Apple, Samsung present closing arguments in California patent trial

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Apple and Samsung on Tuesday presented closing arguments in their high-stakes patent trial, with each side jockeying for position ahead of jury deliberation expected to start on Wednesday.

Kicking off Tuesday's proceedings was a reading of the 109-page jury instructions by presiding Judge Lucy Koh, who said, ?I need everyone to stay conscious during [this] — including myself.? In-court reports from All Things D described the long list of 84 instructions as "byzantine," saying the dry document covered details of patent and antitrust law, willful infringement and the dilution of trade dress. At times Judge Koh called for everyone to stand up and "get the blood flowing again."

Apple's closing arguments

Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny wanted to make three main arguments, reports The Verge, the first being "documents are the most valuable key in the truth-finding function." He went on to say that witnesses can be incorrect, "historical documents are almost always where the truth lies."

The second point, and one of the main arguments in Apple's case, was to take into consideration the chronology of events leading to litigation. McElhinny expounded on chronology for nearly 20 minutes, starting with iPhone development in 2003 and ending with Apple's allegations that Samsung copied the "look and feel" of the iPhone and iPad.

Presented for the jury were two familiar slides illustrating the evolution of Samsung product before and after the iPhone first launched in 2007. The information was also made available during the trials' testimony phase in a single exhibit demonstrating the product timeline of Samsung's handsets and tablets post iPhone and iPad.

Before iPhone
Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents

After iPhone

McElhinny pointed out the "crisis of design" document was in response to the lack of success Samsung suffered directly after the iPhone launched. In the comparison document, the Galaxy S was pitted side-by-side against the iPhone, with Samsung engineers taking note of the many features iOS implemented more efficiently than the Korean company's solutions.

The lawyer then called back to internal Samsung emails that showed Google, maker of the Android operating system, demanded the Korean company change the designs of their Galaxy S smartphones and certain tablet products because they looked too similar to Apple's iDevices.

Concluding the Apple counsel's second point of creating a chronology was McElhinny's assertion that Samsung's top executives "were bound and determined to cash in on the iPhone's success." He attributed the company's resurgence in the marketplace to the allegedly copied features, noting sales "took off after the first iPhone-derived product was added to the mix," referencing the Galaxy S. ?They were copying the worlds most successful product,? McElhinny said.

As for the third argument, Apple's attorney brought the Korean tech monolith's case handling into question.

?No Samsung executives were willing to come here from Korea,? McElhinny said. ?We called some of their top people. ? Samsung had a chance to defend itself in this case; instead they sent you lawyers. Instead of witnesses, they brought you lawyers.?

Next, Apple rebuked Samsung's contention that the iPhone's patents are obvious, functional and based on prior art. McElhinny said there "has been a complete failure of proof" regarding the invalidation of Apple's design patents, alluding to Samsung's lack of evidence to support such legal claims.

?Samsung was the iPhone?s biggest fan,? McElhinny said. ?They knew a good thing when they saw it. They tried to compete with it, and when they couldn?t, they copied it.?

Tablet Evolution
Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents


The same was said in regard to claims against Apple's utility patents such as the pinch-to-zoom and rubber-banding features seen in iOS.

LaunchTile
LaunchTile technology pointed to as prior art against Apple's utility patents.
Source: University of Maryland Dept. of Computer Science


Also touched on was consumer confusion relating to certain Samsung products, with the lawyer presenting a Best Buy survey that studied the reasons why customers were returning the Galaxy Tab. During testimony, Apple was quick to point out that a number of customers returned the Samsung tablet after realizing it wasn't an iPad. It was later reported that many more customers returned the Galaxy Tab due to malfunctions than mistaken identity, though the metric is still not a positive for Samsung.

Wrapping up, McElhinny said there are two factors driving the damages claims: Samsung sold 22.7 million infringing handsets to date; and sales of said handsets generated $8.16 billion in revenue for the company.

?The damages in this case should be large, because the infringement has been massive,? McElhinny said, presenting four different damages proposals ranging from $519 million to $2.5 billion.

To page 2 of 3: Samsung's closing arguments

Samsung's closing arguments

Unlike Apple's closing argument, Samsung brought up case handling first, taking jabs at the the Cupertino, Calif., company's business practices. Charles Verhoeven, counsel for the Korean company, described Samsung as Apple's biggest competitor, and alluded that the iPhone maker wanted to compete in the courtroom rather than the marketplace.

