Apple's patents have limited impact

Florian Mueller Global patent expert

By Kim Yoo-chul

A leading patent expert says Apple’s patents will have “not much significant impact” in the United States and Samsung’s payment to the iPhone maker will likely be reduced.

“I believe Samsung is now in a strong position to argue that Apple can only have limited impact with its patents in the United States and virtually no impact in the rest of the world because the rubber-banding patent alone is nothing of the kind that forces anyone into a settlement deal,” leading patent litigation expert Florian Mueller said in an e-mail interview Thursday.

On that basis, Samsung could go into settlement talks with an offer that would more or less amount to a “zero-zero cross-license,” according to Mueller, who maintains the blog FossPatents.com.

The eight members of the jury spent almost four weeks reviewing the evidence presented in the same San Jose court where the first trial was held two years ago. The main issue for the latest legal battle was whether or not Samsung used Google’s Android’s patented code, which infringed on Apple’s patents.

Unlike in the first trial, which Apple won, the new set of jurors found that Apple also infringed on one of two Samsung patents and awarded $158,000 in damages to the Korean firm.

Mueller said the latest outcome is “far from a game-changer.” However, he stressed that the jurors’ findings were in favor of Samsung.

“For Apple it’s merely a consolation prize compared to what it wanted and another verdict to pin on its wall, but Samsung has for the first time in the world prevailed over Apple on a non-standard-essential patent.”

The patent analyst said the jurors’ findings are somewhat humiliating for Apple, especially as the legal battle is being held on Apple’s home turf. He also stressed that the latest verdict shows that Samsung didn’t willfully copy Apple’s patents.

“From Apple’s perspective, it adds insult to injury that Apple itself was now found, on its own home court, to have infringed on a patent belonging to Samsung. The difference is that Samsung doesn’t attribute this to ‘copying,’ which is Apple’s favorite word. Patent infringement is rarely ever due to copying. Now that Apple has been found to infringe a non-standard-essential Samsung patent, its ‘copying’ allegations are less credible than before,” according to the analyst.

“The glass is more than half-full for Samsung since the United States is the only jurisdiction in the world in which Apple has so far been able to enforce any patent other than the one on the bounce-back effect called rubber-banding. In Europe, Apple’s litigation campaign has been a disaster. So Apple depended on a strong result in the U.S. and must be very disappointed now.”

Settlement talks

Mueller said settlement talks between the two parties should take place again soon as he thinks Apple doesn’t have an “endgame strategy.”

One of the biggest obstacles to the talks is Apple’s reluctance to accept the new results.

“The next step is for both parties to ask Judge Koh to overrule the jury in their favor, which she won’t do to any major extent, and then to appeal this to the Federal Circuit,” said Mueller

I actually think Samsung has a much better chance of getting the damages award reduced further. The biggest obstacle may be that Apple’s senior management may not have understood yet that patent law is brutally technical.”

Samsung and Apple have met several times to sign an agreement; however, the talks have failed because of differing views over royalty payments. Samsung said Apple was asking too much because of its hurt pride.

Now, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jay-yong is in the United States with the company’s mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun to discuss pending issues with its clients. The executives were briefed over the latest results of its legal battle with Apple.

“There can be any number of business reasons for them to be in the U.S. but depending on how quickly Apple can digest the verdict, they should all sit down and negotiate,” Mueller said.

He stressed that if Apple doesn’t lower its demands, judges will get more annoyed with Apple’s weak patent suits.

“Patent law is strictly about the inventive contributions you make to the state of the art, regardless of whether the prior art was commercially successful, and it turns out that Apple’s inventive contribution wasn’t nearly as valuable as its commercial success would suggest.”