A number of important and prominent companies based in Silicon Valley have surprisingly given their backing to Samsung in the company’s patent infringement court case against Apple, according to a new report. Large tech giants including Facebook, Google, HP, eBay, and Dell have organized and submitted a petition to a federal court of appeals with the intention of convincing the reviewing panel to take another look at its decision to award the iPhone maker a large chunk of profit from certain Samsung devices that were deemed to have infringed on Apple’s patents.
As part of the collaboration, the large tech corporations involved submitted a ‘friend of the court’ document at the beginning of July. The brief essentially raises and highlights the possibility that if the decision to award profits from certain Samsung devices to Apple stands, then it’s highly likely that it will set the tone for the industry to be opened up to a number of high patent infringement lawsuits involving multiple large corporations. In a similar vein to Samsung’s original defense, the report also claims that the decision will “stifle innovation” and “limit consumer choice” within the technology sector.
If allowed to stand, that decision will lead to absurd results and have a devastating impact on companies, including [the briefing draftees], who spend billions of dollars annually on research and development for complex technologies and their components.
It’s no secret that Samsung and Apple have been embroiled in a bitter legal battle for a number of years, which ultimately resulted in the latter being awarded a large cash settlement to the tune of $548 million, which original stood at $1 billion. However, this is the first time that neighboring companies and huge hitters in their respective markets have rallied together in support of Samsung. With that said, it rather feels like an attempt at protecting the draftees’ own interests on the back of the ruling rather than actually lending any legitimate support to Samsung as a company.
The crux of the document essentially focuses on the belief that advanced consumer electrical products such as smartwatches, smartphones, tablets and smart TVs are simply too complex in hardware and software design to be grouped together and labelled as “infringing on a patent.” Whether or not all of the companies involved in the petition are actually a ‘friend of the court’ is entirely another matter.
(Source: InsideSources)
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