"It's very important that Apple not become the developer for the
world," Tim Cook, Apple chief executive, told analysts last month. "We
need people to invent their own stuff."
On Monday, he is due to
express those same feelings face-to-face with Choi Gee-Sung, chief
executive of Samsung -- the Korean company that Apple alleges is the
chief culprit in copying its iPhone and iPad inventions.
Their two days of
judge-ordered settlement talks in a San Francisco courthouse will
attempt to find a resolution to their rival patent claims, before a
full-blown jury trial gets under way, scheduled for July.
This is the key dispute
among more than 50 cases that have developed between the two companies
over the past year in 10 different countries. Any agreement hammered out
here could bring others round the world to a swift conclusion.
Smartphone patent wars
Digital war: Apple vs. Samsung
"I don't know if the
parties will settle; this case is just one part of a very complex
ecosystem, and putting CEOs in the room together is always a roll of the
dice," says Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School.
"But both parties need to
settle the larger war and get on with innovating. Fighting all the
patent battles to the end will leave no one the victor."
Apple seems to be the one
more eager for a resolution at present, and not just because of Tim
Cook's feelings. "I've always hated litigation and I continue to hate it
... I would highly prefer to settle versus battle," he said in April.
The urgency for Apple and
its lawyers is that Samsung has overtaken it in smartphone sales on the
back of Apple's leadership in innovation. It shipped 45m smartphones in
the first quarter, according to Strategy Analytics, compared with
Apple's 35m.
"Samsung has vaulted into
first place in worldwide sales of smartphones, with massive sales of
its copycat products," alleged a recent Apple filing. "Samsung's
infringement of Apple's intellectual property has already resulted in
damages that reach billions of dollars."
Apple has pursued
injunctions and import bans to try to keep not just Samsung out of its
markets, but HTC and Motorola as well, all three Samsungbeing users of
Google's rival Android operating system.
HTC's latest Evo 4G LTE
phone was impounded by US Customs last week following an International
Trade Commission decision in Apple's favour. Apple filed on Friday for
an injunction to ban Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.
The battle with Samsung
began in Northern California in April 2011, with Apple filing a 373-page
complaint of patent and trademark infringement. Other skirmishes have
since broken out in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Netherlands,
Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Apple's original
complaint includes allegations that Samsung infringed on elements of the
iPhone's look -- its rectangular shape, rounded corners, silver edges,
black face and display of icons. It also alleges Samsung copied features
such as the way instant messaging was displayed and even mimicked
Apple's trademarked touch-icons for applications such as Phone,
Contacts, Photos and iTunes.
Samsung hit back with
its own list of alleged patent infringements by Apple -- backed by its
6,000-strong US telecoms patent portfolio and its claim to have first
introduced a smartphone as far back as 1999. The key patents Samsung
relied on all relate to the inner workings of phones and how they
connect to 3G networks.
Florian Mueller, an
independent patent analyst, says that Samsung could land itself in more
trouble by going to war with patents that are essential to standards
such as 3G. Antitrust authorities are already investigating whether
these should be "Frand" patents -- available for anyone to use under
"fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms.
For its part, Apple is
fighting over design elements that are already disappearing in newer
models as companies figure out workarounds to possible infringements.
For example, Android phones and tablets are "unlocked" by swiping from
inside a circle on their touchscreens now, rather than swiping along a
bar, as on the iPhone.
David Martin, chairman
of M-Cam, a US patent analysis company, says there is so much "prior
art" -- earlier innovations covering similar ground -- that Apple and
Samsung are inviting subsequent third-party litigation by airing the
strengths and weaknesses of their patents in public.
"Third-party patent
holders, of which there are literally thousands in this space, are
salivating over the fact that you are going to have this ongoing
acrimony, allowing people essentially to learn where constructive claims
of infringement can be made," he says.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment on its litigation. Samsung declined to comment.
However, for Apple at
least, it is about far more than banning rival products, winning damages
or earning royalties in any future licensing agreements, according to
Mr Mueller.
This article comes from:Financial Times
"It's critical that its products continue to be able to distinguish themselves with unique features," he says.
"That's what drives
consumers to buy them, that's what sustain its margins and make this all
worth tens even hundreds of billions of dollars to Apple."
Nest's connection with Apple
runs deeper than a retail partnership. One of Nest Lab's founders, Tony
Fadell, oversaw 18 generations of the iPod as a vice president at the
company. The other, Matt Rogers, worked on iPod software. After Nest was sued by Honeywell for patent infringement in February, the startup hired Apple's former chief intellectual property officer, Richard Lutton Jr., as its general counsel.
