Week 3 Blog #3: The Apple vs. Samsung Patent Litigation

In February of 2012, Apple took Samsung to court claiming that Samsung had ripped off several patented aspects of the iPhone, including the slide-to-unlock feature, and demanded a "preliminary injunction" to stop Samsung from selling the new phone, the Galaxy Nexus, that they were releasing at the time. One week later, Samsung would sue Apple in multiple countries and countersued Apple's initial lawsuit under the allegation that Apple was attempting to disrupt competition. Hundreds of patents were brought up in cases around the world as judges asked the companies to take patents out of the cases to make them more manageable. However, due to the fact that all these cases involved preliminary injunctions, the firms were allowed to continue offering the "infringing" products for sales while the disputes continued in the courts.

As the dispute raged on between the two companies, rulings became complicated and hard to understand. In multiple instances, while a lower court ruled in favor of both parties on several occasions, a simple appeal to a higher court threw out the earlier rulings. For example, the USPTO had claimed that Apple's "rubber band" patent was valid, but then proceeded to toss out the patent shortly afterwards, further complicating the entire process. Eventually, Apple's win the U.S. recently in the past year could see the company net close to a billion dollars and has caused Samsung to reason that it's easier to simply concede to Apple's hegemony in certain markets than to fight on all fronts.

Speaking specifically to the "slide-to-unlock" feature, a judge in California ruled that while Samsung infringed on Apple's slide-to-unlock patent, the infringement was not willful. Judge Lucy Koh determined that Apple did not clear and convincing evidence that Samsung acted despite the likelihood that its actions could infringe a valid patent.