Apple, Samsung & Motorola: Apple Seeks $700M More in US & Takes a Loss In Germany

dgstorm

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Jan 5, 2011
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Since there is almost always patent wars stories going on at least once a week now, we have taken a liking to this multi-story format. It gives you guys one spot to find out the latest stuff that is going, and allows us to clean it off our plate quicker. Today we have a double-header for you, and the players are Apple, Samsung and Motorola. Here are the two stories below.

First, Apple has now requested another $700 Million more dollars in damages in their victory against Samsung in the United States. While this is a lot less than the extra $2 Billion they could have asked for, it still makes you scratch your head at the greed of it, especially considering that Apple is not really hurting for cash (the last we heard they were sitting on almost $120 Billion dollars in cash at the moment). Regardless of the motive, Apple has also asked the courts for a permanent sales ban on all Samsung products that were found to have infringed upon Apple's patents. Also, Samsung has asked for a new trial to be held in the case. Here's a quote with some additional detail,

Samsung, in a filing to the U.S. court, asked for a new trial to be held.

"The Court's constraints on trial time, witnesses and exhibits were unprecedented for a patent case of this complexity and magnitude, and prevented Samsung from presenting a full and fair case in response to Apple's many claims," Samsung said.

"Samsung therefore respectfully requests that the Court grant a new trial enabling adequate time and even-handed treatment of the parties."

In a separate statement, Samsung lamented the fact that patent rulings should cover issues such as the shape of the product in addition to technological points.

"It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies," it said.

The Korean firm earlier this week said it plans to add Apple's new iPhone 5 to the existing U.S. patent lawsuits, stepping up its legal challenge as the two companies seek to assert rights to key technologies.

Apple said it wanted the court to award it damages that reflect "a rational and fair effort to address Samsung's willful misconduct that has and will impose lasting harm on Apple."

Second, A German court actually sided with Samsung and Motorola against Apple. This one was regarding Apple's “touch event model” patent. This is basically a patent for "how the mobile operating system responds to — or ignores — single touch inputs by the user." Apparently, the German court thought this patent was far too broad and general and would have severely impacted the OS functionality of the products. Gee ya think? Luckily, the German court ruled against Apple on this one. Unfortunately, there are still many more that have yet to be ruled upon, so this is only a minor victory. Of course, this cuts both ways now, especially since Motorola and Samsung are hitting Apple from two sides now with LTE patents.

I wonder how far down this rabbit hole Apple wants to go?

Source: Reuters and AndroidAuthority
 
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