A
Apples
The only fruit left
in the basket?
Demi Pham assesses the likely impact of the infamous Apple
case on information technology.
28 | DICTA 2013
pple’s products are everywhere. Just inspect any lecture theatre or library and
they are essentially dynamic Apple adverts.
With new models and fresh litigation each
year, we begin to wonder whether a monopoly of innovative technology is being created. The recent Apple v Samsung saga throws
this issue into sharp relief.
Beginning in 2011, Apple launched a
patent infringement claim in the US, arguing that Samsung’s Galaxy range copied a
number of their features. This includes the
screen icon appearance, pinching and tapping images and bounce-back effect. Samsung have denied such
claims, purporting their
designs to be legitimately developed based on
their own extensive
research. As a result, a
bitter legal war has ensued between the two
technology heavyweights concerning their
design of smartphones and tablets.
The outcomes of this titanic struggle
have been inconsistent. The British, South
Korean and Dutch jurisdictions all decided
that there were no similarity between Apple’s
products and Samsung’s apart from a couple
of minor infringement patents found by the
South Korean courts. In fact, Judge Birss in
the British High Court even declared that
Samsung Galaxy was not ‘cool’ enough to
be similar to Apple. He therefore ordered
Apple to make a media and website apology to Samsung repeating that there was no
infringement. These rulings were in stark
contrast to Germany, who held that there is
a ‘clear impression of similarity’ between the
two products and imposed a nationwide ban
on the Galaxy 10.1. The US court concurred.
A common theme between the European rulings was that these cases were decided by judges. This contrasts with America,
where juries decide on the complex patent
cases and here awarded the California-based
Apple with over $1bn in damages after a
three-day deliberation. Significantly, the
American verdict was reached despite the
fact that Apple submitted inaccurate evidence of so-called similarities between Samsung and Apple models. Apple successfully
sought a ban of eight Samsung products.
Only one of these has been overturned.
However, the litigation did not stop
there when allegations of jury misconduct
emerged, prompting Samsung to call for a
re-trial. Velvin Hogan, the US jury foreman,
claimed that they had ignored instructions
and awarded incorrect damages. Hogan’s in-
put is also feared to have been biased given
that he was previously sued by his former
employers, Seagate Technology, who also
happen to be in a strategic relationship with
Samsung. Therefore, it was hardly surprising
when Samsung raised doubts as to the veracity of this finding; particularly after one juror
claimed, post-trial, that Hogan had been extremely influential in their ruling due to his
experience in the patent-technology industry.
The findings of this re-trial are still being deliberated.
Nonetheless, should the previous decision stand, we begin to wonder how it will
affect the technology
industry. Certainly, if
the injunctions stand
and Samsung products
are being banned this
will undoubtedly affect
their suppliers. It is perhaps unsurprising that
this outcome came as a shock to the technology market, particularly to handset manufacturers, researchers and product developers.
Furthermore, some critics have argued this
verdict will inhibit technology designs, as the
use of, for instance, the pinching and tapping
images function could lead to costly legal
battles.
Will there be a resultant block to technological innovation? Indeed, product developers may become unwilling to use seemingly new and promising ideas out of fear of
infringing Apple’s patents. This can lead to a
huge amount of bureaucracy through checks
on protected patents