Week 5 EOC: Apple-Samsung Patent Battle

I wasn't too familiar with this topic so I had to do a lot of reading. The fight began in 2011 when Apple began litigation against Samsung for patent infringement. Apple sued its component supplier Samsung, alleging in a 38-page federal complaint on April 15, 2011 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that several of Samsung's Android phones and tablets, including the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, infringed on Apple’s intellectual property: its patents, trademarks, user interface and style.( Kane, Yukari Iwatani; Sherr, Ian (April 19, 2011). "Apple: Samsung Copied Design". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company.) Apple presented side by side image comparisons of both its products and the Samsung products in question. It was later determined that the images were tampered with to make the products seem more similar. Samsung later counter-sued Apple alleging that Apple infringed their patents for mobile communications technology.

Today the U.S International Trade commission ruled that Samsung infringes on portions of two Apple Inc patents on digital mobile devices, covering the detection of headphone jacks and the operation of touchscreens. Several Samsung devices will potentially be prohibited from being imported, sold, and distributed in the Us. In this ongoing war between these two giants, we, the consumer, will suffer. The ruling was the latest in a patent battle between Apple and Samsung that has spread across several countries as the companies vie for market share in the lucrative mobile industry. Samsung and Apple are the Nos. 1 and 2 smartphone makers. But it comes less than a week after the Obama administration overturned an ITC decision from June that would have banned the sales of some older-model Apple iPhones and iPads in the United States for violating Samsung patents. (http://www.reuters.com) I believe that if they were not the top two makers this would be a non- issue.  It makes me wonder that if they could have come to some sort of agreement to share the technology instead of fighting it out in court. Samsung’s incurred costs associated with try to correct the problem so that the devices will work around the infringement will probably be passed on to consumers. The ITC banned Samsung from importing or selling some devices that infringe on the Apple patents. While the devices Apple mentioned in the case are older Samsung products -- like the Galaxy Tab 7 tablet and the Continuum smartphone -- the ITC's ruling could have implications for phones currently on the market that use the same technology. But Samsung has the chance to release software updates to work around the infringement -- for example, customers would still use multitouch the same way they always did, but Samsung would change how that worked from a technical perspective. (http://www.kvia.com/money).  I don’t think that this will ever be resolved. These two companies will always have something to fight about. I think in technology everyone takes something that has already been invented and tries to make it better. There is room for improvement in everything. That being said when an improvement is made then credit needs to be given where credit is due and get proper permissions.