Katie Marsal
The details came out of the first day of the patent infringement trial between Samsung and Apple on Monday. In the opening proceedings, Samsung said Apple refuses to negotiate for the use of essential 3G patents in its mobile devices, according to IDG News Service.
Specifically, Monday's hearing was focused on two of the three patents that Samsung has accused Apple of violating. The two patents in question are related to power control and the format of packet headers in 3G connections.
Neil Young, an attorney representing Samsung, told the court that Apple has "refused to engage in negotiations." The Korean electronics maker hopes that Justice Annabelle Claire Bennett will separate its own complaint from Apple's patent infringement suit.
Australia has been an important battleground between Apple and Samsung as the two have filed patent infringement suits against each other around the world. The same justice overseeing the current trial opted to ban sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 late last year, though the injunction was later overturned by an appeals court.
In the latest showdown, Samsung has alleged that Apple's iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, as well as the iPad 2, are in violation of three 3G data transmission patents. Those accusations were leveled in a cross-claim against Apple in response to the original complaint, in which Apple accused the Galaxy Tab of infringing on its own touchscreen patents.
The current trial between Apple and Samsung in Australia is scheduled to run through the rest of the week. The two companies have other sessions set with the court that run through the month of October.
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32 Comments
Drop Samsung as a supplier already! There's LG, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, TSMC, AMD, Intel... I'm sure they'd gladly take over Samsung's role in Apple's supply chain of components and chip fabricators. End this drama already!
Most likely, given the nature of the patents, Samsung is a) attempting to double dip, licensing fees already having been paid by the chipmaker, and b) only asking for licensing fees for these because FRAND patents are all they have. Apple is most likely right to ignore them.
If they're essential, then surely they're FRAND-obligated? And if they're FRAND-obligated, doesn't the licensing need to be non-discriminatory? And if the licensing needs to be non-discriminatory, then surely there's no need for negotiations, because there should be a set licensing cost?
Drop Samsung as a supplier already! There's LG, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, TSMC, AMD, Intel... I'm sure they'd gladly take over Samsung's role in Apple's supply chain of components and chip fabricators. End this drama already!
AMD isn't a supplier. Global Foundries is what you're thinking on.
Apple was licensed to these patents, under the terms of an agreement Samsung made with Qualcomm in 1993, they terminated this agreement in April 2011 when Apple launched their first suit against them.
If licensing these patents is important to Samsung, then why did they terminate them in the first place?