Hasta La Gadget!

This morning Apple has made its opening statement in a landmark case vs Samsung which will result, more than likely, in the exchanging of billions of dollars in damages for patent infringement on the part of one or both of them in the mobile device realm. Apple’s opening remarks come with what we’ve seen several times before, including such remarks as, “we all know it’s easier to copy than to innovate,” from Apple lead attorney Harold McElhinny. Samsung’s opening statements will come later in the day while Apple has had the first hour and a half.

Apple’s set of statements came after a video which was put on display for the benefit of the jury. This video contained a relatively easy to follow explanation of what patents were and how the USA patent system works. Have a peek at what they saw in this, the same video, as hosted by YouTube:

The video comes from PublicResource.org and is designed to be shown to jurors in patent jury trials in general. McElhinny spoke starting on how the iPhone was born, noting specifically, according to Ina Fried at AllThingsD, that Apple took a risk creating the iPhone.

“They were literally betting their company.” – McElhinny

Facing off against then giants like Nokia and Motorola, and of course Samsung as well, Apple went all-in with the iPhone, taking out applications for 200 innovations related to the device alone. McElhinny promised to show never before shown confidential Samsung documents that show Samsung’s first reaction to the iPhone. With these documents, McElhinny says, they’ll prove that Samsung decided to copy the design rather than innovate as a reaction to it.

“To be blunt, the testimony is going to show you that Samsung has not been honest about this copying.” – McElhinny

Stay tuned as Apple continues to expand on how they’ll be pushing for Samsung to admit their wrongdoing as well as Samsung opening up with comments on how it wasn’t they who broke the sacred bond of innovation, but Apple. Have a peek at the timeline below as well to catch up on this case as it expands quickly through the next few weeks.

Apple opening remarks vs Samsung “easier to copy than to innovate” is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It appears that Apple is not safe from the continual downpour of patent cases as this week the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan is readied and filed an infringement case against Apple’s use of Siri on the iPhone and iPad. The patents in question here have to do with speech recognition which the plaintiffs suggest was filed by them in 2005 as a “Method and system for matching speech data.” This patent is available under patent number 7,707,032 in the United States.

This patent appears to cover a method and system used to connect actual speech with recognized patterns and samples, to put it simply. The assignee here is the National Cheng Kung University and the patent was granted in 2010 on the 27th of April. The filing took place back in the fourth quarter of 2005, and the University now notes that the patent specifically refers to devices such as smartphones or tablets which use said technology.

This group also has a patent granted in 2007 which covers simply a “Speech recognition system” that works to divide speech processing into 4 modules. These modules you may recognize: system control, autocorrelation and linear predictive coefficient, cepstrum, and DTW recognition. Each of these modules have also formed an IP component on their own, and the University is coming full force at Apple for what they feel they’re owed because of them.

The second patent in question here has the University noting that, “The ’496 Patent is generally directed to a complete speech recognition system having a training button and a recognition button.” It’s likely that Apple will contend that their technology was developed outside of the devices they’re now tied to, but we’re sure there’ll be a bit of contention on whether or not the iPhone and iPad actually fit within the bounds of the patents since they’re not made primarily for speech recognition.

We shall see! Check out the timeline below for more patent wars in the Apple universe and prepare yourself for more hot action as the Samsung case ramps up here in the USA!

[via Patently Apple]

Apple sued for Siri tech by Taiwan University is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Kodak was forced to file bankruptcy after it has been unable to compete in the changing photography market. The company’s big move to pull itself out of bankruptcy and reorganize into something profitable has been to sell off two large patent portfolios. The problem for Kodak is that one of the patents in the portfolio was recently invalidated in court. Apple is also been seeking to transfer a patent suit between it and Kodak out of bankruptcy court and into a New York District Court.

Judge George Daniels has denied Apple’s request to move its patent suit against Kodak into his courtroom. Judge Daniels said that before Apple could have the case moved to his court, Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper, overseeing Kodak’s bankruptcy proceedings, must rule on key issues. Daniels said that Gropper should have “an opportunity to render a decision on the motion and to have an opportunity to control and move forward the process.”

Kodak has already filed suit against Apple accusing Apple of interfering with its plans to sell its patent portfolio by claiming ownership of 10 inventions the two companies worked on together. Those 10 inventions are covered in various patents that Apple claims Kodak filed for alone when both companies worked on the technology. The product the two companies worked on together included the QuickTake digital camera.

and[via Appleinsider]

Apple request to transfer patent suit involving Kodak denied by court is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just five days before the trial will take place between Apple and Samsung over a collection of patents and possible device design infringements, Samsung has been accused of failing to avoid auto-deleting email evidence. In this case it appears that Apple is seeking evidence which would have been in Samsung’s email archives if Samsung had not had a “rolling basis” for deleting old documents. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal agreed with Apple’s request that jurors should be informed that they can draw “adverse inference” from Samsung’s failure to avoid deleting the files in question.

As both Apple and Samsung are two of the largest device creators in today’s $219 billion dollar mobile industry, it stands to reason that even the smallest detail will be analyzed in this case which has the two at arms with one another. The instructions that have been handed to the jury before the trial begins appears to say with some certainty that there were indeed documents that Apple said existed and that Samsung did indeed have them auto-deleted rather than saving them specifically.

“Rather than building itself an off-switch — and using it — in future litigation such as this one, Samsung appears to have adopted the alternative approach of ‘mend it don’t end it. Samsung’s mend, especially during the critical seven months after a reasonable party in the same circumstances would have reasonably foreseen this suit, fell short of what it needed to do.” – Grewal

Grewal’s instructions for the jury included the following:

“Samsung has failed to prevent the destruction of relevant evidence for Apple’s use in this litigation. … The lost evidence was favorable to Apple. … You may choose to find it determinative, somewhat determinative, or not at all determinative in reaching your verdict.” – Grewal

Stay tuned as the Apple vs Samsung case begins on the 30th of this month here in the USA. Check the timeline below as well to keep up to date with everything that’s surrounded these two titans and their court cases with one another over the past few weeks.

[via Bloomberg]

Samsung accused of document destruction in US case vs Apple is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

One of the trials between Apple and Samsung has already kicked off in Australia, and day two of the case saw Apple arguing over its implementation of a 3G patent owned by Samsung. Samsung believes that Apple is infringing on the patetn, while Cupertino argues that while it does use the 3G standard, its implementation of the method is different than what Samsung has filed for. The patent relates to power management while using 3G data services.

Apple asserts that while it makes use of the 3G standard through Qualcomm’s baseband chips, Samsung has failed to identify what method the vendor has implemented. Samsung has seemingly claimed the patent is being infringed without knowing how it has been implemented in the iPhone 4, 4S, and iPad 2.

The company also denied claims that it had failed to negotiate with Samsung regarding FRAND licensing agreements. “Apple has not refused to negotiate with Samsung. Apple continues to be willing to negotiate on FRAND terms for Samsung’s standards essential patents, including the three involved in this suit.” Samsung, however, maintains that Apple isn’t playing ball. The company believes Apple has infringed on three patents relating to 3G, while Apple claims that the Galaxy tablet range falls foul of patents relating to touchscreens.

[via ZDNet]

Apple denies copying Samsung’s 3G homework is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.