By tomorrow, technology giants Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co are to make their final arguments at the $2 billion US patent trial, Bloomberg said. The conclusion of the second patent infringement trial could determine whether the claims Apple has lodged against Samsung might have been the iPhone maker's strategy to wage war on the more lucrative Android operating system of Google Inc.
In the second patent infringement trial, Samsung has consistently said that Apple decided to file cases against them as the iPhone maker has the intention of attacking Android. The Suwon, South Korea-based has also called in several Google engineers as its witnesses to drive its point home that it did not need to copy Apple's technology for its phones' software.
On the other hand, Apple wanted the jury to focus on its claim that Samsung, and not Google, had made the decision to infringe on the former's patents and use them to sell over 37 million mobile phones and tablets. The iPhone maker's lawyers reportedly reminded the jury that Google is not the defendant in the case.
However, Apple had a change of heart, Bloomberg noted. Apple's lawyers at the trial presented in court a testimony which directed contradicted Samsung's 2012 statement. The testimony from a Google patent lawyer revealed that Samsung had purportedly been working with the search engine company on an indemnification agreement. The statement was reportedly have been made five months before Samsung had denied that it had sought one.
In an interview, intellectual property litigator David Shlansky, who has followed the case, said about Apple's court strategy, "If Apple can do a good job of it, they can show Samsung is either sloppy and makes mistakes, or plays intentionally fast and loose with the rules."
Villanova University law school professor Michael Risch said on what Samsung could say in its final arguments, "(Samsung may acknowledge the indemnification agreement in closing arguments to drive home the point it's been making all along that) this is really about Google software, and so that's the way we should be looking at it. Just like any other manufacturer, (Samsung could say) they indemnified us -- we are not copycats."
