Ingrid Lunden explains the significance of the deal (I dislike her headline though, since it falsely implies Google and Samsung were at legal odds):
First, the deal will bolster both Samsung and Google’s patent positions against patent infringement allegations and subsequent litigation from competitors, and specifically Apple, which has been involved in acrimonious, multinational patent battles worth billions of dollars against Samsung for years now, over Samsung’s Android-powered range of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
Second, it is a sign of how Google continues to put the patents it gained from its $12.5 billion Motorola acquisition to good use across the Android ecosystem. The ecosystem part is key here. I personally wouldn’t be surprised to see deals like this one appear with other OEMs.
Motos patents have been worthless in their fight against suits. And Samsungs patents have barely helped them even in their home country.
This patent deal would only matter if Sammy stops using Android.
Not gonna save ether from:
Apple
Microsoft
Interdigital
Nokia
Rockstar
The list goes on.
Yeah, this isn’t really a validation of Moto’s patents. This is two people on the same team patting each other on the back.
Both companies have suffered set back after set back when it comes to patents.
Samsung rarely loses an IP case except in the massively biased American courts. In the rest of the world Apples lawsuits are routinely thrown out for lacking merit.
Samsung very recently had SEPs thrown out in Germany and SK. They’ve also drawn the ire of the EU for their anticompetitive abuse of SEPs.
Does the EU Competition Authority really have nothing better to do than go after corporations which can’t win IP trials? Why bother?
So they’re just like Apple: win some, lose some.
In fact, Apple lost most of its non-American lawsuits. Even “victories” were hollow; e.g., a small patch from Samsung to circumvent it all. Apple could have earned a lot more money and goodwill had they simply licensed.
Well when you redefine victory to mean “all court cases EXCEPT an arbitrary country” then you can possibly almost make that statement believable.
The US is clearly a special case – the only country stupid enough to allow complex patent cases to be handled by a random group of idiots (i.e., people like us) instead of proper judges and specialists. No surprise it’s the only country where Apple has scored a decisive victory.
A judge can overturn a jury if the intent of the law is not taken into consideration on the verdict, or if mistakes are made like in Apple v. Samsung.
For all the anti-Jury saber rattling, Judge Koh actually reduced damages and scheduled a retrial (something you reported on) which Apple later won (something you did not report on).
Samsung also never requested a bench trial, for example like Microsoft did vs Moto.
Here’s Groklaw criticizing Microsoft for not taking a jury trial:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20130308212507920
Does not negate the fact that jury trials are a medieval, error-prone relic – especially for high-profile cases or complicated stuff like patent cases. Most of the civilised world has evolved beyond them – thankfully.
Or more likely, Jury vs Bench trial differences are pretty small as the Jury needs to have their hand held anyway, and a Judge is willing to overrule them when necessary.
Your reasoning for discounting the US isn’t too robust beyond “Apple keeps winning there”.
Considering the jury couldn’t even get their numbers right AND claimed that a device with a keyboard copied the iPhone’s case design – I feel pretty vindicated in my opinion on juries.
And a Judge modified the damages accordingly, sent it to a retrial for the difference, and had the final tally adjusted.
The legal system is a combination of Judges, Juries, and Lawyers. Samsung’s lawyers smartly filed a motion, the Judge was inclined to agree.
If you’re saying that Juries aren’t infallible then I agree.
Why do you believe US is stupid? If anything, US is evil. I see big corporations winning against small companies and US companies wining against non-US companies, almost all the time.
Where has Samsung won some? They’re at best, being generous a very good defensive player, in that they’ve been able to have some motions dismissed or some have been able to work around some infringements. Overall though a vast majority of their offensive patent attacks have been unsuccessful.
Samsung has not engaged in any offensive patent attacks. All their moves have been defensive against repeated attacks from software and design patent abuser Apple.
I’m not sure where you got that idea from, but Samsung has initiated patent action in Germany for example.
Yup. After Apple attacked them.
It was still an offensive patent measure they initiated.
My statement wasn’t incorrect.
What?
Apple attacked them with patents. They defended themselves.
Or are you saying the US attacked Japan in WWII?
No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that in this particular legal action Samsung initiated the complaint.
You’re arguing semantics with someone who doesn’t care, if you think that as part of some soap opera bigger picture patent war that Apple “started it” then that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with what I said.
Of course you suddenly don’t care, because the fact that Samsung has only defended itself against Apple’s aggression is incredibly inconvenient to the narrative you’ve been posting for years now.
Posts about topic for years.
Claims to not care.
Oh internet.
I think you just used my rather harmless statement as an opportunity to repeat your (imho pointless, misguided excuse) line about Samsung being the big victim in all of this. I also think we’re just arguing about the meaning of the word in different contexts.
I meant offensive purely as a description of the legal proceeding as it actually is defined, whereas you mean it in a broader sense.
I care about the topic of patents overall, just wading into an aside three to four comments deep isn’t something im terribly fond of.
Nelson are you that brainwashed by Apple PR department? Or are one of the comment trolls working for Burson Marsteller on behalf of Apple? We know you worship anything Apple but even the most rabid of Apple worshippers knows that Apple was the one that started this software and design patent war. “We are going to kill Android” – Steve Jobs. “Open source and linux is a cancer – we can destroy it with patents” – Steve Balmer. So you basically are pissing in the wind claiming that Samsung is being offensive. The only place they are being offensive is in the marketplace where it really counts.
You must be new here if you think I worship Apple. Lol.
