product announcements at once. Apple doesn’t want the new iPhone and 7-inch iPad to compete for attention. That’s why it makes more sense for there to be two separate events. It’s more of a focused, deliberate approach. It sounds more like Apple.

Mac And iOS Version of Adobe Revel Updated To Include Photo Albums, Captioning

2012-08-23T21:51:00.003-07:00

Adobe updated their cloud-based photo management app, Revel, to version 1.5 across both Mac and iOS apps. The new version includes the ability to sort photos into albums, share private web albums on the Adobe Revel website, and add captions to photos. Along with an updated user interface and new photo themes, you can use your Facebook ID to sign up for a Revel account.

The app itself is free, but Adobe Revel – previously Adobe Carousel – is a $5.99 per month subscription service that allows access to your photos from any device with the Revel app on it, including your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The photos are stored in the cloud, and are also able to be found on the Adobe Revel website.
Any editing done on one device is automatically reflected on all the others. This includes captioning and photo albums as well. When you sign up for the service via Facebook or one of the apps, you’ll get 30 days of service for free. The subscription fee gets you unlimited photo imports, as well, and you can share your photos from Revel to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr.
While the activities of the app sound a lot like iPhoto, with albums, sharing, and basic photo editing, having access to the editing tools across devices is something I hope Apple will implement soon. PhotoStream is a pretty fantastic feature, but iPhoto doesn’t have a full synching option like Adobe describes here.
To cancel the Revel subscription at any time (you’ll still be charged the full $6), you manage it from the Subscriptions pane of the Settings app, following the instructions from the Revel description page:

"1.Launch iTunes, select iTunes Store from the left bar in the upper-right corner, select the drop-down from your Apple ID and choose Account

2.Toward the bottom of the page, under the Settings section find Subscriptions.

3.Select ManageOn the Manage Subscriptions screen and find Adobe Revel.4.Select the right-arrow icon to adjust your subscription settings"

Source : AppShopper

South Korean Court Rules That Apple Infringed On Samsung’s Patents

2012-08-23T21:41:00.001-07:00

According to the Wall Street Journal, a Seoul court ruled that Apple has infringed on two of Samsung’s patents. In addition, Apple must stop selling the infringing products in South Korea. Apple isn’t the only one at fault here, as the court also ruled that Samsung had infringed upon Apple’s “bounceback” patent. According to the WSJ’s Evan Ramstad:

"Looks like a split decision overall in South Korea court, but Samsung faring better than Apple with judges."

In addition, Reuters reports that Apple has been given a small fine of roughly $35,400.