Apple - Samsung battle goes for jury trial
30 Apr 2014
Google cast its shadow over closing arguments yesterday in the month-long Apple vs Samsung federal trial involving claims and counter-claims of patent infringement brought against each other by the world's two largest smartphone makers, AP reported.
The two are battling over five patents that Apple has accused Samsung of infringing to create nine newer smartphones and a tablet.
Samsung was accused by a lawyer of "slavishly'' copying key features of its iPhone and iPad products and faced a demand for $2.2 billion in damages.
Denying the accusation Samsung's attorney said its Google-developed software differed from Apple's operating system.
Lawyer William Price cited an email from Apple founder Steve Jobs to show that he had ordered employees to wage a ''holy war'' against Google and its Android system, believing it was a rip-off of Apple's operating system, while making his closing submissions.
According to Price, that was the sole reason Apple filed the lawsuit against Samsung.
John Quinn, one of the four lawyers involved in the company's closing argument said Samsung did not think it owed Apple a nickel.
He further said Apple wanted to monopolise the industry, and was trying to attack Google and Android by attacking the most successful Android maker - Samsung.
Arguments in the landmark court battle between Apple and Samsung over smartphone patents ended today with verbal fireworks between duelling attorneys as they made closing arguments.
Apple Inc.'s lawyer told a jury at a $2 billion trial that Samsung Electronics Co. made itself a dominant player in the smartphone industry only by copying the iPhone maker on ''feature after feature'' over several years.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported, Apple and Samsung each presented two hours of closing arguments yesterday after almost four weeks of testimony at their second US trial over patent infringement claims.
At the time Apple introduced the iPhone, in 2007 Samsung had only 5 per cent of the US mobile handset market and did not even offer a touch smartphone, according to attorney Harold McElhinny, Bloomberg reports.
He said, the company, after methodically electing to ''copy feature after feature after feature of the iPhone'' in its own devices, was the world's leading seller of smartphones powered by Google Inc's Android operating system.
Apple and Samsung have faced each other in court battles across four continents over a market valued at $338.2 billion last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Samsung had 31 per cent of industry revenue, as against 15 per cent for Apple, whose share of the market had fallen after the touch-screen interface became more commonplace and Samsung, LG Electronics Inc and Lenovo Group Ltd introduced lower-cost alternatives.
