Samsung: 'You want $2.5bn? WRONG, Apple, you OWE us $420m!' An accountant on the stand for Samsung in its epic patent trial has said Apple overstated Sammy's mobile gadget margins, effectively inflating a potential payout for the iPhone maker. Michael Wagner claimed that, if the jury finds against Samsung, its US profits from April 2011 should be taken into account for damages and that …
For those who like John Grisham, you will recognise this from one of his books.
The judge has effectly admitted that neither side has made a watertight case and so when the jury eventually makes a decision, no one is going to know how they came to that decision. They probably won't even know themselves! The result of this trial truly could be randomn, including the level of damages that the jury chose to impose.
The two sides might as well have gone and bought lottery tickets, they would stand to have less to lose that way!
would have failed the primary purpose of scaring Apple's smartphone competitors. It also would have failed the secondary purpose of marking Samsung and the android crowd as a cheap copycats. So from a fruity point of view, there are very good reasons to invest in lawyers and shun the lottery!
Maybe the iWhatevers fans willtruly pay for it when Apple jacks up pricing by 22% due to a disappointing payout from the jury. Presumably, the jury is impartial, not an iJury, and not an iNjury to the proceedings.
If some apple fans truly are price sensitive, some might jump ship to android...
The converse argument runs that removing juries in 'complicated' cases (this, serious fraud, etc) would be a thin end of the wedge. Before you know it you've got one case where a defendant unfairly gets off, say, a serious assault, so a tabloid contorts a policeman into saying that the jury obviously didn't understand the evidence and a populist politician decides to withdraw juries for assault. And it never ends. Better that we let huge multinationals suffer the caprice of a jury than that we endanger the principle of trial before jury.
You also don't generally want experts in a jury because they tend to second guess the evidence and to ignore the law. Same reason that those with legal qualifications are usually vetoed almost immediately in countries where the advocates get a say. Juries are meant to decide simple issues of fact — is Company A's product similar to Company B's in specified ways — while the judge does issues of law — is such similarity, if found, infringing per intellectual property law and the patents cited?
Honestly Germany I think has a jury of judges and I always thought that was a lot smarter. I understand in the days of kings you had to worry about the judicial system not being independent but in most western countries that is no longer a concern (thus the whining about activist judges in the US). Honestly I don't trust my peers to decide my fate. The way the US education system is I hardly trust my peers to make me a sandwich.
That is the key problem with juries as it is democracy: I've met the general public and I don't want them deciding swat!
The counter argument of course is neatly provided by the way Juries stopped being prepared to convict people for sheep rustling in England in the 19th century: it carried the death penalty and thus even if people were clearly guilty juries tended to let them off, which resulted in a change of the law.
Samsung stopped using Foxconn when they completed the construction of their own plant near Shanghai. It's STILL funny that Apple uses Samsung displays for its best-known products. Their much-vaunted "retina" display is actually from the production line reject bin - they are the displays that weren't quite good enough for genuine Samsung products! Apple gets the rejects cheaply - just like the reject HDDs that led to the development of the iPod!
The issue is that Apple are probably not interested in agreeing anything. Its not primarily about patent money but market disruption. Hence whatever verdict Apple will almost certainly win their game.
Given that the grounds are so murky it is unlikely that anyone is going to see any Apple patent failure as more than an unproved case and thus not impose aggravated penalties to dissuade Apple from moving down to the next patent claim.
Trouble is there is no incentive to reform patent law. Too many big companies (backers of both GOP & Democrats) have too much invested in rocking the boat. Or the lifeboat as Eastman Kodak shareholders might say ...
Apple has increased its R&D spending from $1.8 to $2.4 billion this year versus last, according to a filing Wednesday by Apple to the SEC. That’s a 33-percent increase, and makes the 2011 spend more than half that of the previous four years combined.
So they spent ~$7 billion on R&D in the period 2007-2011. Your definition of "fuck all" differs wildly to my own.
While the numbers may seem big to you, when you compare them to what other companies spend Apples R&D is indeed fuck all
http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Editorial-Research/Top-50-Technology-R&D-Spenders/50-Biggest-R.html
http://gigaom.com/apple/how-apple-gets-away-with-lower-rd-spending/
After all, it doesn't make much money to do pretty designs. They let others spend the big money on making technology that actually works and then just steal it from them.
Nice selective reading there. One list only details AMERICAN technology companies spending (with the exception of SAP) but you obviously missed that in your hurry to defend Apple, the other on Gigaom does indeed show Samsung. I suggest you go and have another look.
