By : Rick Robinson
Source : http://midsizeinsider.com
Category : Patent Infringement
Samsung is officially the defendant in the iPhone tech patent-infringement suit brought by Apple. But Samsung is not going into a defensive crouch - it is hitting back, hard. Samsung lawyers called witnesses to bolster their case that Apple borrowed Samsung technology in developing the iOS operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.
For the IT community the stakes in this case are high. An Apple win could potentially put the viability of the Android operating system at risk. And more broadly, the trial is raising fundamental issues about the patent system. How similar must devices and technologies be to indicate that one was stolen from the other? Challenging Apple
Apple's civil lawsuit against Samsung for patent infringement has reached the defense phase: Apple has presented its case; now it is Samsung's turn. But as Josh Lowensohn reports at CNET, Samsung's lawyers are following the old military adage that the best defense is a good offense: They are arguing that iPhone tech did not spring full-blown from Apple engineers' creative impulses.
To bolster their case they called two witnesses, computer science professor Benjamin Bederson and display technology developer Adam Bogue. Both were called as "fact witnesses" rather than as experts. This does not mean that they don't have expertise - plainly they do. Instead it means that they were called to testify about events they saw first-hand, rather than about their overall knowledge of technology.
Bederson and Bogue testified about touchscreen developments they were involved in that prefigured the zoom and multitouch technologies used in the iPhone and iPad. Apple lawyers then cross-examined them, seeking to show that the technologies were not as similar as claimed.
The case is expected to go to the jury next week.
What Is Innovation?
Underlying the Apple-Samsung case, as with the Oracle-Google case earlier this year, is the question of what exactly qualifies as an innovation. Put another way, where is the line drawn between being inspired by some technology development and copying it? The first is nearly universal, and tech progress could not happen without it. The second is what patents are supposed to protect against.
The two cases have another feature in common: Both involve the Android operating system. And a courtroom win by Apple against Samsung would put the future of Android in doubt, as an Oracle victory would have done.
And this is the immediate relevance of the case to the IT community at midsize firms. IT managers at these firms are facing decisions about which mobile operating systems to support or build applications on. These decisions become more uncertain when they are shadowed by legal as well as technological considerations.
But the broader question of innovation and patents is also an issue for the IT community. Is the patent system protecting innovation? Or - as many critics argue - is it now working to stall innovation?
Source : http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/iphone-tech-originality-challenged-as-sa
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