Samsung wins 3G patent case against Apple in Dutch court, seeks damages
Samsung will reportedly seek compensation from Apple after the company won a 3G patent dispute in the Hague District Court in the Netherlands.
Apple was found by the court to be infringing on European Patent 1188269, entitled "Apparatus for Encoding a Transport Format Combination Indicator for a Communication System," The Verge reported on Wednesday. The patent in question is a FRAND patent, meaning it must be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, which means Samsung cannot seek a ban on sales or import of Apple's devices.
The Apple devices found to have infringed on Samsung's 3G patent are the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, first-generation iPad, and iPad 2.
Samsung said in a statement to AllAboutPhones that the company will "recover adequate damages" from Apple in accordance with the court's rulings. It said the decision verifies "that Apple makes free use of our technological innovations."
Last year, a judge in the Netherlands denied Samsung's request to halt sales of the iPhone and iPad. That decision was also based on 3G patents owned by Samsung.
But while Samsung couldn't bar sales of Apple's devices, it could now collect damages from them. The decision in the Netherlands is one of few legal victories Samsung has seen in its ongoing legal spat with Apple, which spans dozens of complaints across 10 countries.
But intellectual property expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents said in his analysis on Wednesday that Samsung's victory is only a "consolation prize" that only amounts to a "symbolic" victory for the company.
"Tiny amounts of money won't get Apple to settle," he said. "Samsung was trying hard to win an injunction, but failed. From a strategic point of view, it had already lost 99.9% of these cases even before today's liability ruling came down. This really is nothing more than symbolic."
Apple was found by the court to be infringing on European Patent 1188269, entitled "Apparatus for Encoding a Transport Format Combination Indicator for a Communication System," The Verge reported on Wednesday. The patent in question is a FRAND patent, meaning it must be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, which means Samsung cannot seek a ban on sales or import of Apple's devices.
The Apple devices found to have infringed on Samsung's 3G patent are the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, first-generation iPad, and iPad 2.
Samsung said in a statement to AllAboutPhones that the company will "recover adequate damages" from Apple in accordance with the court's rulings. It said the decision verifies "that Apple makes free use of our technological innovations."
Last year, a judge in the Netherlands denied Samsung's request to halt sales of the iPhone and iPad. That decision was also based on 3G patents owned by Samsung.
But while Samsung couldn't bar sales of Apple's devices, it could now collect damages from them. The decision in the Netherlands is one of few legal victories Samsung has seen in its ongoing legal spat with Apple, which spans dozens of complaints across 10 countries.
But intellectual property expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents said in his analysis on Wednesday that Samsung's victory is only a "consolation prize" that only amounts to a "symbolic" victory for the company.
"Tiny amounts of money won't get Apple to settle," he said. "Samsung was trying hard to win an injunction, but failed. From a strategic point of view, it had already lost 99.9% of these cases even before today's liability ruling came down. This really is nothing more than symbolic."
Comments
Does anyone know what other companies pay to license this patent? It will be interesting to see what the actual cost is. It may be that Apple gets a better deal than what Samsung was hoping for, since it is a frand patent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nealg
Does anyone know what other companies pay to license this patent? It will be interesting to see what the actual cost is. It may be that Apple gets a better deal than what Samsung was hoping for, since it is a frand patent.
Samsung doesn't care if they only get one dollar
All they care about is winning cases to use as precedents so they can sue some more when apple sue some more, which will make them sue some more, then apple will sue some more
......and so it will go until one day through litigation we will live in a world where either
a) ALL products are banned for one stupid reason or the other (see xbox 360)
b) all products are ridiculously expensive since at some point lawyer fees will be passed on to the consumer.
Oh, what a world we live in
EDIT: By the way, anyone else find this funny that its OLD stuff Apple and Samsung are arguing about? The iphone 3gs?, ipad 2? galaxy tab 10.1?
These are all products that have successors and are probably hardly even made by the manufacturer anymore. What's the point of apple and Samsung going through with these? Its all a big schoolyard 5-year-old fight
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
But while Samsung couldn't bar sales of Apple's devices, it could now collect damages from them. The decision in the Netherlands is one of few legal victories Samsung has seen in its ongoing legal spat with Apple, which spans dozens of complaints across 10 countries.
