Apple vs.
Samsung: The Design Patent War Between Two Technology Giants
Nokia and Motorola dominated the mobile phone market before Apple and Samsung
became the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers. In 2007, Apple took over the market
with the launch of ‘iPhone’, a product that rapidly gained popularity due to its large and
multi-touch user interface. Apple continued to dominate the smartphone market for years
until Samsung introduced its Galaxy series in 2013 and emerged as a tough competitor. It
was Samsung’s heavy advertising together with the distinct Android features that enabled
Galaxy to overtake iPhone to become the most popular smartphone brand globally. This led
to the beginning of a hostile competition and endless court battles between the two
technology giants.
The following article discusses the design patent litigations and the battle of power between
Apple and Samsung.
Table of Contents
The Beginning of Patent Lawsuits
Timeline of the Apple vs. Samsung Legal Battle
The Outcome
Conclusion
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The Beginning of Patent Lawsuits
Although filing lawsuits is a common strategy for Apple, its focus on Samsung is quite
intense and recurrent. In 2011, when Apple was already embroiled with Motorola, it went
after Samsung for tablet and smartphone designs. The first claim came in April and by
August 2011, there were 19 continuing cases between Apple and Samsung in nine
countries. The number of cases reached four dozen by mid-2012, wherein both firms
claimed billions of dollars in damages. Each company won numerous decisions against the
other during 2012-2015, quite often in contradictory rulings from German, American,
Japanese, South Korean, Italian, French, British, Dutch, and Australian courts.
In 2012, Apple was victorious in an initial verdict in a case that targeted over one dozen
Samsung phones. However, the appeals and counter lawsuit processes continued until 2014
when almost every target model was out of production. The actual damage, therefore, was
not on the production line but in the massive legal costs incurred by the two companies.
However, there have been some production or distribution wins as well. For instance, in
August 2011, a German court ordered an injunction on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 across
the EU for infringing Apple’s interface patent. Though Samsung defended itself and the
injunction was reduced to German markets, it was still a big win for Apple.
Timeline of the Apple vs. Samsung Legal Battle
April 2011: In the actual legal action filed by Apple against Samsung, the former stated that
Samsung had copied the design as well as the technology of Apple products.
August 2011: Apple sued Samsung for patent infringement through its products, including
the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. In response, Samsung sued Apple over 3G patents and
stated that iPhone such as iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPad 2 infringed its patents.
November 2011: In late 2011, Samsung was held victorious against Apple. A federal court in
Australia lifted the preliminary sales injunction banning Galaxy tablet sales. A stay, however,
was just another condition that stopped Samsung from selling the tablet till December 2,
2011.
December 2011 – April 2012: Apple failed to block Samsung from selling some 4G-enabled
products to US consumers. The iPhone manufacturer accused Samsung of “failing to
comply” with the order set against it as part of the deal and “partial compliance” for not
handing over everything that was agreed upon. US District Judge Lucy Koh, who presided
over numerous Apple vs. Samsung cases, ordered both the parties to talk. The settlement
talk dates were set for May 21-22 in San Francisco.
May 2012: The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) gave Apple the consent
to look for a sales injunction on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. The CAFC also stated that the
sales prohibition must be imposed until a trial.
June 2012: Following the appeals court ruling, US District Judge Lucy Koh had to reconsider
the preparatory sales injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. Koh conveyed that
Apple’s request to prevent Galaxy Tab sales in the US had to wait until the completion of
court procedures. A higher appeals court was also required to formally give the jurisdiction
back to her before the request could be admitted.
July 2012: The dispute between the two firms which started in San Jose, California, was
estimated to be resolved in four weeks. 10 individuals based in Santa Clara, California, were
selected as the jury from a pool of 74.
August 2012: Apple won over $1 billion against Samsung in a huge US court decision. It was
one of the largest patent cases in decades and its finding was anticipated to have vast
market ramifications. As per reports, the jury awarded $1.049 billion to Apple but declined
Samsung’s counterclaims against the US tech giant.
The Outcome
Under the US patent laws, the harm of infringing a design patent does not agree with the
impairment calculation for infringing a utility patent. Although a design patent owner may
recuperate the infringer’s total profits, the utility patent owner may recuperate his/her lost
profits or a fair royalty. This explains why the jury’s award based on infringement of a design
patent was 100X the award based on infringement of a utility patent. In 2016, the Supreme
Court reviewed this case and held that the net profit damages for infringing design patents
need not be calculated based on the product sold to the consumer. Instead, it may be
worked out based on only a constituent of that product.