Nimrod ---> See I can do childish insults too.
PS: Apples R&D spending also includes all the fees for patent lawyers etc. You know, those overly broad obvious patents they keep spewing out without ever having a prototype or indeed any intention of turning it into a working product. That doesn't even count as R&D to me but it does for accounting purposes. They just want them so if anybody does make something that works they can claim they already have the patent and drag them through the courts. Imagine what they could do if all that effort and money actually went towards R&D instead of lawyers fees.
Another selective reader - I gave both articles to show how little has changed. You obviously missed this bit from the article: 'While Apple spent $758 million on R&D during the first fiscal quarter of 2012'
See that? 2012 not 2007. Also try going further and clicking the links that the article provides and you can find out more information. Typical fanbois accepting the first thing in front of their eyes instead of putting any actual effort in.
Samsung spends that paying UK ad agencies to make fake videos trying to smear Apple's products and blogs posing as Samsung fanbois:
http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/2012/08/12/13234078-samsung-hired-a-marketing-agency-to-fake-blog-about-its-products
The only drug here is all the coke the marketdroids stuffed up their noses to make them.
So Samsung are caught out Astroturfing a blog is written to present all the evidence, the practice is unethical and designed to mislead consumers into thinking the blog post is an instance of grass roots support, there is nothing out of line with the blog post, yet a message linking to it gets down-voted multiple times. It seems the majority of Reg readers are ruled by emotion rather than Geeky rationality.
If Samsung thought to employ the same accountants as Google or Amazon then they'd be routing all their US sales through Luxembourg or the Cayman Islands and their US profits wouldn't be $8 billion - they'd be about $1.27 on a turnover of $37 billion - and Apple are welcome to 100% of that!
it looks like Apple are saying that because Samsung copied the iphone/ipad they should get a third of all their profits even those from blu ray players and tvs etc......
Mind you they are usualy rectangular and with rounded corners so I supose they feel they have the right to it.
If they win the case, and I don't think they should on the basis I don't think the patant is valid, then they should only get a "fair" reward per unit on those items sold that they tried to get banned and not any other phone / tablet etc sold by Samsung.
The judge should also state at the end of this case that this only applies to those devices and no others made by Samsung or any other maker....
Before the summary I will note that I've read only what has been reported so it's based on those reports.
So far it seems Samsung have gone for "look at all this prior art! LOOK. AT. IT." with a mountain of prior art to the patents in question. Apple have only been repeating the same things, "it looks like our phone / tablet" and "it has rounded corners" etc.
This whole trial may as well not happen anyway because you know it will go to appeal regardless of who wins.
This patent crap needs to stop, don't Apple & Samsung hate lawyers enough (I.E. Half as much as everyone else) for it to be worth while just paying up not to feed their dirty mouths?
Also the system is clearly fatally flawed when two people can be credited with inventing "Electric Power", don't believe me, see...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prolific_inventors
You'll see that both "Elihu Thomson" and "Thomas Edison" are credited with that, maybe there is another type of Leccy I don't know of, maybe it AC \ DC inventions and granted WIKI could be wrong but even if any of those are true in this case there are other examples where this has happened.
Personally I think the whole system should be scrapped, so what if China copies the iPoo if they make a better, cheaper version let them do it, if they create a worse version for more it's hardly going to be successful is it?
Ok protect the artist work and what have you but anyone can cover a song and yet the original is usually still the most successful and popular.
Not to mention the companies dedicated to STEALING other peoples money by buying up the most generic patents ever and then taking everyone to court because their item was also made out of MASS!
If a patent battle is too complex for a jury to understand then they should acquit the defendent. Perhaps this is exactly what should happen and the judge should tell the jury this?
Perhaps a patent standard of being able to convince laymen of your 'invention' would bring a bit of sanity-checking back to the system...
I hope Samsung just turn round to Apple and stop them using the chip's that Apple use in there phones and tablets considering it is made by Samsung.
I wonder how long it will take for Apple to design and fab there own chip lol.
Come on Samsung stop Apple from producing anymore phones and tabs until they get there own chip.
Do you need me to explain why that's an absurdly stupid idea?
OK, I will. Samsung are not defending this case primarily because they think Apple are wrong - even if they thought Apple were right they'd still be fighting it tooth and nail. They're defending because it could take a very hefty chunk out of their profit margin.
And where does that profit come from?
http://www.forbes.com/2011/02/14/daily-wrap-2142011-marketnewsvideo.html
It doesn't say how big a slice of this is profit, but $7.8 billion of Samsung sales to Apple in 2011 a pretty large pie.
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