Apple discourages Supreme Court from hearing Samsung patent petition, calls case 'legally unexcepti
Apple this week attempted to dissuade the U.S. Supreme Court from hearing Samsung's request for review in their ongoing patent infringement dispute, with Apple telling the highest court in America that the $548 million settlement does not deserve review.
"Samsung's effort to make this case seem certworthy depends on a made-up narrative in which Samsung, not Apple, is the innovator, despite the overwhelming evidence that Samsung copied the iPhone's innovative design," Apple's attorneys wrote in the filing.
According to Apple, the original rulings in the iPhone maker's favor "broke no new legal ground." Instead, the company argues, that they "simply applied the statute and well-settled law to the extraordinary record of infringement and copying" committed by Samsung.
In an analysis of the filing, intellectual property expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents noted that Apple's attorneys filed their opposition brief two weeks ahead of the court's Feb. 16 deadline. He believes Apple's attorneys at Wilmer Hale and Morrison & Foerster have an uphill battle in trying to call the Samsung case, in Apple's words, "legally unexceptional."
"Honestly, this must have been one of the most difficult challenges ever for Apple's lawyers: to try to downplay the certworthiness of an issue after pretty much the entire (Information and Communications Technologies) industry has made it clear that it is profoundly concerned," Mueller wrote.
"Certworthy" is an abbreviated way of saying that a case is deemed worthy of certiorari, a writ that the Supreme Court issues to a lower court to review a judgment for legal error when no appeal is available. Historically speaking, Samsung's petition is a longshot -- the Supreme Court typically does not hear them, and also has not heard a patent design case in 122 years.
Still, Mueller suspects that Samsung's petition will at least result in in a call for views of the Solicitor General, allowing the U.S. government to talk to the industry and find out how much concern there is over patent litigation.
Samsung filed its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in December, arguing that the laws were incorrectly interpreted in the case, which first began nearly five years ago. After multiple appeals and revisions, Samsung ended up paying Apple $548 million for patent infringement.
For its part, Samsung has argued that modern devices like smartphones are not dependent on design for their functionality. According to Samsung, electronic devices "contain countless other features that give them remarkable functionality wholly unrelated to their design."
"Samsung's effort to make this case seem certworthy depends on a made-up narrative in which Samsung, not Apple, is the innovator, despite the overwhelming evidence that Samsung copied the iPhone's innovative design," Apple's attorneys wrote in the filing.
According to Apple, the original rulings in the iPhone maker's favor "broke no new legal ground." Instead, the company argues, that they "simply applied the statute and well-settled law to the extraordinary record of infringement and copying" committed by Samsung.
In an analysis of the filing, intellectual property expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents noted that Apple's attorneys filed their opposition brief two weeks ahead of the court's Feb. 16 deadline. He believes Apple's attorneys at Wilmer Hale and Morrison & Foerster have an uphill battle in trying to call the Samsung case, in Apple's words, "legally unexceptional."
"Honestly, this must have been one of the most difficult challenges ever for Apple's lawyers: to try to downplay the certworthiness of an issue after pretty much the entire (Information and Communications Technologies) industry has made it clear that it is profoundly concerned," Mueller wrote.
"Certworthy" is an abbreviated way of saying that a case is deemed worthy of certiorari, a writ that the Supreme Court issues to a lower court to review a judgment for legal error when no appeal is available. Historically speaking, Samsung's petition is a longshot -- the Supreme Court typically does not hear them, and also has not heard a patent design case in 122 years.
Still, Mueller suspects that Samsung's petition will at least result in in a call for views of the Solicitor General, allowing the U.S. government to talk to the industry and find out how much concern there is over patent litigation.
Samsung filed its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in December, arguing that the laws were incorrectly interpreted in the case, which first began nearly five years ago. After multiple appeals and revisions, Samsung ended up paying Apple $548 million for patent infringement.
For its part, Samsung has argued that modern devices like smartphones are not dependent on design for their functionality. According to Samsung, electronic devices "contain countless other features that give them remarkable functionality wholly unrelated to their design."
Comments
Kodachrome monies
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome monies away
Apple just got fined for using the concept of file protection in its FaceTime usage to the tune of 600 MILLION$. But totally copying everything they do, who should care??
Its way too strange a world.
it's like saying its ok to steal one of donald trump's rolls royce's because he's rich and has another one in the garage - theft is still theft.
What the legal community and industry concerns have to do with is how damages are to be apportioned when an item is deemed to infringe on a protected design. As it stands even Apple could be required to disgorge every single penny of profit they ever made on the iPhone, tens of $Billions, if they were found to infringe a valid design patent on something as mundane as a single icon. According to the Federal Appeals Court judges and juries have no wiggle room and any design patent infringement, however small, must by law be entitled to the ENTIRE PROFIT from the infringing device.
That's completely different than the way utility patent damages are determined. Does that sound silly on a product with perhaps hundreds of various design features? It does to me, and it does to almost everyone else with complicated products who have weighed in on the side of cert. The trolls are already circling with design patents in their claws. If cert is denied this has the potential to make them richer than they could have imagined a couple years ago.
http://www.insidesources.com/patent-trolls-are-already-abusing-the-apple-v-samsung-ruling/
I haven't read of anyone siding with Apple on the issue of damage basis this time, nor should they IMHO. So this has little to nothing to do with the specific players involved and everything to do with how damages are to be determined when a design patent is found to be infringed. As it stands it's cut and dried. All profit, every last penny, goes to the patent holder, who in many cases did nothing more than put a drawing on paper.
(Sorry if my chain of thoughts above is somewhat intricate)
http://www.cultofandroid.com/78604/apple-asks-supreme-court-to-reject-samsungs-unexceptional-appeal/
and right below it;
http://www.cultofandroid.com/78621/htcs-new-one-m10-looks-like-another-iphone-clone/
For the record, I saw the link at MacSurfer; I avoid C o A for the most part, and I haven't ever commented there.