Patent Law Practice Center

Apple, Samsung Settle Patent Litigation

On June 27, 2018, Apple and Samsung settled their patent dispute.

A dismissal filed in Delaware ended a small chapter of the Apple/Samsung patent war. The docket in that case included only 18 items and the case had been stayed since August 2011 after Samsung brought patent infringement claims against Apple to the U.S. International Trade Commission. The dismissal terminating the Northern California case ended the much more contentious portion of the patent battle between these two companies. The dismissal is the penultimate filing in that case which involved a total of 3,956 docket entries filed with the district court alone.

The Northern California dismissal had the result of denying as moot various motions filed by either Samsung or Apple which were still pending at the time that the parties entered into the settlement. These included a motion filed by Apple for supplemental damages, pre-judgment interest and post-judgment interest, which was filed only on June 7th. This motion followed the district court’s previous ruling that an award of supplemental damages was necessary to compensate Apple for infringing sales not considered by the jury. The calculation of the supplemental damages award took August 25th, 2012, as the date from which to begin the calculation; this date was the day after the first jury verdict was entered in the case. Apple’s entitlement to supplemental damages was reiterated by the district court after a damages retrial that occurred in 2013. Apple argued in its motion that Samsung had waived any right to challenge Apple’s entitlement to compensation for additional infringing sales and that Samsung had admitted to continuing to sell six infringing models after the August 2012 jury verdict.

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Apple v. Samsung remanded back to district court

Recently, in a non-precedential decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. back to Judge Lucy Koh (shown left) of the United States Federal District Court for the Northern District of California. In December 2016, the Supreme Court overturned a $400 million damages award for design patent infringement. In its ruling, the Supreme Court explained that damages may be limited to revenues attributable to a component of an article of manufacture and not the entire article itself. See Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple, Inc.

Apple requested that the Federal Circuit keep the case and the panel review the decision in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, while Samsung requested that the Federal Circuit remand the matter to the district court for a new trial on damages. The Federal Circuit adopted neither suggestion. Instead, the Federal Circuit chose to remand the case for further proceedings, which the panel explained may or may not include a new trial on damages. Judge Koh will decide whether a new trial on damages is necessary.

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Apple, Sony Settle with MONKEYmedia over Patents, Case Continues

In July 2010, MONKEYmedia filed a lawsuit for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (W.D. Tex.). The initial suit targeted American consumer tech giant Apple Inc. (amongst others) and targeted Apple’s use of user interfaces for document summarizations, video players and RSS readers which are capable of displaying multiple versions of text and/or audiovisual content.

MONKEYmedia’s complaint included five patents-in-suit:

• U.S. Patent No. 6177938, titled Computer User Interface with Non-Salience Deemphasis. It claimed a computerized system including a computer with a means for selectively shrinking the display of a first segment of objects to emphasize a second segment.
• U.S. Patent No. 6219052, same title as above. It claims a similar computerized system including a means for transforming a displayed object into shrunken and non-shrunken segments.
• U.S. Patent No. 6335730, same title. It also claims a computerized system using a relativity controller to selectively shrink a segment of objects and a scroll bar which changes in response to relativity controller activity.
• U.S. Patent No. 6393158, titled Method and Storage Device for Expanding and Contracting Continuous Play Media Seamlessly. It discloses a method for playing stored content which includes providing links to expansion content as the stored content plays.
• U.S. Patent No. 7467218, same title as ‘158 patent. It protects a computer-readable medium storing instructions to display content, provide links to expansion content and determine when such a link has been selected.

Six years of litigation later, an order of dismissal was filed indicating that both parties had settled their respective claims for relief filed in the case. A joint stipulation of dismissal was filed stating that both parties had stipulated to the dismissal of all claims and counter-claims asserted against each other. This comes about a year after MONKEYmedia had settled similar patent infringement claims against Sony Corporation, developer of the Blu-ray digital content standard which takes advantage of seamless expansion technologies covered by MONKEYmedia’s patents.

The defendants subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement of the ‘158 patent, the final patent remaining in the suit after patent reexaminations at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In the motion for summary judgment, the defendants argue four points supporting their claim of non-infringement. First, they note that bonus content is available for an entire movie, not just segments of that movie. Second, the defendants argue that there are no expansion links in the movie content as defined by the claims of the ‘158 patent. Third, there is no fixed link from an expansion content to a continuing segment, so if a viewer wants to stop a movie to watch bonus content, that viewer has to actively choose to resume the movie. Finally, there are no cues to the bonus content which appear during the course of the movie; viewers must actively open menus and seek the content for themselves. The motion also includes definitions of Blu-ray technology features and descriptions of user interactions with those features by an expert witness, Mark R. Johnson.

MONKEYmedia filed a response in opposition to the summary judgment filed by the defendants. The response argues that the defendants are seeking a decision on the case “based on little more than the Court’s claim construction ruling, and without any evidence of non-infringement.” MONKEYmedia notes that, while Johnson’s expert witness declaration was attached to the motion, the witness did not put forward an actual opinion regarding non-infringement so much as a collection of observations made while watching a series of discs. The defendants’ assertion that the “links” and “segments” in Blu-ray content aren’t covered by claims of the ‘158 patent is based on an attorney argument and not by a qualified expert.

The case continues, but without Apple or Sony; both have now settled.

SCOTUS takes Samsung appeal in Apple design patent infringement case

On Monday, March 21, 2016, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the matter of Samsung Electronics v. Apple, Inc., a dispute between two giant technology companies that at its core relates to how much Samsung owes Apple for infringing certain design patents.

So far, these two technology giants have shown little interest in playing nice. A jury found that Samsung infringed Apple design patents, Apple utility patents and also diluted Apple’s trade dresses. The infringed design patents are U.S. Design Patent Nos. D618,677 (“D’677 patent”), D593,087 (“D’087 patent”), and D604,305 (“D’305 patent”), which claim certain design elements embodied in Apple’s iPhone. The infringed utility patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,469,381 (“’381 patent”), 7,844,915 (“’915 patent”), and 7,864,163 (“’163 patent”), which claim certain features in the iPhone’s user interface. The diluted trade dresses are Trademark Registration No. 3,470,983 (“’983 trade dress”) and an unregistered trade dress defined in terms of certain elements in the configuration of the iPhone.

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CAFC says district court erred in refusing Apple permanent injunction against Samsung

Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued another in the long list of judicial decisions in the ongoing patent saga between Apple and Samsung. See Apple v. Samsung Electronics (Fed. Cir. Sept. 17, 2015).

This latest appeal arises from a suit filed by Apple against Samsung in February 2012 alleging infringement of five patents directed to smartphone and tablet interfaces. The district court held on summary judgment that Samsung infringed U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172. The case proceeded to trial, and a jury found that nine Samsung products infringed one or both of Apple’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,946,647 and 8,046,721. The jury awarded Apple a total of $119,625,000 for Samsung’s infringement of the three patents.

Following the verdict, Apple filed a motion seeking a permanent injunction that would bar Samsung from making, using, selling, developing, advertising, or importing into the United States software or code capable of implementing the infringing features in its products. Apple did not seek to enjoin Samsung’s infringing smartphones and tablets, but only the infringing features. Moreover, Apple’s proposed injunction included a 30-day “sunset period” that would stay enforcement of the injunction until 30 days after it was entered by the district court, during which time Samsung could design around the infringing features. This “sunset period” coincided with Samsung’s representations at trial that it could remove the infringing features from its products quickly and easily.

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