Samsung smacks Apple back with 8-patent knuckleduster
Keep your FRANDs close, keep your enemies closer... in court
Posted in Management, 19th April 2012 19:01 GMT
Free whitepaper – Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement
Samsung has responded to Apple's California-filed patent suit with a fat bundle of its own patents, including a couple that fall under the much-discussed FRAND rules.
The countersuit accuses Apple of infringing eight Samsung patents, including two which Samsung claims are "essential" to the telephony standards laid done by ETSI. Those essential patents are subject to Fair Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing, but Samsung has already accused Apple of rejecting such licences in the past.
The details come courtesy of Florian Mueller, who's been loitering around the patent courts again. Mueller points out that despite filing claims in various countries, Samsung has never succeeded in an infringement claim against Apple, but this is a big war and one can't be put off by defeat in a few early skirmishes.
The good Mr Mueller also makes the point that Samsung is under investigation by the EU into its use of FRAND patents, and therefore displays considerable nerve citing them in America. The problem being that "fair and reasonable" can look very different from opposite sides of a deal, and while Non-Discriminatory might appear explicit it's harder to apply when deals often include cross-licensing and are hidden by commercial confidentiality.
The filing from Samsung also includes US patents on "a volume control for external audio reproduction" and multimedia synchronisation, among other things, but it's all grist to the mill for the lawyers involved in what could be the largest of the ongoing patent spats endemic in the mobile industry these days. ®
Free whitepaper – Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement
COMMENTS
Re: The good Mr Mueller...
Not sure why you got a downvote for that. Here's the link from Groklaw about it anyway...
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103
Now is there any chance that we'll stop getting articles about what Mr Mueller says since he seems to be spouting biased crap?
Guess I'll be downvoted for this too :-)
Rob
Re: Am I the only one
no, your not the only one...
In the past i have got a fresh batch of popcorn and a large drink to sit back and watch the entertainment, but it is indeed getting a bore...
The whole patent business appears to only benefit the lawyers.
patents and copyright were supposed to protect the interests of inventors and creators after they have invested time and money in research and development. but all it does these days is to make fat & rich lawyers fatter & richer...
its a sad day when the lawyers have a bigger budget than the R&D and marketing departments !!
The good Mr Mueller...
we learn today is now employed by Oracle as well as Microsoft (see GROKLAW) so is it any wonder he is being gleeful over anything against Android?
The only good outcome that could result from this fiasco would be a general acceptance that far too many trivial and bad patents are allowed (many of which would fall foul of prior art provisions in the eyes of anyone except a patent lawyer).
Patents should protect truely innovative and creative works for the benefits of the innovators and creators, not act as restraint of trade instruments to prevent competitors from including obvious and necessary features.
To be honest, I am slightly surprised that no one has patented the use of fingers on touch-screen devices, thus forcing the development of nose and tongue controlled devices to prevent infringement.
Am I the only one
who is starting to get a bit bored with this?
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
The new Office:
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