You misunderstand. By definition all Apple initiated patent cases are offensive (designed to destroy innovation) and all Samsung and Motorola/Google initiated patent cases are defensive (designed to protect innovation). What sequence any of those cases occurred in or what the actual substance of any of those cases concerned is irrelevant, it is simply an a priori truth that Apple attacks when it sues and Samsung and Motorola/Google defend when they sue. Clear?
Haha, spot on.
Nice try rewriting history. Who started the patent war between Apple and Samsung?
Was it Apple, or Samsung?
It’s Apple, so Apple is the aggressor (attacker), and Samsung the defender. There really is no other way to spin this, no matter how hard you try.
Lets use an analogy you’ve brought up before:
Lets say the cool kid Steve (Apple) punches the korean kid who dresses like Apple (Sam Sung) and Sam defends himself
Is Sam still defending himself if he punches Steve in the face the next day? I don’t think so.
Same deal here really, these are separate cases filed often in separate countries for separate patents.
What a buck loaded of crap. Most patent legal actions are taken to allow or deny money transfer. If you think someone may extract money from you, it is perfectly reasonable to act, under what law allows, to stop, lower or revert your loss, what is what Samsung actually did.
So, no, your analogy on this case is pathetic and also a fallacy.
A punch in the face takes 0.02 seconds to prepare. A patent lawsuit takes months and months to prepare.
Your analogy does not apply.
Who sued first Apple or Motorola? If chronology matters then surely it matters in all cases.
Nice skirting. Motorola has what to do with Apple vs. Samsung, exactly?
I am trying to tease out what, if any, principals governs your selection of victim and aggressor in the discussion. If it’s chronology, then Apple was the aggressor against Samsung and Motorola was the aggressor against Apple. Is that what you think?
Personally I think chronology of legal action is irrelevant. Samsung started the IP war with Apple by aggressively and illegally copying it’s products.
And Samsung was warned by Apple to stop doing it.
Motorola sued to get a declaration that they do not violate Apple’s patents because Apple was threatening to sue them. If you walk up to me and claim u are going to punch me in the face because I stole your bike and I go tell the cops that you are going to punch me in the face and that I didn’t steal your bike does that means I am the aggressor?
It would be the act of theft which constitutes starting it. You make it sound like Apple is litigating to stifle innovation rather than righting a wrong. I understand that you disagree with that position and you can argue that point but Apple is and continues to be the party infringed.
What theft? Patent infringement isn’t theft.
Counter-suing is not an offensive move per definition.
Well, that escalated quickly.
But, this is how patents disputes should be resolved, with mutual agreements between the two companies.
AMD and Intel always did this after some posturing and some prelim court appearances.
I understand it doesn’t mean a ton in terms of defense against others, but I hope more companies resolve their disputes in this manner.
And what if Apple doesn’t want to offer anything for Samsung’s theft? Realistically they shouldn’t have to hence the reason why they don’t. A mutual agreement in this case would be for Samsung to stop stealing and then to pay for the damage done. But then Apple has asked for this. They won in court for this position too.
It actually says “burry The Apple hatchet”, so it falsely implies that this move will help against Apple litigation.
Headline changed. It used to say “bury the Android hatchet”. You can see it in the link still.
Edited 2014-01-27 09:45 UTC
Oh, I see.
Samsung has lots of hardware patents (software too) and Google is accelerating their filling for software patents. It makes perfect sense to them to sign cross-licensing.
Waiting for the faux outrage at the licensing of IP. Google/Samsung just did exactly what Microsoft/Samsung or Microsoft/Facebook did.
http://www.osnews.com/story/25193/Microsoft_Samsung_Sign_Patent_Lic…
http://www.osnews.com/story/25862/Microsoft_Facebook_announce_paten…
Yet strangely this article lacks the usual inflammatory rhetoric.
Microsoft has been threatening other companies and the Linux world for years with software patents, and threatens companies into paying them for Android use, even though Microsoft has contributed not a single line of code.
Google and Samsung have not threatened each other or other players in any way, and sign a patent sharing agreement anyway. I know you don’t see the difference because said difference is inconvenient to you, but the rest of us will.
So I can expect there will be no faux outrage?
Because cross licensing agreements benefit both parties last I checked.
Microsoft helped Samsung in that instance. Its a mutually beneficial exchange.
It should be not a surprise to you that many osnews visitors are against software patents (at least on its current permissive form) and, specially, against those that try to enforce them against others just with the intuit to gain what looks like an unfair advantage. On Apple case, those debatable design patents. On MS case, granted, the things are different, but it should be argued that as they were the dominant player and interoperability is needed, software patents should not be enforced specifically on such cases where the intent is to achieve this, i.e. a working interoperability. It gives no sympathy to Apple and MS among most of us.
What Thom said on the post you are replying to finds echo on most of us on this particular case.
Edited 2014-01-27 13:16 UTC
It sounds like this is a mutual agreement, meaning Google can use Samsung patents and Samsung can use Google Patents.
Those other ones you linked to, look one sided as in “I’ll let you use my patents for $$$”.
It doesn’t look like the samsung microsoft agreement has stopped the law suites. So it may have settled some issues, but not all.
Both agreements I linked to are cross licensing agreements. Thom’s rhetoric would just have you think otherwise.
Hey clown. Microsoft is taxing people on code MS has nothing to do with. How about you sit down at your computer and write some code and I come along and claim ownership of your code due to dubious and shaky abstract software-patents that you have to spend millions to defend yourself against? I’m sure your head hasn’t been that far up your gluteus maximus that you are unaware of this very important fact because you read OSnews so you must be a troll and a very poor one to boot.
Samsung likely didn’t write any code for the software patents they just licensed to Google. Want to try that again?