Companies Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co are expected today in a Northern California court to present their arguments over mobile patents. Businessweek said that this would not be the first time the companies had butt heads together to legally assert that one is the top against the other in the competitive mobile market. A year and a half ago, Apple and Samsung took it to court over key iPhone and iPad technology and design patents. However, the goal from the first legal fight to the current one has been the same for the both, for Apple at least, Businessweek said. Apple is reportedly determined to minimize Samsung sales by banning some of its allegedly infringing products, of which majority of them are already making a killing in the market.
The new trial, said the news outlet, is gunning for the ban of Samsung's overly popular Galaxy products. It has been said that the case was unusual in the industry considering that most companies decide on settling or working on licensing deals. German patent analyst Florian Mueller said, "There's no killer patent in play at this trial. The patents here cover limited sets of features. They can be worked around."
Apple, who reportedly started the legal fight, has claimed that Samsung violated five patents, which include the slide-to-unlock feature of the iPhone and iPad. Samsung, on the other hand, claimed that Apple infringed on its video chat and photo organization patents for the latter's iPhone 5 and several versions of its iPad.
Professor Brian Love of Santa Clara University Law School said about Apple's intention, "I have to think that Apple's primary goal was to get an injunction that would take relatively new Samsung phones off the market. Apple needed to get out in front in the first case."
Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley said that Samsung obviously values its patents more than Apple's, even though the fight is not about the money. He said, "There's a pretty sharp disconnect between what Apple thinks its patents are worth and what Samsung thinks its patents are worth. That does suggest a real asymmetry here."