?Apple?s here asking for what it is not entitled to,? Charles Verhoeven said. ?It?s here asking you to prevent its largest competitor from giving consumers want they want. It?s attempting to block its most serious competitor from even playing the game.?

Verhoeven issued some lofty claims in his remarks, saying to the jury, ?Your decision, if it goes Apple?s way, could change the way competition works in this country."

The Samsung lawyer pushed the repeated argument that Apple's designs were part of a natural design evolution, not any unique invention. He cites the change in design of HDTVs with flat front panels as an example of this naturally occurring change in design.

?Guess what, every single smartphone has a rectangular shape with rounded corners and a big screen,? Verhoeven said. ?Just walk through Best Buy. So Apple is here seeking $2 billion in damages for what? That little ornamentation on the screen. It?s amazing, really. Apple thinks it?s entitled to have a monopoly on a rounded rectangle with a touchscreen.?

Verhoeven dug into Apple expert witness Peter Bressler's testimony, reminding jurors that small details in design may be of importance. To this end, Bressler's take on the flat front face of the iPhone was attacked as a number of Samsung smartphones were presented, including the Galaxy S 4G.

Galaxy S 4G
Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents


Next up was Verhoeven's take on Apple's consumer confusion argument, with the attorney saying normal consumers would have no problem distinguishing one from the other. Samsung denies copying or trying to create confusion in the marketplace, Verhoeven said, adding that "Apple has no evidence" to bolster such allegations.

Once again, the rectangle with rounded corners argument was brought up, a bone of contention seen multiple times before both in and out of court. Samsung contends that Apple cannot patent the rectangle shape, and argues against the iPhone's rounded corners by saying many devices have the feature because it is integral to usability.

Verhoeven then brought out a Droid Charge to illustrate how the device's startup sequence is unique when compared to the iPhone, discounting the iPhone maker's claim of consumer confusion. The Charge must first cycle through a Samsung logo, the Droid animation sequence, the proprietary Android skin and a user must press a button before reaching the application screen Apple asserts is being infringed.

As for testimony from Apple's expert witness Susan Kare, Verhoeven scoffed at the idea of being able to patent "a matrix of icons." He brought up the Galaxy Fascinate user interface, which Apple argues Samsung copied from their trademarked icon designs. Kare previously testified that she found "substantial similarities" in the two companies' UIs.

?There are only two icons that Apple?s expert witness said were similar, the phone and the clock," Verhoeven posited. "And I would submit that the vast majority of the icons are substantially different. Let?s not pretend you can patent a colorful row, a colorful matrix of icons.?

Messaging
Apple exhibit comparing Samsung messaging icons with the iOS Messages app.
Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents


Getting into the meat of the suit, Verhoeven calls Apple's assertion of copycatting "an intentional attempt to mislead the jury." To drive the point home, a slide was presented showing a chart of numerous Samsung phones, some of which Apple failed to include when making its case.

?They?re intentionally ignoring an entire category of phones,? Verhoeven said. ?This is a shell game. They?re pretending these phones never existed.?

Instead of using Samsung's witnesses to make his closing arguments, the lawyer attacked testimony from Apple's witnesses.

?Counsel for Apple is trying to mislead you,? Verhoeven said, talking to the jury. ?There is no bad intent. There is no copying. Samsung is a good corporate citizen. All it wants to do is make products that consumers want. All this copying evidence is hand-waving by Apple. Why? Because they don?t have anything else.?

Wrapping up, Samsung called Apple's damages number "ridiculous," and said ?Apple didn?t invent touchscreen. Apple didn?t invent the rectangular smartphone with rounded corners. And the intellectual property it is asserting in this case is not worth the money Apple is asking for.?

To page 3 of 3: Rebuttals

Closing argument rebuttals

Rebuttals started with Apple lead counsel William Lee, who had some strong words for Verhoeven's closing remarks.

?There?s a saying among attorneys,? Lee said. ?If you have the facts, stand by the facts. If you don?t, attack your rival?s clients, attack their witnesses and attack their lawyers. And that?s what Samsung has done.? He added that companies should "Compete on [their] own innovations."

More to the point, Lee rebuked Samsung's claims that Apple is attempting to stifle competition, noting research and development investments must be protected in order to survive in the marketplace.

