The trial between Samsung and Apple continues in a district court in San Jose and it has just seen a change in stance on the defendant, Samsung’s part. From trying to prove that it has not infringed upon any of Apple’s patents and claiming that the California technology giant didn’t deserve the patents in the first place, it has moved on to trying to prove that Apple infringed on some of its own patents. The first testimony in this manner comes from Woodward Yang, a professor in Harvard University who claims that the iPhone, iPod and iPad from Apple infringed on Samsung’s patents.
The main patent in focus deals with a facility that allows users to navigate easily through photographs and send e-mails directly with the photos attached to them. According to him, the iPhone 3G, 3GS, the iPod Touch and the iPad 2 all infringe on this patent. In addition, Apple has also allegedly infringed on a patent of Samsung’s that involves photo indexing and another one regarding the techniques used to play mp3 music on mobile devices.
Countering this attack on Apple, its attorney showed a list of around 65 Samsung products and asked Mr. Yang whether the company used the patent in any of the devices. It was found that it was not seen in any of them and Mr. Yang agreed to the same. In another testimony, Samsung called upon two computer science experts who attacked the American company’s statement of infringement on software. The testimonies were made to defend Samsung against copying the iPhone and iPad in terms of design. Later during the court session, Samsung went back to its defensive stance and called a designer to testify about the process that went into bringing out the application screen of the Galaxy lineup of products. The designer, Jeeyuen Wang mentioned that the application screen was developed after three months of work.
Apple’s list of infringements extend to well beyond just the exterior designs. In one of them, which appear to be rather trivial, it claims that Samsung copied the design of the phone icon in its device labeled Fascinate. Apple is currently suing for damages amounting to $2.5 billion but the total worth of the trial is estimated to be more than $200 billion according to Bloomberg as Apple seeks to make the temporary ban of Samsung’s tablet a permanent one.
