Google Plays a Bigger Role in Latest Apple vs. Samsung Lawsuit

Could someone please explain the whole Apple vs. Samsung thing to me? Who is suing who, and for what exactly?

Sure. Apple is suing Samsung for basically wholesale copying of the iPhone, both in terms of software and trade-dress, meaning the Samsung devices look so similar that users can't even tell the difference. Apple produced a document with something like a 130+ bullet point review by a Samsung employee of Apple's device and how to copy it.

Samsung is counter-suing on the basis of standard-essential patents, meaning technical patents that are so basic that one cannot hold-out - by law, it must be licensed to anyone for a "reasonable fee". Apple contends that Samsung is asking for more than the value of the standard patents, effectively desiring to steal value from Apple in excess of the value of the patents.

The nihilists who want to claim both sides are equally at wrong proclaim that both are suing for patents, and both claims are thus equivalent and absurd or cancel out, or proof that there should be no such thing as patents.

The Samsung brigade claims Samsung suing is proof that Apple copies too. Furthermore, it downplays the fact that Samsung devices were blatant copies by the absurd reduction of the iPhone to "a black rectangle", and, as Samsung's lawyers said "who can have the right to black rectangles". The insult to everyone's intelligence not withstanding, the Samsung brigade has taken up the lawyer's slogan.

The Apple brigade claims that Samsung is a shameless copy-master with copying so ingrained in it's corporate culture that the poor kleptocrats don't even understand right from wrong anymore.

Helpful?

By the time this is all settled these devices will have been discontinued. What a huge waste of money.

Yep. IIRC, it involves the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5.

I don't know why but a feeling tells me Apple will win again.

I hope neither one wins. This is like the poster child of why software patents (and their trials) are just plain dumb.

For example, the "universal search" is something that people have been doing for years. Whether or not Samsung infringed, all hinges on what a missing comma means, and which year dictionary is used. You might as well flip a coin.

Ditto for the "hot links" for recognizing things like phone numbers in text, and for keyboard "word completion", or for Samsung's patent on compressing video.

None of these are novel inventions, so it comes down to whether or not one company's developers implemented something in the same way that the other filed a patent on... a situation which is NOT about copying, but about developers doing the same thing a world apart.

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Sure. Apple is suing Samsung for basically wholesale copying of the iPhone, both in terms of software and trade-dress, meaning the Samsung devices look so similar that users can't even tell the difference. Apple produced a document with something like a 130+ bullet point review by a Samsung employee of Apple's device and how to copy it.

Samsung is counter-suing on the basis of standard-essential patents, meaning technical patents that are so basic that one cannot hold-out - by law, it must be licensed to anyone for a "reasonable fee". Apple contends that Samsung is asking for more than the value of the standard patents, effectively desiring to steal value from Apple in excess of the value of the patents.

The nihilists who want to claim both sides are equally at wrong proclaim that both are suing for patents, and both claims are thus equivalent and absurd or cancel out, or proof that there should be no such thing as patents.

The Samsung brigade claims Samsung suing is proof that Apple copies too. Furthermore, it downplays the fact that Samsung devices were blatant copies by the absurd reduction of the iPhone to "a black rectangle", and, as Samsung's lawyers said "who can have the right to black rectangles". The insult to everyone's intelligence not withstanding, the Samsung brigade has taken up the lawyer's slogan.

The Apple brigade claims that Samsung is a shameless copy-master with copying so ingrained in it's corporate culture that the poor kleptocrats don't even understand right from wrong anymore.

Helpful?

Not helpful at all. This is how misinformation gets spread. The thinly veiled knocks on Samsung are not convincing in an honest summary. You would have been better served by just saying "Samsung copied the s#%t out of Apple's ideas". I personally think they both need to stop this crap but that's just my opinion. No matter which company wins, it doesn't benefit us at all.

I don't know why but a feeling tells me Apple will win again.

It's obvious.

Sadly the longer Apple drags on with legal assaults, less time and money go towards doing innovating things.

Wow, didn't realize the lawyers were doing double duty as designers and engineers as well! And the fact that Apple's massive $150 billion cash hoard was used completely up for this trial must be devastating! Man, Apple must be on hard times that they have to rely on lawyers write all their software code and do their product design innovations.

Hopefully the lawyers can finish this trial quickly so they can make it back to Cupertino in time to finish working on the iWatch.

/sarcasm

Sure. Apple is suing Samsung for basically wholesale copying of the iPhone, both in terms of software and trade-dress,

This trial has nothing to do with trade dress.

Samsung is counter-suing on the basis of standard-essential patents,

This trial has nothing to do with SEPs.

This trial, like most software patent trials, is about asking a jury of people off the street to decide technical issues that often confuse people with decades of specific experience.

And of course, it's about infringement, not copying, since it's extremely unlikely that either side stole any code or even looked at the other's methods.

Then there's the royalty payments that Apple wants. They're so outrageous, that even Florian Mueller, who is well known as being pro-Apple and anti-Samsung, wrote:

"I face the first situation in which I don't merely disagree with Apple but am rather wondering whether it has lost its mind."

"Apple's damages theory for the trial (...) is an objective insanity"

At upcoming trial, Apple wants Samsung to pay $40 per device for only five software patents (http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/03/at-upcoming-trial-apple-wants-samsung.html)

Not to mention that this could backfire on Apple, when they later have to pay Samsung and others. A jury could decide that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.