The following is the full text of the article:
Smart phone in your hands is a miracle of innovation. It sophisticated computer and communications technology into a sleek digital devices.
Meanwhile, it is also a litigation magnet.
In recent years, companies in the smart phone industry on the purchase of patents fly it billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars spent in each other prosecution. A ruling Friday, a federal jury in San Jose, California, Samsung for infringement of six patents of Apple, to the latter loss of $ 1.05 billion charge keeps The patent war reaches a climax.
This case shows that the patent system has become quite disorders. Patent litigation will be accompanied by an industry innovation from whether the steam engine, the automobile, telephone, or semiconductor smartphone patents in the field of legal battle scale is bigger, more international, and non unusually complex.
In addition, the court, rather than the Patent Office, has become a way to allow the company reached a truce. Finally, the loser may be consumers.
"It's hard not to all purchase of patents and patent litigation as a distorted the role of patent," Harvard Business School economist and patent expert Josh Lerner said. "They present the kind of innovation incentives."
By some estimates, the smartphone patent up to 250,000, by virtue of the patent may require the possession of a particular technology or design elements on a smartphone. Each patent may become the basis for initiating a lawsuit.
Samsung said it will appeal jury resolution. The jury's decision involves a shape such as the iPhone screen small icon basic design elements. Therefore, the court on the dispute is likely to continue for several years. Even so, this is only Apple and Samsung, two of the world's leading smart phone manufacturers in 10 countries and launched dozens of piles of lawsuits and counter-lawsuits together.
However, in this legal battle against the Korean electronics giant, Apple's goal is not limited to Samsung. Companies using Google's Android operating system, Samsung is the leader. So, when Apple may be sued in court to Australia from Germany Samsung, the real enemy of the Google headquarters in Mountain View, away from the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, not far away.
Eventually, the roving litigation between Apple and Samsung, but a major part in the global smartphone patent war. Microsoft, Nokia, HTC, and Google's Motorola Mobility in litigants roster.
Case involving Apple and Motorola recently, the famous Chicago Federal above Court Judge Richard A. Posner said in court, the patent position in the smartphone industry show that this system "a mess". In June, Judge Posner dismissed the case, and the two sides were reprimanded. Is Apple and its users experience broad claims of the patent, or Motorola said Apple should pay high patent fees to its basic communication patents, both requests are not supported. Both firms have filed an appeal.
Legal experts say that, as many companies competing patent applications as a defensive and offensive weapons, the dispute intensified. Over-busy business relevant government structures too easily approved a variety of patent applications, which exacerbated the current problem.
Smartphone patent war is triggered by many beginning should not be approved patent, Boston University School of Law lecturer, patent expert James E. Bessen said. "This is Judge Posner in the sentencing want to express."
The patent war winner will get large sums of compensation. Mobile computing devices or smart phones and Tablet PC market is the most profitable and fastest growing. Apple has become the world's most valuable company. With the Samsung than Apple last year to become the largest smartphone manufacturer, its profits and sales surge.
Although competition is fierce, the experts said, the smartphone war eventually reached the end of the results of the Armistice Agreement will be industry-wide.
If you get the support of the Court of Appeal, the California court's resolution will have this effect. "This verdict is a message to all mobile phone manufacturers to pass: the production looks very different, there is a real difference between the products," Santa Clara University School of Law Assistant Professor Colleen V. Chien said. "This is the information you want to convey in Apple litigation."
Most legal experts believe that the most difficult to get support in Apple infringement, design patent. Because the design patent is usually more than the hardware or software engineering patents fragile, that we are talking about utility patents.
But the jury found that Samsung infringed three of four design patents awful lawsuit fourth rectangular rounded shape of the Tablet PC patent.
"As companies scramble to apply for a design patent, which may lead to another round of new patent war," said Kevin G. Rivette, vice president of IBM intellectual property strategy consultant in Silicon Valley.
However, Li Weite believe that the smartphone patent wars will have calmed down, and all enterprises will eventually reached a settlement. The smartphone patent number, the pace of innovation and product development to weaken the strength of the patent. This is not the same as the pharmaceutical industry patent. May be only one patent in the pharmaceutical industry, a sensational drugs or no more than a few. In the chemical industry, a molecule can become the basis to apply for a patent.
The smart phone is completely different. An infringement verdict allows opponents to slow down a few months, but they can not stop it completely. For example, Samsung's engineers have been sentenced to one patent infringement in California - "Bounce" function, design alternatives. Finger on the touch screen of the iPhone from the top pulled down in the end, the page pops up. At the bottom of the screen on Samsung's latest smart phone, the same drop-down finger movements produce blue light, rather than bouncing.
"The industry, the patent is not an effective weapon to prevent opponents," Li Weite said. "Technology like water, will bypass the obstacle to move on."
没有评论:
发表评论