Apple vs. Samsung Trial Begins Today

[Akshay Masand]

The large patent infringement trial between Apple and Samsung that we has been going back and forth for weeks finally kicks off today in a California court as noted by The New York Times. With the infringement claims pending against both companies, there is a lot at stake. The trial can be mainly summarized by by the first few lines in each of the companies pre-trial brief (as pointed out by Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune’s Apple 2.0):

Apple:

Samsung is on trial because it made a deliberate decision to copy Apple's iPhone and iPad.

Samsung:

In this lawsuit, Apple seeks to stifle legitimate competition and limit consumer choice to maintain its historically exorbitant profits.

For those of you who haven’t followed what’s been going on or need a quick refresher, you can read a summary of both sides below.

Apple has been largely sticking to the same story in every brief and official statement since the beginning of the lawsuit, which is the following: Apple has invested a great amount of resources into developing their iOS devices (in this specific case, the iPad and the iPhone), allowing them to become benchmarks for their competitors and consumers. The company feels that Samsung deliberately chose to copy Apple’s products and designs instead of competing fairly. Here, Apple’s arguments will consist of showing and proving different cases and scenarios with the overall pattern of pointing out how Samsung has copied them.

Samsung needs to prove to the court that the company is just as inventive if not more inventive than Apple and that the Cupertino California company is anticompetitive for using patents to block Samsung’s products rather than competing in the market fairly. The South Korean electronics maker is referring to the issue at hand as “Apple’s black rectangle problem.” Here, the South Korean electronics maker is likely to argue that the patents are invalid for being too broad. The company has spent billions on research and development and has been in the mobile space far longer than Apple, so they need to prove to the court that Apple is a new player in the mobile market that is using decade's worth of Samsung’s research without paying for it. The company will likely try to prove that Apple isn’t inventing from scratch to argue its point.

Overall, this will be quite a case and hopefully, the two tech giants will be smart enough to come to an agreement and settle the case rather than letting the jury decide.

Source: Fortune’s Apple 2.0, The New York Times, The Verge

[MXCO]

Let's go America!


Wait what?

[Dark_Ninja]

I'm on samsungs side on this one. Apple really does need to give credit to those whom they borrow ideas from instead of claiming stuff is theirs when it was around way before them.

[EVO]

"Cant we all just get along?" - Jack Nicholson "Mars Attack"

[Luie82]

I'm on samsungs side on this one. Apple really does need to give credit to those whom they borrow ideas from instead of claiming stuff is theirs when it was around way before them.

Dozens of iPhone, iPad Prototypes Shown in New Apple v. Samsung Filing - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD


Judge Denies Samsung Request for Apple iPad 3 and iPhone 5 - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD


Now who's side are you on?

[Raybeast]

Nice article! It actually puts both point of views out there, but is not biased.

[hank197857]

the judge will order the two sides to work out their differences, nolo contendere.

[PokemonDesigner]

Samsung all the way in this trial. Apple needs to stop saying that everything yet do is there idea. I mean, look at iCloud or Siri.

[Piazza331]

Nice article! It actually puts both point of views out there, but is not biased.

Was just about to say the same thing. Even though this is a site for Apple products, it was nice to see an objective article.

[Loko914]

The olympics of stupid stuff....I wonder who's going to get a gold -_-

[bigboyz]

I understand today's day and age and the lawsuits that ensue. How about some history on lawsuits concerning cell phones. Did Motorola sue Nokia for patent infringement on flip phones? Just wondering if suing for this kind of stuff is "new" so to speak. Or is it or has it been a mainstay?

[Ziplock60]

Sounds like Willy Wonka to me!

[crcjetty]

just another reason i hate apple...they just want it all to themselves...iphone & S2 look nothing alike.