Samsung calls Ericsson a patent troll #16

In the Eastern District of Texas, Samsung finally responded to Ericssons lawsuits against Samsung. Samsung made a bold claim that Ericsson became a patent troll in the mobile handset business once they decided to exit the market (when it sold its stake in Sony-Ericsson to Sony).

They claim that:
"[...] Ericsson has recently jettisoned its mobile phone business and it now feels unhinged as a non-practicing entity in the mobile phone market to extort vastly unreasonable and discriminatory license fees from Samsung under threat of product exclusion resulting from a simultaneously filed complaint in the U.S. International Trade Commission ('ITC'). Ericsson's misguided actions epitomize the patent 'hold up' problem that has been the recent subject of wide discussion within standard-setting organizations and other authorities around the globe [...]"

"Ericsson seeks to dismantle the standard-setting framework with unreasonable and discriminatory license demands from a willing licensee under threat of product exclusion."

This beckons the interesting question of whether or not we should consider companies who exited certain industries as non practicing entities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2VkApqzkS4
 

Time is of the essence! Samsung vs. Apple #15

The fight between Samsung and Apple, happening in both the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, is escalating over the appropriate course of action to take in these cases. The situation was complicated by Judge Koh's decision to deny Apple a permanent injunction against Samsung in December 2012, and because of her decision to strike $450 million from a $1 billion damages awarded to Apple. As more time passes by, the divergence between the two parties continues to widen. Apple would like to see the appeals court to look at the injunction as quickly as possible and also wants a new damages trial in California in the near future. Samsung on the other hand wants these proceedings delayed so they can merge additional issues into them. Samsung, moreover, cites the Seventh Amendment to claim that a new jury can't determine new damages for the 14 Samsung products because of the fact that another jury already identified infringements. They contend that any trial of this sort should involve a retrial to reevaluate whether or not any intellectual property rights were infringed at all.

It is typical for a losing party in a trial (in this case Samsung) to want to broaden the scope of a retrial, while the prevailing party (in this case Apple) would like to keep the scope of the retrial as narrow as they can. Samsung now wants a new opportunity to convince a new jury that there was no infringement in the first place, and since Apple essentially got all they could ask for last year in the case, it would be hard for Apple to get a more favorable outcome this time around. After a number of extension appeals and opposition briefs filed by Samsung and Apple respectively, it seems as though these two tech giants are playing a legal game of hooky.

It has been 7 months since the court reached a verdict and Apple still doesn't have an injunction or a damages award to show for it. The question then becomes, what legal routes are going to be implemented to progress this legal battle forward?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIOJum_I5hw