The ongoing legal battle between the world's two largest phone manufacturers isn't anything new. For over a year now, both companies have been fighting on the marketplace, but also in the courtroom.
But things have been seriously heating up the last couple weeks with what is probably the most watched trial ever in the tech world, as both Samsung and Apple accuse each other of patent infringement.
And after 21 hours of deliberation, the jury has finally reached a decision...
The wait to release the new iPhone is costing Apple some ground in China. Apple's 19 percent share of smartphone sales in the country was nearly cut in half to 10 percent in the second quarter, according to research firm IDC. At the same time, Apple once again finds itself competing with Samsung as the South Korean firm led the pack of smarphone sellers with 19 percent of the China market.
This is pretty big: while the tech world awaits the verdict in the Apple vs. Samsung trial here in the US, a South Korea court has just ruled that both companies infringed on each other's patents.
What does that mean in terms of consequences? Well, each side has been ordered to pay damages, and both have been hit with injunctions to ban the sales of their infringing products in the country....
Reports of the September 12 iPhone event started circling late last month. And although several publications have confirmed the date, Apple itself has yet to make any kind of announcement.
But the speculation must have been enough to catch the attentions of Apple's competitors. In the last three weeks, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola and Amazon have all announced press events scheduled for the first week of September...
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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, Samsung wants no talk of its new Sydney, Australia store looking "Apple-esque." Particularly while the South Korean company is being sued for allegedly imitating Apple's iPhone and iPad.
Despite the store being located just a block from Apple, using the same Apple minimalism, the same Apple-like packaging and staffed with the same blue-shirted employees, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company "didn't even come into the equation when we were looking for a location," Samsung Australia's vice president of telecommunication, Tyler McGee, tells the Sydney Morning Herald. In the business, we call that a non-denial denial...
It's been a long few weeks, but the high-profile trial between Apple and Samsung is finally starting to wind down. Yesterday's peace talks between CEOs failed to yield any results, so tomorrow, the case will get handed to the jury.
Attorneys used their last day in court today to make their closing arguments and rebuttals. And while both parties made some compelling comments, it seemed like Samsung's side made the more memorable impression...
Imagine a symbiotic relationship where each party depends on the other, but they are continually fighting and you'll have a good picture of Apple and Samsung. The latest episode in the ultimate case of frenemies happened Tuesday as the South Korean chip giant pledged nearly $4 billion to upgrade a plant producing chips for Apple's iPhone and iPad.
Samsung said it will plunk down around $4 billion to renovate the Austin, Texas plant in order to boost production of ARM-based chips, many used in Apple's iPhone, iPad and other consumer technology, Reuters reports today. This after Samsung just unveiled plans to build in South Korea a new $1.98 billion logic chip plant for Apple and other smartphone makers...
With the witness testimony stage over with, and the trial set to be handed over to the jury this week, Judge Lucy Koh pleaded with CEOs from both companies to meet one last time today to try and resolve their differences.
Well according to Samsung attorney Kevin Johnson, the two CEOs did speak today. But, as you might have guessed, the last-minute settlement talks failed. It looks like the high-stakes trial is going to be left up to the jury...
If the long-running courtroom battle between Apple and Samsung were a football game, the South Korean company would have received today a favorable call from the ref. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh will tell jurors later this week that both companies destroyed emails, overturning a previous ruling inferring Samsung was solely to blame.
In instructions to be given the jury set to begin deliberations Wednesday, Koh will give identical instructions regarding company emails destroyed:
Both companies "failed to preserve evidence" that could be used in the litigation, Koh will say. "Whether this fact is important to you in reaching a verdict in this case is for you to decide."
Surprise, surprise. The two companies that have been going at it in courtrooms around the world for the past year and a half, failed to reach any kind of settlement in their patent dispute this weekend.
In response to a suggestion by Judge Koh last week, attorneys from both Apple and Samsung met over the weekend in a last-ditch settlement effort before the trial gets handed over to the jury this week...
The end of the Apple-Samsung trial is drawing near, as the final day of witness testimonies is now complete. Both sides have exhausted their allotted 25 hours of arguments, and the case will soon be turned over to the jury.
In honor of this occasion, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the week's more interesting moments in the case, from Samsung's denial of copying Apple's icons, to Judge Koh's "smoking crack" comment...
I bet you never though that sworn enemies such as Apple, Samsung and Google would ever go to bed together, especially given an erupting fight between Apple and Google over Kodak's patents. But anything is possible in this crazy word, chiefly when the benefits of such an unusual partnership include cost savings plus joint, harmless ownership of more than 1,000 Kodak patents related to digital imaging.
The odd bedfellows are joined by a few other firms (LG, HTC and more) and the usual suspects that specialize in IP transactions. The consortium is organized so no company could exclusively own the patents and assert them against other members in litigation...