APPLE AND SAMSUNG GO HEAD TO HEAD
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer/Blogger Photographer: George Whylie Videographer: Maxine NolanAPPLE has scored a victory against its giant competitor, SAMSUNG. The two corporations have been battling it out with APPLE claiming that SAMSUNG is using their patents and they requested retribution in the amount of $2.7 billion. They felt that SAMSUNG copied their iPad and iPhone designs.
On Friday, a federal jury in California recommended that APPLE be awarded over $1 billion in damages from SAMSUNG who was proven guilty of “willful” violations of some of its competitor’s patents in the creation of its own mobile products.
SAMSUNG had also filed a countersuit claiming that five of their patents were infringed upon and they wanted to be awarded $519 million. They were not successful in proving their allegations to be true. This was decided by a nine-person jury after two and a half days of going over notes and court testimony as well as 109 pages of jury instructions. It was a very long and involved process.
The decision is overwhelming and by APPLE being granted the award, it is possible that this just might be the largest patent verdict in history.
Good news for APPLE brought with it a rise in the value of the stock price inching all the way to $675 a share, up $12 per share.
Upon the decision, SAMSUNG stated that this will lead to fewer choices, less innovation and higher prices for the American consumer. However, the evidence presented at trial spoke for itself.
On September 20, 2012, there will be a hearing to decide whether to grant injunctions that could prevent SAMSUNG from selling products that infringe upon APPLE’s patents.
This is not the first lawsuit of its kind. On August 24th, a South Korean court found APPLE and GOOGLE’s Android mobile operating system had both infringed upon each other’s patents, banning the sale of the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, two iPad models and SAMSUNG’s Galaxy S2. APPLE was ordered to pay SAMSUNG $35,000 and SAMSUNG was ordered to pay APPLE $22,000.
SAMSUNG does plan to challenge this U.S. court ruling.
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
Comments are closed.