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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Samsung, Apple trial begins jury selection
SAN FRANCISCO -- With billions of dollars and control of the U.S. smartphone and computer tablets markets at stake, jury selection began Monday in a closely watched trial between two of the world's leading tech companies over patents.
Apple Inc.'s lawsuit filed last year against Samsung Electronics Co. alleges the world's largest technology company's smartphones and computer tablets are illegal knockoffs of its popular iPhone and iPad products. Apple is demanding $2.5 billion in damages.
Samsung countered Apple is doing the stealing and some of the technology at issue -- such as the rounded rectangular designs of smartphones and tablets -- has been industry standard for years.
A jury of 10 people will be picked from a pool of dozens, and opening statements could start today in a trial expected to last more than a month.
"In some sense the big part of the case is not Apple's demands for damages but whether Samsung gets to sell its products," said Mark A. Lemley, a Stanford Law School professor and director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science, and Technology.
Lemley said a verdict in Apple's favour could send a message to consumers that Android-based products such as Samsung's are in legal jeopardy. A verdict in Samsung's favour, especially if it prevails on its demands Apple pay its asking price to certain transmission technology it controls, could lead to higher-priced Apple products.
Lemley and others say it's rare a patent battle with so much at stake doesn't settle short of a trial. Court-ordered mediation sessions attended by Apple's chief executive Tim Cook and high-ranking Samsung officials failed to resolve the legal squabble.
In court papers filed last week, each company laid out its legal strategy in so-called trial briefs.
Apple lawyers argue there is almost no difference between Samsung's products and Apple's, and that the South Korean company's internal documents show it copied Apple's iconic designs and its interface.
"Samsung once sold a range of phones and a tablet of its own design," Apple lawyers argue in their documents. "Now Samsung's mobile devices not only look like Apple's iPhone and iPad, they use Apple's patented software features to interact with the user."
Samsung denies the allegation and counter-charges Apple copied its iconic iPhone from Sony. Samsung lawyers noted the company has been developing mobile phones since 1991 and that Apple jumped into the market only in 2007.
"In this lawsuit, Apple seeks to stifle legitimate competition and limit consumer choice to maintain its historically exorbitant profits," Samsung lawyers wrote in their trial brief.
"One thing that is notable is that this trial is happening at all," said Brian Love, Santa Clara University law professor and patent expert. He said in an industry where so many companies hold vital patents needed by all players, lawsuits are viewed as toying with "mutually assured destruction" and most disputes are solved through "horse trading" and agreements to share intellectual property and royalties.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 31, 2012 B3
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Man drowns after crash in Waywayseecappo
1:18 PM 0A 29-year-old man drowned early Sunday morning on the Waywayseecappo First Nation after the car he was a passenger in ...
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