Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co.: An Exploration of Patent Law and Ever-Evolving Technology

gotten to the patent before them allowing for them to create a monopoly. The Capitalists if the

Patent Infringement Litigation. Nonpracticing companies are firms that do not create inventions, rather buy patents in order to sell licenses to other organizations interested in utilizing or commercializing the invention. Nonproducing companies like Bellevue, Washington-based Intellectual Ventures, argue that licensing of patent rights supports innovation, as they are able to broker access to companies and individuals that have the capacity to do something with the intellectual property (e.g. develop or apply the technology in the marketplace). Nonproducing companies aggressively defend their patents by filing patent infringement lawsuits in federal court against companies or groups of companies that that they believe have infringed on their patents. The focus on litigation is in fact a core component of these firms

The Akamai case has potential wide-ranging implications in patent litigation and transactional law pertaining to joint technology ventures. The case has been litigated since 2006. Following this latest Federal Circuit decision, Akamai announced that it would seek a Federal Circuit en banc review of the most recent ruling and, if necessary, take the joint infringement issue to the U.S. Supreme

Invention is the result of a long study, research, and experimentation (Innovation, n.d.); Innovation is “the discovery and the execution of pioneering ideas that create value” (Greco, 2011), in other words, new application of known concepts. A practical example of invention is the alkaline battery that provided a light-weight, small, and portable power source; innovation applied this concept to anything possible from communication devises, mecanich and construction tools, and even toys. Technical workstream leaders understand that innovators are today’s competitors reducing times, and maximazing profits with new techniques; but inventors have the potential to reshape the landscape of today’s markets leaving dominant companies out of bussiness. Who remembers door-to-door salesmen or “dear John”

Open innovation can lead to many conflicts on what to include in innovated products and what to exclude

In the United States, patent-eligible subject matter includes four statutory categories as defined by 35 U.S.C. § 101 of the U.S. Code. Specifically, these four categories include “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l further expanded

My goal is to make sure that clients who have an acceptable idea or invention that deserves to be protected should have that idea patented by the federal government. I have the expertise and knowledge to take you through the entire process step by step and achieve the best result for you.

Over the mid-year, Apple was offering a little more than half of the worldwide premium cell phones, and Samsung was offering just shy of 25%. By December 2016, those figures had developed to 70% and 17%, separately” (Richardson, 2017).

General Motors applies the IEEE Spectrum Patents Scorecard to measure its patent prowess in the automotive and parts industry where GM was ranked third in the 2010 patent power rankings. This was a decline from the number one position it held in the 2008 patent power rankings. (7) Correspondingly, GM Engage is another tool that is exercised to measure innovation. It is a crowd sourcing instrument designed to harness the knowledge and creativity of every GM employee for product innovation. In other words, how receptive the culture is to open innovation. (8) On a whole the importance of innovation cannot be overestimated because it leads to prosperity and a higher quality of life for everyone.

Trademarks and Patents are important to big companies like Apple because the trademark gives them the right to decide who and who cannot use their patented invention. This benefits them because if they were not to have the trademark, anyone could recreate their product without the company's consent and make money off of the product and they can sue other companies with their patent. People could resell Apples products in mass amounts legally without a patent. Apple's patent protected their creative and inventive rights on their product. Against Samsung, it protected Apples creative rights over their product, the Iphone. After Apple released their new Iphone, Samsung recreated it and therefore they put themselves at risk of litigation. The Trademark law allowed Apple to sue both the company and the distributors of the product because of recall.

In 2014 both Apple and Samsung sold a combined total of about 108.2 million units of their products! Samsung sold about 71 million units while on the other hand Apple sold 94.75 million units. For the past few years, the competing and comparison between Apple and Samsung was at its maximum. Fights started between people to prove an idea about which company is the best but they did not know that they were only comparing their smartphone. That is not the only thing a person should concentrate at while comparing two of the biggest multinationals in the world. People should look at the sales of all of the company’s products, their profits and losses, the history of the company, and the reviews of the people about their

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a new technical solution to a problem. An invention in general must fulfill certain criteria in order to be protected by a patent. For example, the Patents Act, 1970 in S. 2(1) (j) defines invention as a new product or process involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application. In other words, an invention in order to be patentable must show an element of novelty, must show “an inventive step”, and must be of practical use. Particularly, the Patents Act, 1970 defines “inventive step” as a feature of an invention that involves technical advance as compared to the existing knowledge or having economic significance or both and that makes the invention not obvious to a person skilled in the art. In other words, patent rights are not available for new advances that are merely obvious extensions or modifications of prior designs. Besides, the requirement of difference over prior art, there is a requirement to establish the extent of common general knowledge that exists while

Smartphone market is fast-moving and very high competitive due to intense competition between two big smartphone producers, Apple and Samsung. At the beginning, Apple dominated this market solely by introducing a new innovative type of smartphone by Steve Jobs that has revolutionized people lifestyle and mobile industry. A few years after launching iPhone, a new fast following competitor, Samsung came into this market, and their sales have outperformed Apple from the year 2011 (According to Chart A1 in Appendix). In term of developing their product, Samsung has created its products by following Apple’s technology since the beginning of producing its smartphone, therefore there are many patent lawsuits between them. Since Steve Job passed away, Apple has continued to develop its core competence, which is an innovation of new type of smartphone that could help them to take back their market share from its rival, Samsung. Nonetheless, the competition between Apple and Samsung will still continue intensively in the future.

Apple has always been something of a trendsetter in the tech space. Its product history since Steve Jobs’s return in 1997 gives us a solid list of examples to choose from, from its very first iPod, to Apple’s PowerBook (and later MacBook) lines, to the iPhone and the iPad. Apple’s history is dominated by products that existed before Apple had a crack at them - but it was Apple who simplified them, made them appealing on a much wider scale, and ultimately made them objects of desire for the masses.

Ronald A. Cass, a legal consultant and former vice chairman of the International Trade Commission, commented: “I wouldn’t expect there to be a lot of judgments like this one." - Quote regards to the verdict from the American courts not the Japanese courts in reference to how patent disputes are heard by juries.[21]