According to the article (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19816642), Samsung is challenging the Apple’s $1 billion award verdict by a California court around August of this year. Apple has actually accused Samsung of infringing the following patents:
i) Use of a single search interface such as Siri
ii) Sliding gesture to unlock
iii) Tries to anticipate which words the user wants to type and makes recommendations.
iv) A way to manipulate structures such as phone numbers or postcodes within computer data.
(http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18705285)
Samsung made paperwork on 21 September to appeal for a retrial as Samsung believed an incomplete answer had been provided during jury selection. Samsung also questioned the verdict and result of the lawsuit has been unfair as there were restrictions imposed by Judge Lucy Koh.
The consequence of this kind of vicious competition causes the Galaxy Nexus smartphone to be banned in the US. At the same time, Apple has lost their court cases in Netherlands and South Korean. (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-18529756) The main concern for consumer is that both the giant firms have been involved in dozens of patents cases and causing bans on certain products in certain countries. Thus, it led to the inconvenience to consumers as they are actually cancelling out our freedom of choice. Rather than concentrating on decreasing each other’s market share using lawsuits, they should concentrate on winning each other with introduction of new gadgets and innovation to position themselves as the genuine leader in innovation of phone and tablet products in consumers’ minds. In the consumer’s point of view, do you think the current fight in court is good for you?