A US court jury has ordered Samsung to pay USD one billion to Apple Inc. for ripping off Apple technology.
The Silicon Valley jury found that some of Samsung’s products
illegally copied features and designs exclusive to Apple’s iPhone and
iPad. The verdict was narrowly tailored to only Samsung, which sold more
than 22 million smartphones and tablets that Apple claimed used its
technology, including the “bounce-back” feature when a user scrolls to
an end image, and the ability to zoom text with a tap of a finger.
According to analysts, the popular zooming and bounce-back
functions the jury said Samsung stole from Apple will be hard to
replicate.
The companies could opt to pay Apple licensing fees for access
to the technology or develop smarter technology to create similar
features that don’t violate the patent—at a cost likely to be passed
onto consumers.
Apple lawyers are planning to ask that the two dozen Samsung
devices found to have infringed its patents be barred from the US
market. Most of those devices are “legacy” products with almost
non-existent new sales in the United States. Apple lawyers will also ask
that the judge triple the damage award to $3 billion since the jury
found Samsung “wilfully” copied Apple’s patents.
A loss to the Android-based market would represent a big hit
for Google as well. Google relies on Android devices to drive mobile
traffic to its search engine, which in turn generates increased
advertising revenue. Android is becoming increasingly more important to
Google’s bottom line because Apple is phasing out reliance on Google
services such as YouTube and mapping as built-in features on the iPhone
and iPad.
Some experts cautioned that the decision might not be final,
noting the California lawsuit is one of nine similar legal actions
across the globe between the two leading smartphone makers.
Samsung has vowed to appeal the verdict all the way to the US
Supreme Court, arguing that Apple’s patents for such “obvious” things as
rounded rectangle were wrongly granted.
The $1 billion represents about 1.5 percent of Samsung’s annual
revenue. Jerome Schaufield, a technology professor at the Worcester
Polytechnic Institute said the verdict wouldn’t upend a
multibillion-dollar global industry.
The dispute also centres on Apple’s dissatisfaction with
Google’s entry into the phone market when it released Android operating
system and announced any company could use it free of cost.
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