Conclusion
The Apple vs. Samsung case not only reminds us of the importance of filing multiple design
patents for protecting a new product’s look but also the significance of conducting a patent
search. In the ongoing war between Apple and Samsung, no matter who emerges as the
winner, the consumer will continue to lose unless the companies agree on having a healthy
competition and offering their best [Link] Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is
the general title of a series of patent infringement lawsuits between Apple Inc. and Samsung
Electronics in the United States Court system, regarding the design of smartphones and
tablet computers. Between them, the two companies have dominated the manufacturing of
smartphones since the early 2010s,[1] and made about 40% of all smartphones sold
worldwide as of 2024.[2] In early 2011, Apple initiated patent infringement lawsuits against
Samsung, who typically responded with countersuits.[3][4] Apple's multinational litigation
over technology patents became known as part of the smartphone wars: extensive litigation
and fierce competition in the global market for consumer mobile communications.[5]Full case
name
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al. v. Apple [Link] late 2011, Apple and Samsung were
litigating about twenty cases in ten countries.[6][7] By the following year they were still
embroiled in more than 50 lawsuits worldwide, with billions of dollars in damages claimed
between them.[8] While Apple won a ruling in its favor in the United States, Samsung won
rulings in South Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom. On June 4, 2013, Samsung won a
limited ban from the U.S. International Trade Commission on sales of certain Apple products
after the commission found Apple had violated a Samsung patent,[9] but this was vetoed by
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.[10]
In December 2016, the United States Supreme Court decided 8–0 to reverse a lower court
decision that awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple and remanded the case to the
Federal Circuit Court court to determine which aspects of American patent law had been
used correctly or incorrectly in the previous hearings.[11] The two companies finally reached
an out-of-court settlement in the United States in 2018.[12]On January 4, 2007, several days
before the iPhone was announced, Apple filed applications for four design patents covering
the basic shape of the iPhone.[13] These were followed in June of that year with a massive
filing of a color design patent covering 193 screenshots of various iPhone graphical user
interfaces. It is from these filings—along with Apple's utility patents, registered trademarks
and trade dress rights—that Apple selected the particular intellectual property claims to
enforce against Samsung, which was one of its own suppliers for components.[13] Apple
sued Samsung in 2011, alleging in a 38-page complaint with the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California that several of Samsung's Android phones and tablets,
infringed on Apple's intellectual property: its patents, trademarks, user interface and
style.[14] Apple's complaint included specific federal claims for patent infringement, false
designation of origin, unfair competition, and trademark infringement, as well as state-level
claims for unfair competition, common law trademark infringement, and unjust
enrichment.[3][15]
Apple submitted to the court side-by-side image comparisons of an iPhone 3GS and an
i9000 Galaxy S to illustrate the alleged similarities in packaging and icons for apps.
However, the images were later found to have been tampered with in order to make the
dimensions and features of the two different products seem more similar, and Samsung
accused Apple of submitting misleading evidence to the court.[14][16]
Samsung countersued Apple, filing complaints in courts in South Korea, Japan, and
Germany, alleging that Apple infringed Samsung's patents for mobile-communications
technologies.[17] By mid-2011, Samsung also filed suits against Apple in the British High
Court of Justice and in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, and filed
a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC).[6][18]
lower court's injunction was overturned by the High Court of Australia.[72]
Apple initiated a similar lawsuit against Samsung in Japan in 2012.[17][69] In August of that
year, the Tokyo District Court ruled that Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets did not
violate an Apple patent on an application that synchronizes music and videos between
devices and servers.[73] The court also ruled that legal costs must be reimbursed to
Samsung. Presiding Judge Tamotsu Shoji said, "The defendant's products do not seem like
they used the same technology as the plaintiff's products so we turn down the complaints
made by [Apple]."[74]
Europe
edit
Apple and Samsung litigated patent infringement cases in several European nations starting
in 2011, with implications for device sales across all of the European Union.[75][76] In
August 2011, the Landgericht Court in Germany granted Apple's request for an EU-wide
injunction banning Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 device, on the grounds that
Samsung's product infringed on two of Apple's patents. When Samsung claimed that Apple
had tampered with pictorial evidence during the initial trial, the court rescinded the EU-wide
injunction and granted Apple a lesser injunction that only applied to the German
market.[76][77] While these matters were being litigated, analysts determined that Samsung
lost sales of up to half a million units in Germany.[78][79]
Later in 2011, the German court again ruled in favor of Apple, with a sales ban on the Galaxy
Tab 10.1 because Samsung had infringed on Apple's patents.[80] Samsung appealed, and in
July 2012 the Oberlandesgericht München appeals court reversed the lower court decision
to outlaw sales of the offending Samsung products in Germany,[81] with the judges casting
doubt on the validity of Apple's patent ownership claims.[82][83]
In the meantime, Samsung filed patent infringement claims against Apple in France and
Italy, requesting that Apple's products be banned from sale in those countries.[84][85]
Samsung reportedly singled out these two countries as key electronic communications
markets in Europe, and by filing suit in those countries, tried to make up for its recent loss in
Germany.[86] Conversely, Apple sued Samsung in the Netherlands, and achieved a ban on
infringing Samsung products from being sold in that country.[87] This resulted in a
countersuit from Samsung, but that company failed to win a requested injunction against
sales of Apple's product in that country.[88][89] A higher appeals court ruled in 2012 that
Samsung did not infringe on any of Apple's patents and sales bans were lifted.[90]
Samsung also initiated a lawsuit in the United Kingdom, requesting a judicial order that
would require Apple to state publicly that Samsung had not copied its designs; Apple
countersued with a request in the other direction.[91] Samsung's request was granted,
requiring Apple to make a statement on its website that Samsung tablets had not copied the
design of the iPad,[92][93] and this ruling was upheld on appeal.[94]