?We have to protect our investment in these innovations. Because if we don?t, we won?t have people like Apple spending five years in a room coming up with a device that revolutionizes the mobile phone," Lee said. "Apple took five years to bring this revolution to us, Samsung took three months to copy it. That?s truth, and that?s simple, clear, and undisputed. Samsung copied our products, and they made $8 billion dollars doing it. What they?re saying to you is this: we don?t want to pay.?

Lee went on to compare the two companies' patents-in-suit, proposing the difference between the two is that Apple's properties are "commercially successful and have been universally praised and copied," while the Samsung products which use the Korean company's inventions asserted in the case "haven?t been praised or copied by anyone.? The lawyer went on to dismantle the Samsung patents in question, including certain 3GPP patents, by restating standards-essential FRAND licensing arguments posed over the course of the trial.

The lead counsel concluded by saying, ?Competition and innovation in this field has been accomplished by real innovators and scientists, not lawyers. Apple wants to compete fairly and squarely. Taking someone else?s intellectual property as Samsung did is not fair and square.?

Following Lee was McElhinny, who said if the jury finds Samsung guilty, they "will have reaffirmed the American patent system."

Samsung's Verhoeven used his remaining 14 minutes to argue FRAND patent issues as well as patent exhaustion in regard to Intel chips used by Apple in the company's products. As most of the time was spent rebutting Apple's claims, not much was said in the way of concluding statements besides the final remark, "Let's have Samsung compete freely in the marketplace instead of Apple trying to stop it in the courtroom."

With that, Apple v. Samsung arguments ended. The jury has received the much-disputed verdict form and will begin deliberations on Wednesday. A timeline for judgment is hard to estimate, though a decision could come as soon as this week.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 139


    Well, that was quick.

  • Reply 2 of 139


    I told you it would be over on Tuesday, it was scheduled like this.

  • Reply 3 of 139
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

    "Samsung was the iPhone's biggest fan," McElhinny said. "They knew a good thing when they saw it. They tried to compete with it, and when they couldn't, they copied it."


     


    And it's not that they couldn't, it's that they chose not to. They're quite capable of creating designs that don't look like the iPhone. Just look at everything they made before it came out.


     


    Also, I hope I got all the question marks. If anyone sees any other errors, as always, let me know (PM would be fastest)!

  • Reply 4 of 139


    Here's hoping the jury decide in Apple's favour.

  • Reply 5 of 139

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TogetherWeStand View Post


    Here's hoping the jury decide in Apple's favour.



    If they lose, at least there will still be vodka....


     


    And Samsung says Apple only owes them something like 500 mil, which isn't that substantial to Apple.

  • Reply 6 of 139
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,136member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TogetherWeStand View Post


    Here's hoping the jury decide in Apple's favour.



     


    I hope so too.  No matter what, it needed to get this far in the court system so that a message can be sent, and a precedent set.



    Are Apple's patents valid and be enforced, or will the court decide that it's okay to copy a design without repercussion.  We'll hopefully know soon.



    Regardless of the outcome, this will go to appeals for who knows how long.
  • Reply 7 of 139
    845032845032 Posts: 76member


    I think you guys know this things before you accusing samsung....


     


    1. Samsung alrady developed that design before iphone


     



     


     



     



     



     



     


     


    http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-infuriates-apple-with-iphone-evidence-leak-01241146/


     


    2. That design is not Apple's own


     



    http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/29/apple-iphone-vs-lg-prada-separated-at-birth-part-2/

    http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-and-lg-ke850-separated-at-birth/



     




    LG Mobile Handset R&D Centre, Woo-Young Kwak, publicly announced the following statement:




    "We consider that Apple copied the Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006."

    We take that to mean "Apple stole our idea."

    http://www.applematters.com/article/the-iphone-lawsuits/


     


     


    3. Filder Tablet (Prior-Art of ipad)


    Here is the tablet that apple copied its design.


     



     


     


     


    4. Jeff Han's Multi Touch Before Apple filed its patent





     


    Apple : Nothing is original

  • Reply 8 of 139
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post


     



     


    Oh, they decided that in 1994… 


     


    ????



    Originally Posted by 845032 View Post

    [post]


     


    Except no.

  • Reply 9 of 139
    geoadmgeoadm Posts: 81member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 845032 View Post


    I think you guys know this things before you accusing samsung....