In reality one of the few legal victories for either side. This one is more symbolic than anything and it was never about money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbyrn
Poor Mr. Cook, he's so right to hate litigation. Those who live by litigation are quite likely to get burned by it.
Read the article.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy3
EDIT: By the way, anyone else find this funny that its OLD stuff Apple and Samsung are arguing about? The iphone 3gs?, ipad 2? galaxy tab 10.1?
These are all products that have successors and are probably hardly even made by the manufacturer anymore. What's the point of apple and Samsung going through with these? Its all a big schoolyard 5-year-old fight
Samsung is going after damages based upon Apple stealing its tech. The money, plus interest, is an adequate incentive.
Apple seeking to enjoin sales of obsolete products makes much less sense to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy3
Samsung doesn't care if they only get one dollar
All they care about is winning cases to use as precedents so they can sue some more when apple sue some more, which will make them sue some more, then apple will sue some more
......and so it will go until one day through litigation we will live in a world where either
a) ALL products are banned for one stupid reason or the other (see xbox 360)
b) all products are ridiculously expensive since at some point lawyer fees will be passed on to the consumer.
Oh, what a world we live in
EDIT: By the way, anyone else find this funny that its OLD stuff Apple and Samsung are arguing about? The iphone 3gs?, ipad 2? galaxy tab 10.1?
These are all products that have successors and are probably hardly even made by the manufacturer anymore. What's the point of apple and Samsung going through with these? Its all a big schoolyard 5-year-old fight
Yep, It be crazy times.
Samsung asked for 2.4% licensing fee which the cout ruled last year was excessive. And this was 2.4% of the price of the baseband chip, not the entire phone. So Samsung isn't going to get very much out of this. They wanted an injunction but got table scraps instead.
I did read the article and I'd guess that Samsung will extract more than enough money out of Apple to pay it's on-going legal fee's to defend against Apple's lawsuits. The costly stalemates continue.
Winning a lawsuit will simply ensure they remain employed. The lawyers don't get 40%.
FRAND rules require that everyone pays the same. If we were to look at the Apple side of this, we may find that Samsung wanted more than everyone else pays. Or they may have demanded one or more forms of payment that Apple wouldn't agree to.
Often companies will be working on several patent deals at once. It is legit if the two companies have a deal going on a non FRAND patent for that patent to be used as part of the payment for the FRAND one. For example, I have a FRAND patent on A and you want to license it. The cost is $1k. You have a non FRAND patent on 1 and you have agreed to let me license it for $500. Rather than me writing you a check for $500 and you writing me a check for $1k, you 'pay' me with the license for 1 and a check for the difference. On the flip if you don't want to license 1 to me, I can't refuse to license A to you unless you change you mind.
In several of these FRAND cases, the issue has been either trying to ask for more because this or that company can afford it, trying to force the inclusion of non FRAND patents etc. companies like Apple know they will lose and will be forced to back pay but so long as the terms are FRAND they won't care, they were willing to pay that anyway. And while companies like Samsung try to paint it as their victory, the truth of how they weren't playing by the rules either gets out so they take a PR on it.
FRAND rules require that everyone pays the same. If we were to look at the Apple side of this, we may find that Samsung wanted more than everyone else pays. Or they may have demanded one or more forms of payment that Apple wouldn't agree to.
Often companies will be working on several patent deals at once. It is legit if the two companies have a deal going on a non FRAND patent for that patent to be used as part of the payment for the FRAND one. For example, I have a FRAND patent on A and you want to license it. The cost is $1k. You have a non FRAND patent on 1 and you have agreed to let me license it for $500. Rather than me writing you a check for $500 and you writing me a check for $1k, you 'pay' me with the license for 1 and a check for the difference. On the flip if you don't want to license 1 to me, I can't refuse to license A to you unless you change you mind.
In several of these FRAND cases, the issue has been either trying to ask for more because this or that company can afford it, trying to force the inclusion of non FRAND patents etc. companies like Apple know they will lose and will be forced to back pay but so long as the terms are FRAND they won't care, they were willing to pay that anyway. And while companies like Samsung try to paint it as their victory, the truth of how they weren't playing by the rules either gets out so they take a PR on it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_CA
Uh, lawyer fees are already passed onto the consumer as they are company employees. They get paid a salary whether they watch the clock move or sit in a courtroom.
