Samsung/Apple Trail Begins

choi

(1) Jessica E Vascellaro, Samsung Case Is a Proxy for Google; Google employees aren't expected to testify, but legal representatives from Google are likely to attend the trial. Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 57002317780484.html
(Jury trial starts today at United States District Court for the Northern District of California (at San Francisco), presided by judge Lucy Koh)

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: 3  patents in the Samsung case touch on features associated with Android, Apple says.

(b) Quote:
(i) "The dispute's legal chapter began more than two years ago, when Apple sued Android partner HTC Corp. 2498.TW -1.90% of Taiwan in March 2010 and Samsung in April 2011.
(ii) "Apple didn't sue Google, however, opting instead to attack the companies that manufacture Android phones. It declines to say why.

"Patent lawyers say it is easier to make a case for monetary damages against companies that make handsets and tablets and sell them to consumers.

"Google, which generates most of its revenue from online advertising, licenses the software to partners free.

(iii) "The trial comes at a pivotal moment in the smartphone market, with Samsung extending its lead in the lucrative business. In the second quarter, the South Korean company accounted for 32.6% of global smartphone shipments, up from 29% in the quarter ending in March, according to the research firm IDC. Apple's share slid to 16.9% from 23% over that period.

(c) Note: Stepping Up: Lucy Koh ’93; A Daughter of the Korean Peninsula Ascends to the Federal Bench. Harvard Law Bulletin, Winter 2011.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/2011/winter/cn_05.php
(raised primarily in Mississippi)

Born in 1968 in US and a Harvard graduate (BA 1990 and JD 1993), "Koh is the first Korean-American district judge in United States history."


(2) Evan Ramstad, Big takes in Patent War; Quarterly results from Samsung and Apple show how large the pot has grown.

Quote:

"Samsung on Friday [July 27] announced a record quarterly profit, its second in a row, of 5.19 trillion won ($4.6 billion0, up 48% from a year earlier, for the April-to-June period. Its telecom unit [read: cellphone] experienced a 60% jump in revenue and near-tripping in operating profit, accounting for nearly all of the company's financial improvement. Meanwhile, Apple earlier last week reporte a profit of $8.8 billion for the same three months, a figure that disappointed analysts despite being a 21% increase from  year earlier.

"Samsung stopped disclosing data about its cellphone shipments early last year. But following Samsung's quarterly results announcement Friday, market analysts estimated it shipped just over 50 million smartphones, almost trice as amny as the 26 million iPhones Apple said it shipped in the quarter. Those shipments accounted for more than half of Samsung's overall shipments of about95 million cellphones, an analyst said.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest of this report.