
Apple Loses Appeal in Samsung Smartphone Case - baldfat
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-26/apple-loses-appeal-in-119-6-million-samsung-patent-case
======
rayiner
The opinion is here:
[http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-
or...](http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-
orders/15-1171.Opinion.2-24-2016.1.PDF).

The original judgment involved five patents. They went down for different
reasons.

1\. Recognizing dates, etc, in documents and highlighting them. Found not
infringed because the court construed "analyzer server" in the claims to
require a separate server process, while Samsung implemented them in a shared
library. The Court did not address validity.

2\. Slide to unlock. Killed as obvious because two prior art references (one
disclosing slide to unlock and another disclosing sliding an image along a
path traced by the finger) were obvious to combine.

3\. Keyboard auto correction. Killed as obvious in light of prior art
disclosing an autocorrect UI.

4\. Universal search. Found not infringed. Essentially, Apple's claims
required the search to search the Internet, while Samsung's implementation
only searched Internet data previously downloaded. The Court did not address
validity.

5\. Background synchronization. Found not infringed because Apple's claims
recite a software component that synchronizes two databases in the background,
while the corresponding component in Samsung's implementation causes something
else to perform the synchronization. The Court did not address validity.

------
Gratsby
It says that they invalidated the slide-to-unlock patent. I don't understand
why Samsung would be dealing with that claim - their unlock is Android's
unlock.

I _really_ hope they actually invalidated it instead of saying "Samsung didn't
infringe". Because that means at some point soon we Android phone users can
actually have slide to unlock (instead of swipe in any direction to unlock).
Although who knows... at this point that feature might irk me. It was
important to me back when I switched away from iPhones.

~~~
askafriend
Why do you want slide-to-unlock so badly? Doesn't swipe work just as well?

~~~
ajross
No one wants it. In fact as other posts mentioned both Google and Samsung (who
ship different launchers on their devices -- they aren't the same code) moved
to presumptively-non-infringing unlock mechanisms years ago. But the law suit
was over the implementation as shipped when the suit was filed, obviously.

But if the patent was dumb, it should be held invalid regardless of current
infringement. And it was. So I for one am cheering.

------
gcb0
wait, slide to unlock was several millions. but video compression is 150k?!

what's wrong with this world?

~~~
Yetanfou
One was a complex bit of maths, essential for implementing a standard (the
video compression patent) which as such a) has a tight limit on how much can
be charged for (ab)using it and b) was not understood by most of the jury
while the other (slide to unlock) was (apart from being ludicrous to begin
with) a folly which set the hearts of the jury on fire. Also, a foreign
company being accused of 'stealing' from an American one versus the opposite.

~~~
Razengan
Who gets to be the jury in these sorts of cases? Ordinary people? Other
companies?

~~~
dmix
I thought a judge or tribunal typically deals with civil or administrative law
(for ex. patent) and juries were limited to criminal matters. I could be wrong
though.

------
bitmapbrother
For those wanting some context - this is the second lawsuit Apple filed
against Samsung. Apple was seeking 2.5 Billion in compensation and a jury
awarded them 128 Million. Samsung appealed the decision and the verdict was
thrown out. Apple now must now compensate Samsung for its legal costs as well
as pay millions in damages. So, Samsung has finally won round 2. Round 1, in
which a judgement of 548 Million was awarded to Apple, is being appealed to
the Supreme Court with Samsung's argument having the support of nearly all of
the tech titans in Silicon Valley. The award of 548 Million to Apple has come
under further scrutiny as a number of patents used in the first trial have
have been invalidated by the USPTO.

------
bitmapbrother
I wonder if Apple regrets ever suing Samsung. Surely they must have known that
it would be a prolonged battle with Samsung never capitulating? Companies
usually use their patents to scare other companies into licensing deals, but
when you decide to play your patents in court you're taking a chance that
you're going to lose the power you thought they had and this is exactly what's
happened in this case.

I wonder what Apple would have done if they had a do over? These trials have
done more damage to Apple then Samsung.

I also suspect this won't be the last judgement, in favour of Apple, to be
overturned.

~~~
sigzero
I fail to see how it has "Done more damage to Apple...". Their bottom line
seems to be unfazed. Their growth in the market was not affected.

~~~
kuschku
> Their growth in the market was not affected.

Apple went from 11% to 10% market share from Q42014 to Q42015.

Android is the only one of the top 3 mobile manufacturers to have sold more
devices than have become inactive in that timespan.