Winning a lawsuit will simply ensure they remain employed. The lawyers don't get 40%.
When you have multiple lawasuits going on in multiple countries in multiple languages your legal fees go up. Obviously no company keeps so much law representation on the books thinking its gonna be in court all over the world at the same time. And this what is happening. Sure you will have legal fees every month as per normal, but this situation is far from "normal"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
In reality one of the few legal victories for either side. This one is more symbolic than anything and it was never about money.
It was FRAND, so the issue never really was about whether Apple had to pay to license it. All the Dutch court did was rule that the two sides needed to strike a licensing deal. It was part of a broader lawsuit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerrySwitched26
Samsung is going after damages based upon Apple stealing its tech. The money, plus interest, is an adequate incentive.
Apple seeking to enjoin sales of obsolete products makes much less sense to me.
I can already see the headlines
"Oracle successfully obtains injunction on Nintendo 64"
"Apple succeeds is obtaining ban on Motorolla Startac"
"Samsung wins patent dispute over Apple Newton"
As I recall Samsung was demanding a fee off the price of the full phone from Apple. Which is why the courts said it was excessive. It should be only on the part that uses said tech. If that is how Samsung is licensing to everyone else, they would need to win this or risk lawsuits from the other companies for 'overcharging'
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
FRAND rules require that everyone pays the same.
That is not true. Many factors enter into it. Some companies deserve better prices and terms than others might get.
Samsung was always going to "win" this one.
Apple knew it had to pay to licence the patents, but did not believe the price Samsung quoted was appropriate under FRAND. So they paid nothing, knowing they would be sued to have the court to set the FRAND licencing fee. Now the court will set the fee and Apple will pay its back licencing and pay going forward.
This was always going to happen.
What was unclear was whether Samsung would get to demand a crazy amount, like 2.4% of the price of the phone. Instead the judge has already said 2.4% of the price of the baseband chip is excessive, which is exactly what Apple wants and believed would happen.
Good thing it wasn't Qualcomm bringing suit, altho their FRAND licensing royalties have come down over the past few years. They only want around 3.5% of the entire finished device cost now (based on BOM I believe) rather than upwards of 5% they originally asked for their CDMA, then 3G standards license. Before someone claims they only ask for a royalty based on a chipset price rather than a finished ready-to-sell handset, read the links.
I've no idea why the Hague court believed 2.4% of only the chip price to be excessive. Even Nokia was said to be asking a "fair" 2.5% royalty for a single FRAND-pledged patent, 3.5% for two, topping at 5% for 10 or more.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/25/8396726/index.htm
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qualcomm-files-arbitration-demand-against-nokia-to-resolve-dispute-over-license-agreement-57908132.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000/05/15/279766/index.htm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Good thing it wasn't Qualcomm bringing suit, altho their FRAND licensing royalties have come down over the past few years. They only want around 3.5% of the entire finished device cost now (based on BOM I believe) rather than upwards of 5% they originally asked for their CDMA, then 3G standards license. Before someone claims they only ask for a royalty based on a chipset price rather than a finished ready-to-sell handset, read the links.
I've no idea why the Hague court believed 2.4% of only the chip price to be excessive. Even Nokia was said to be asking a "fair" 2.5% royalty for a single FRAND-pledged patent, 3.5% for two, topping at 5% for 10 or more.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/25/8396726/index.htm
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qualcomm-files-arbitration-demand-against-nokia-to-resolve-dispute-over-license-agreement-57908132.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000/05/15/279766/index.htm
Interesting facts are in those cites, including:
Qualcomm says the average it charges Nokia - and 130 other licensees - is just below 5 percent of the wholesale price of applicable phones and other devices.
Qualcomm collects a royalty of about $10 for each CDMA phone sold
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Given those facts, I'm not sure why the 2.4% figure I've seen is considered excessive.
Maybe it is because 2.4% of a $700 smartphone is so much more than 5% of a $200 dumb phone? I don't know. But it is said that Microsoft is getting licensing fees of $15/phone from some Android makers. For a $600 phone, that is 2.5%.