In Boring But Important Case, Samsung Has to Pay Apple Over $1 Billion

Oh sad Samsung has the 1 billion touchy freely blues. But is it really possible to patent the idea of rectangle? I guess now Samsung has lost all it App-itite to make new programs for its new phones. Personally Samsung is a true innovator and will blaze ahead. I never thought much of proprietary Apple products anyway. Black,.... cough, cough, hair ball! Ka-pu-ie.

Long live Samsung!

Apple products are chock full of Samsung components, so technically they are the innovators. Samsung can just up the component prices a few pennies each and make that back $1,000,000,000 in a few years.

Apple may need the money soon. If the iPhone 5 really is going to have a new dock connector, how many people are going to want to cough up extra $$ for proprietary crunk, again...
I own plenty of Samsung (including this 7 year old monitor I used to help calibrate my new Samsung TV last year). When my contract expires on my crackberry in 2 months, it's getting replaced by a Samsung. Which will plug into any phone accessories I already own.

@Trooper Bri: guess what, nobody cares

Samsung got a bum deal. How many of you know that the LG/Prada phone had it's product on the market 6 months before the iPhone? (select crowd due to Prada/zero marketing/exclusive) the iPhone is a direct COPY. Sorry Apple fans. Look it up whomever wrote this article.

This is the reason Apple is suing Samsung.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/World_Wide_Smartphone_Sales_Share.png

Android based phones sales are crushing iOS based phones, and for good reason, Android based phones are better.

This is protectionism and not patent infringement. The reason I say this is that Apple and Microsoft ahamelessly copied Xerox when they implemented the windows concept on their operating systems, but Xerox couldn't play the nationalistic card.

I'm all for protecting national interests but does Apple think twice before shafting us with exorbitant prices? It's a shame b/c all Samsung had to do was implement a version of windows, and that, Apple couldn't fight!

This is just another proof that our patent system just is not working like it is supposed to. This system is supposed to create an environment where new developments can be protected to encourage new ideas, not kill new products with ridiculous claims. This decision by the court ought to be enough to get our legislators working on some new and updated laws. Samsung ought to sue the US government for its stupid laws. Its a shame that Apple can get away with taking ideas from others, just because they were bigger and stronger. Time this ends. Also more proof that when companies get too big, they can muscle out better products.

Technology patents should be enforced...the idea of a rectangle with dull corners as a phone shouldn't even be patenable, let alone be a patent ehich, now, has produced a landmark ridiculous settelement (this is an abuse of the priviledge of our right to a trial by jury).

Apple owes their very existence to their gloming of the object, linux based, operating system that Zerox pioneered. Zerox, not having a visionary such as Steve Jobs - or even a boy-wonder like Wozniak - simply was in the copy business and didn't care when Apple raided the goldmine. Now, high and mighty Apple, invented the rectangle which happens to be a phone! LOL! This verdict begs for further definition and a major amount reduction.
If I was Samsung I'd make it my goal to prove to Apple how in spite of being the world's most highly valued company they are dependent on their suppliers. That might put them in their place! I love the Mac OS, I love the industry-setting build quality of Apple...But, I hate Apple's arrogance. They need what the Brits call "their just upcommance" instead of this landmark rubber stamping of their invention of the rectangle.

I always prefered the clam shell cell phone. It fit easily in my pocket. It would be nice, if Samsung goes this route and it be a smart phone too. Bu-bye Apple; you best sales man is gone and so you will just fade away too.

The picture that purports to show the main reason for Apple's lawsuit missed the many other smartphones that were already in service when the iPhone debuted that shared similar features. HTC was making several, as were other manufacturers and they had--guess what?--rounded corners, a touch-sensitive display, and only a couple navigation buttons at the bottom, just like the iPhone. The main difference was the iPhone didn't need the silly, cumbersome stylus to navigate; it responded to finger gestures, and the user interface was revolutionary and very user-friendly. But you can't patent a user interface as Apple found out when their lawsuit against Microsoft for Windows 2.0 was tossed and when Xerox's suit against Apple was similarly dismissed. FYI, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center "invented" the windowed graphical user interface that both Apple and Microsoft capitalized on.

But this time around Apple's lawyers managed to prime a sympathetic jury, highlighting the stupidity of these big-ticket patent lawsuits. Using similar criteria lots of other vendors could sue Apple for patent infringement: HTC, for example. Apple "stole" their rounded-corner, touch-sensitive, virtually buttonless smartphone idea that ran Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system.

The real purpose of these expensive mock patent lawsuits is to create leverage with competitors when the old-fashioned expedient of building better products and negotiating contracts fails, usually at a time when the plaintiff's company is seeing their market share eaten away by the defendant's competition.

Minor correction John Werner. Apple's operating system was not based on Linux. It evolved from Steve Job's Next OS which was developed around the same time as Linux from their shared predecessor, UNIX.

What about all the other phones with the same design?
Especially the ones that existed BEFORE the iPhone?
Or was this a temporal retro-patent used in cases where you wish you thought of something first?

i have no clue why you are all mad at apple? the country was built off of people stealing each others idea, samsung should of just created a whole new design for their smartphones from the beginning be original, Android has most of the market because there phone are more user friendly specifically for those who are not tech savy... i like Callejero idea with the windows os on samsung...

you are all just mad that apple was the smart ones and patented the shape of the phone and made 1billion dollars ROFLLLL!!!!

I have all the confidence in the world, Samsung will recoup this 1 billion and more in further making of quality products!