But this week a California district court declared that the litigation was over , with both sides reaching an out-of-court settlement. The drawn-out battle encompassed almost every level of court in the United States, and stretched across the world. But what was it really about? Pick up your mobile phone and you hold in your hands the result of millions of man hours of work and hundreds of thousands of patents registered to a panoply of companies.
Read more: These are the best smartphones for any budget in Patent Office and once the examiner finds allowable subject matter, the application matures into a patent. During examination of the utility patent, it is common for the examiner to reject the application and the applicant must explain why the invention is new and nonobvious in view of prior patents and publications.
This examination process may take years. If a design patent application is initially drafted well, however, the issues that the examiner raises are typically minor and easily overcome by an experienced patent attorney.
The overall examination process for design applications is typically faster and much less expensive than for utility applications. One New Hampshire Ave. Key facts: In , Apple sued Samsung for infringement of both its utility patents and design patents. Samsung was found guilty. Here, the jury was only determining damages. Under U. This remedy is not applicable to utility patents. In contrast, the owner of a utility patent may recover their own lost profits due to the infringement, or a reasonable royalty.
And since the first suit was filed, the market share for Android, the software powering Samsung's phones, has soared. This year, about 85 percent of all smartphones shipped in the world will run Google's Android, according to IDC. The remaining 15 percent will run Apple's iOS software. Apple ignited the smartphone revolution with iPhone and it is a fact that Samsung blatantly copied our design. It is important that we continue to protect the hard work and innovation of so many people at Apple.
The original Apple v. Samsung trial in captivated Silicon Valley and the tech industry because it exposed the inner workings of two notoriously secretive companies. It was just one of many cases around the world as the rivals sparred both in the marketplace and in the courtroom. The two companies settled their international lawsuits in but have been battling in US courts as recently as May.
The devices at issue in the case, though, haven't been sold for years and predate Samsung's meteoric rise in mobile phones. Apple and Samsung also had another case pending that related to newer devices, like 's Galaxy S3. But Samsung appealed the case, leading to two damages retrials and a hearing at the Supreme Court over how design patent damages can be decided. Samsung argued that the elements it infringed were just a minor part of the phone and that it should only have to pay damages for what infringes, not for the entire device.
Here's an easier way to think about that point of view: If a company owns a patent on just a car's cup holder , it shouldn't be able to collect the profit from the entire car.
But Apple argued that its three design patents, while covering merely cosmetic aspects of iPhones, were the key to making the phones look good and work well. It argued they couldn't be separated from the entire device and that its damages should total all of Samsung's profits from its infringing phones.
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