The opening day of the trial between Apple and Samsung saw a flood of strongly worded statements about each other flying around a courtroom in Silicon Valley. The patent trial began on Tuesday and the final result could amount to damages to the tune of billions of dollars. Opening statements from attorneys of both firms were made and each one tried to explain to the jury as to how their client’s patents were infringed and the broad outline of the trial was laid out and the evidence that is going to be presented was introduced. While both companies filed patent infringement suits against each other, the majority of them were violations Apple claims Samsung committed.
In April 2011, Samsung was sued by Apple for allegedly copying the design of the iPhone, the iPad and even elements of the software and implemented them in Android devices of its own. Samsung countersued the claims alleging that Apple infringed upon the Korean conglomerate’s patents. All the suits have been consolidated into one and the number of claims has been toned down by District Judge Lucy Koh for the Northern District of California.
The interesting thing is that both companies tried to portray themselves as the innovator, however on different grounds. Apple’s opening statements tried to convince the jury that it started off by risking the entire company when it entered the smartphone market with the iPhone, which was revolutionary in design. On the other hand, Samsung said that its patents were more technical and that it supplies a lot of the components for Apple’s products. Apple’s attorneys went on to say that the iPhone was groundbreaking and the Samsung’s devices looked a lot like it and claimed that “it is easier to copy than to innovate as there is lesser risk”.
Attorneys are going to face a challenging task for the next several weeks in trying to explain the patent violations to the jury. The critical aspects here are quite technical and it will be the lawyers’ job to explain it carefully to the jurors. Considering that Samsung’s patent infringement claims are more technology oriented than Apple’s, which are largely to do with the design, it appears the Korean giant is in for its life. It appears that Apple has the upper hand in terms of design infringement as there are documents which show Samsung’s willingness to copy. However, the trial proceedings are unpredictable and it will be interesting to see how things turn out.
