Apple Suffers Motorola Patent Defeat But Wins Samsung Ruling

The ongoing patent battle continues to produce victories and defeats, with Apple reportedly winning a small victory over Samsung 23 April in a court in San Jose, California.

According to Bloomberg, Samsung allegedly failed to comply with court orders to produce documents relevant to its current battles with Apple over patent-infringement accusations related to Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets, among other devices.

Lawsuit Tussle

Given Samsung’s trespass, Apple was granted some “monetary sanctions” but not its request that Samsung be prevented from selling its devices in this country.

So it goes with the mobile phone industry, and particularly the world’s top two smartphone producers. The two companies account for nearly 50 percent of global mobile phone sales.

Since April 2011, by Bloomberg’s count, Apple and Samsung have filed at least 30 lawsuits against each other on four continents. Both companies are planning to announce their most recent quarterly earnings, with analysts anticipating that, based largely on the success of their smartphones, each will report record earnings.

Intellectual property analyst Florian Mueller, in an 24 April blog post, scrutinised several aspects of Apple’s current case against Samsung. The latter earlier fended off the former’s attempts for a US-wide ban on its products, and now, Muller explains, Samsung is trying to replicate its past success.

Nonetheless, Mueller wrote, “I continue to believe that Apple may very well achieve at least a partial success with its appeal that would shift the goalposts in favour of its new motion.”

Mueller makes a number of interesting assertions, including one regarding whether Samsung’s products, whether or not they do borrow from Apple too heavily, cause any real harm to Apple. Samsung has argued they don’t, pointing to Apple’s financial success and market-share growth.

“I felt that Judge [Lucy] Koh partly applied an incorrect market definition,” wrote Mueller, “and the idea that a company that is doing fantastically well despite infringement of its intellectual property has to tolerate it until it’s going down the tubes struck me as a problematic approach that the Federal Circuit might disagree with.”

Mueller also considers the argument regarding whether Samsung too closely copied Apple’s slide-to-unlock feature. Samsung argues that its image doesn’t slide “continuously,” as Apple’s does, but that its lock image is replaced by a second image, and only the second image moves with the user’s physical contact.

“If I were the judge, having looked in more detail now at how the slide-to-unlock circle of the Galaxy Nexus works,” wrote Mueller, “I would probably come down on Samsung’s side on this one. I think the new slide-to-unlock patent is useful to Apple in order to ensure differentiation … but after some further analysis I have serious doubt that the slide-to-lock circle infringes it.”

In summary, Mueller offers, “I think it’s unlikely that Apple’s motion will fail entirely as its predecessor did.”

Motorola Defeat

On 24 April, in still another patent dispute, a judge with the US International Trade Commission ruled against Apple, saying that it violated one of four Motorola Mobility patents being contested – one related to 3G technology, according to Bloomberg.

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that since a German court already ruled that Apple didn’t infringe on the patent, “we believe we will have a very strong case on appeal.”

Motorola said in a circulated statement that it is pleased the “initial determination finds Apple to be in violation of Motorola Mobility’s intellectual property, and look forward to the full commission’s ruling in August.”

Highlighting the litigious nature of this highly competitive industry, Motorola also issued a second, nearly identical statement, swapping “Apple” for “Microsoft.” Motorola is about to be absorbed by Google and the company patents are expected to work as a way to defends its Android operating systems against claims by Apple and other companies.

According to Bloomberg, an ITC judge ruled yesterday that Microsoft was infringing on four Motorola patents related to WiFi and video-decoding standards. “If the commission agrees,” the report continued, “it could block exports of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system.”