     


    1. Samsung alrady developed that design before iphone


     


    Apple : Nothing is original



     


    yeah its not fair eh, I designed the Lamborghini back in the 60s but cause I didn't release/patent or make it known about in any other way, people say I only made those drawings after the Lamborghini came out. Not fair! Not Fair! Not Fair!

  • Reply 10 of 139
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,391member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 845032 View Post


    I think you guys know this things before you accusing samsung....


     



     


     


    How many times have you posted this moronic post and those idiotic comparisons? Are you on Samsung's legal team and just mindlessly vomit out all the desperate horse-shit they've shown/said? You're seriously posting that Fiddler tablet shit again, after Apple built a replica and tore that argument to pieces? If this board had a shred of moderation you would have been banned ages ago. You're a broken record and contribute nothing of worth or intelligence. 


     


    Also, with all due respect, learn some english. I don't post on message boards in languages I don't speak, is it too much to ask you to do the same? Almost every word in that 1st sentence of yours is wrong. 

  • Reply 11 of 139


    The jury foreman threw his back out and was rushed to the hospital. He was last seen struggling to carry the jury instructions to the deliberation room.

  • Reply 12 of 139
    old-wizold-wiz Posts: 194member


    Wouldn't it be great if the jury decided both companies were jerks and award 100,000 to each and tell them to go away and shut up.


     


    Strange they are suing each other considering Samsung is investing on expanding a plant to make chips for iPhones

  • Reply 13 of 139


    Everyone is entitled to their own opinion either right or wrong, & I will not say anything more or get drawn into a debate, but this is my take on the subject.


     


    That there were large screen phones & tablets before Apple's iPhone & iPad is not the issue or debated, the issue is how 'almost' all the other brands phones & tablets were changed to try look & act too closely like the iPhone & iPad after they were announced / came out is the issue.


     


    As the saying goes, 'the devil is in the detail,' (& could add, the IP where applicable). Hopefully this case will help the other brands realise this.

  • Reply 14 of 139
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by old-wiz View Post

    Wouldn't it be great if the jury decided both companies were jerks and award 100,000 to each and tell them to go away and shut up.


     


    Why are you pretending this isn't the most fundamental and earth-shattering case in tech in decades?

  • Reply 15 of 139
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by kimys1022 View Post


     


    Well does this prove Samsung didn't copy Apple?





    You don't seem to understand the charges filed. They're quite specific.

  • Reply 16 of 139

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by kimys1022 View Post


     


    Well does this prove Samsung didn't copy Apple?



    If you are using 845033 information, then lets review.


    The phones that were in development according to Samsung never made the light of day, since if they had a world class product, you certainly would want to be first to market.


    iPad reference is so stupid, not worth replying to that issue, really iPad is copy of 1994 concept tablet, really!


    Next you will tell me, Samsung chromebox is not direct copy of Mac Mini.


     


    http://www.gadgetreview.com/2012/06/apple-mac-mini-vs-samsung-chromebox.html


    http://www.cultofmac.com/170727/samsung-is-now-shamelessly-ripping-off-the-design-of-the-mac-mini/


    http://www.cultofmac.com/104985/samsung-certifies-the-most-shameless-smart-cover-rip-off-youll-ever-see/


    http://www.cultofmac.com/128500/check-out-the-latest-way-samsung-has-shamelessly-ripped-off-apple/


     


    This last one made me laugh, because Samsung are ultimate rip-off artists


     


    http://www.cultofmac.com/137562/samsung-shamelessly-steals-child-actress-from-iphone-4s-commercial-to-shill-galaxy-tab-video/

  • Reply 17 of 139
    jSnivelyjSnively Posts: 440administrator
    gadg
  • Reply 18 of 139
    jSnivelyjSnively Posts: 440administrator
    asdf
  • Reply 19 of 139
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member


    I like what Judge William Alsup did when he ordered Oracle and Google to disclose whether they have paid any bloggers, journalists, or commentators to write about the case. This should be done in every case and maybe Judge Koh should order Apple and Samsung to do the same.

  • Reply 20 of 139

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by logandigges View Post


    If they lose, at least there will still be vodka....


     


    And Samsung says Apple only owes them something like 500 mil, which isn't that substantial to Apple.



     


    Apple owes me something like 500 ml -- of vodka -- if they lose!

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