~~~
jsjohnst
You say that as if "Android" was the name of a mobile manufacturer.

~~~
kuschku
I was just on the way back from an 8h project at uni, already falling asleep
in the bus xD

Sorry. Meant mobile system.

------
bcardarella
Someone should keep a scoreboard of the lawsuits between Samsung and Apple.

------
KyleBrandt
They should donate the 158k to EFF and
[https://defendinnovation.org/](https://defendinnovation.org/) ...

~~~
azinman2
Samsung should? Lolz...

~~~
sov
You don't think they should?

~~~
azinman2
Good luck with that...

~~~
abjorn
It's not like that is a significant amount of money for a company the size of
Samsung.

~~~
azinman2
It's more than zero. They filed patents not because they want to defeat
patents but because they're a giant megacorp for whom patents are great. No
one can make TVs that compete properly because of the patents they own, for
example. This isn't a charity or a moral case.

------
ajross
Is there a deeper analysis anywhere, or does one of the resident lawyers want
to chime in? From my reading, this sounds huge: I interpret that they didn't
find on narrow grounds, the Federal circuit just invalidated a bunch of
patents. That's good, right?

~~~
eridius
You say that like patents are inherently bad and, therefore, any time patents
are invalidated that's a good thing. I know the software industry has a grudge
against software patents, but Apple's slide-to-unlock isn't a software patent,
it's (I believe) a design patent. I don't know what kind of patent the
autocorrect one is (I have no idea what it covers).

~~~
baldfat
The patent was invalidated. "... the appeals panel said the patent is invalid
because of prior art." [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/appeals-
court-rev...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/appeals-court-
reverses-apple-v-samsung-ii-strips-away-apples-120m-jury-verdict/)

> patents are inherently bad

It is a GREAT thing when obviously easy to show prior art shows that it was
not an innovation. This also shows the weakness and the loyalties of jury of
our peers in cases like this. When I saw the prior art and video it was clear
their was prior art.

Our current system hinders innovation and causes a hostile environment for
anyone creating anything in technology today.

~~~
eridius
I wasn't commenting at all on why it was invalidated, or whether the
invalidation was correct. I was responding to the comment

> _I interpret that they didn 't find on narrow grounds, the Federal circuit
> just invalidated a bunch of patents. That's good, right?_

The way the comment is phrased, it makes it sound like ajross is saying that
it's good that the Federal circuit just invalidated patents. Which is to say,
it sounded like ajross was saying that it's good for patents to be invalidated
in general, as opposed to whether it was correct for this particular patent to
have been found invalid.

> _Our current system hinders innovation and causes a hostile environment for
> anyone creating anything in technology today._

You're talking about software patents here. Design patents are different.
Which was kind of the whole point of my comment.

Note: I don't know if I'm using the phrase "design patent" correctly here,
because IANAL and I don't know if there's actually a specific legal term for
that. What I'm referring to here is a patent that describes some aspect of
user experience, which is different than a patent that describes _how_ to
accomplish something. It's easy to accidentally infringe on software patents
because it's easy to accidentally do something the same way someone else did
without knowing. But for these "design patents", you typically infringe these
because you explicitly want to copy what the patent holder is doing, i.e. you
don't infringe on these things accidentally.

~~~
ajross
> Design patents are different.

How?

~~~
dragonwriter
Design patterns are in many respects more like trademarks than they are like
utility patents, software or otherwise. They protect identity, not function.

------
tannedNerd
Won't this just go to next level of appeals (aka Apple appealing Samsung's
appeal) or have those been denied already?

~~~
plorg
From the article the next level of appeals is the (U.S.) Supreme Court. It
would just depend on whether that court decided to take up the case.

~~~
daveguy
And it is doubtful the Supreme Court will take a case like this. There is no
question about constitutional validity of the laws or rights involved, just
interpretations of what is covered / infringed on various patents (slide to
unlock for apple - cancelled others uninfinged, video compression for samsung
- enforced).

~~~
dragonwriter
The Supreme Court takes cases for lots of reasons _besides_ the presence of
questions of Constitutional validity of laws.

~~~
daveguy
Well, importance of the case (eg bush v gore), rights (civil, constitutional),
conflict of law (disregard of previous rulings, federal vs state conflict) are
the highest priority reasons. This case doesn't come anywhere near meeting any
of the usual criteria -- conflict of law (with constitution or other laws)
being most common. Do you think it will be heard by SCOTUS? If so, why?

~~~
spott
If the supreme court decides they want to revisit the idea of software
patents, and patents on mathematical concepts.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Even if the Supreme Court wants to revisit that, this might not be the best
case for doing so. They most likely have other options.

------
thrill
Whatever happened to the "rounded corners" complaint?

------
devin_liu
Tax guy calls parseInt()

