Samsung finds support from Silicon Valley tech giants in Apple dispute

In the latest development in the years long court dispute between Apple and Samsung, the latter company has found support from a number of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies. A recently sourced document has revealed that Google, Facebook, HP, Dell, eBay and others submitted a July 1 "friend of the court" brief supporting Samsung. 

At the end of the initial trial for the case, Samsung was ordered to give Apple all of the profits from its Galaxy devices that were found infringing on Apple's intellectual property. The patents in question covered a wide range of features, including tap-to-zoom, finger scrolling, and glass that spanned from edge-to-edge of the phone. 

Had this ruling been final, it could have cost Samsung as much as $1 billion. An appeal, however, cut the amount down to a little over half a billion. Samsung is currently pushing the have the decision reversed entirely. 

The document signed by Samsung's defenders argues that the current ruling would "lead to absurd results and have a devastating impact on companies who spend billions of dollars annually on research and development for complex technologies and their components." It goes on to provide, as an example, that under the ruling, "the manufacturer of a smart television containing a component that infringed any single design patent could be required to pay in damages its total profit on the entire television, no matter how insignificant the design of the infringing feature was to the manufacturer's profit or to consumer demand."

In other words, attaching such massive damages to every single feature patent dispute would wind up stifling innovation.

No matter where you are with your company, it's important to contact a skilled business attorney as soon as possible. A lawyer can help protect your rights in case of litigation, and get you just compensation.

Categorised in: Intellectual Property Law

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