Thursday, August 15, 2013

Week 5 EOC: Apple - Samsung Pattent Battle



Dating back to April of 2011, the patent war between Samsung and Apple has been fierce and vicious.  “This whole patent war is one that Apple, and Steve Jobs in particular, started, upending a long-standing "gentleman's agreement" between U.S. mobile phone companies; all had competing patents but were generally happy to license them to each other. “ (link) Together, the two electronic behemoths account for well over one half of the phones sold worldwide, with Samsung claiming over 31% of the market in 2013 compared to Apple’s 14%. The damages claimed by both sides’ numbers in the billions, with one patent suit by Apple alone originally claiming 2.75 billion in damages.  The outcome of this trial in August of 2012 was in Apple’s favor, “After 21 hours of deliberation, a nine-person jury has sided with Apple on a majority of its patent infringement claims against Samsung Electronics. The jury also awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages” (link). Just a few months earlier, Samsung had won a victory with the International Trade Commission that could have resulted in a ban on Apple selling the iPhone 4 and 3G-capable iPads.  This decision was recently vetoed by President Obama’s administration. “U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made the decision to veto the ban on the Apple devices, citing concerns about patent holders gaining "undue leverage" as well as potential harm to consumers and competitive conditions in the U.S. economy.” (link) This is the first time in over 26 years that a President has overruled the ITC. Just a week later, the ITC ruled in favor of Apple, limiting imports on certain of Samsung’s products, but the odds of that ruling being overturned are probably very slim.  To me this seems to be the Obama administration playing favorites with a U. S. based company.

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