Apple entered the market in 2007 with its first-generation iPhone using Samsung technology that it had not paid for, an attorney for Samsung told a U.S. trade judge on Monday, June 4. According to Samsung, Apple's devices, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod, have infringed four patents, all resulted from two decades of work Samsung spent improving mobile phones, said the attorney.
"All of these things that Samsung build up, Apple was using when it entered the market," said Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven from Quint Emanuel, as the trial kicked off on Monday at the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, Bloomberg reported. "Apple, in 2007, when they decided to enter an industry they'd never been in before, didn't even inquire if there was a license they needed to take."
This case before ITC Judge James Gildea, along with another ongoing patent infringement lawsuit Apple filed against Samsung before a different trade judge, are part of a global legal battle between the two tech giants. Apple denies infringing on Samsung's patents and is questioning their validity, and Samsung is challenging Apple's allegations.
Interesting Timing
According to Apple, Samsung only raised the patent issue in 2010 after facing complaints that the new products it was introducing were copying the iPhone and iPad, said WilmerHale's William Lee, an attorney for Apple. Two of the four patents Samsung claimed Apple is infringing cover industry standards for the transmission of data, and the other two are for device features.
"In that three-to-four-year period, Samsung never suggested the patents were infringed by an Apple product," said Lee, as cited by Bloomberg. "For nearly four years, no claims of infringement, and then an infringement problem arose."
Together, the two companies accounted for more than 49 percent of all smartphones sold worldwide in the first quarter, with Samsung surpassing Apple in that period and becoming the world's biggest smartphone manufacturer, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Meanwhile, Apple held an impressive 68 percent of the tablet market in the first quarter, leaving Samsung as a distant second, said research analyst IDC.
Patent War
Apple filed a civil lawsuit against Samsung in federal court in California, seeking to block sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab until a patent trial can resolve the patent dispute. ITC Judge James Gildea is set to release his findings in September, while Judge Thomas Pender, the ITC Judge overseeing Apple's case against Samsung, is scheduled to issue his ruling in October. Meanwhile, the European Union is also investigating a complaint filed by Apple, alleging that Samsung misused its patents related to industry standards. Mediation meetings over the past two years, the most recent of which involved Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee Sung, have failed to reach a settlement to resolve the global battle between the two companies.
Samsung's case against Apple is In the Matter of Electronic Devices, Including Wireless Communication Devices, 337-794. Apple's case against Samsung is In the Matter of Electronic Digital Media Devices, 337-796. Both cases are before the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington.
