The patent dispute between Apple and Samsung isn't just an ugly affair, it's turning downright fugly. Samsung managed to tick off both Apple and U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh by sharing evidence with the press that was ruled inadmissible, specifically a set of PowerPoint slides showing Apple did to Sony what the company claims Samsung has done to them -- copying designs.
PokerStars, the largest Internet poker site on the planet, has agreed to acquire former competitor Full Tilt Poker and fork over $184 million in owed money to overseas poker players in order to settle civil charges brought on by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which accused the site of sidestepping U.S. regulations related to online gambling and money laundering. As part of the settlement, PokerStars will also forfeit $547 million to the U.S. government.
The high-profile and long-anticipated Apple versus Samsung trial kicked off in San Jose, California yesterday morning with a jury selection process consisting of a 20-minute question and answer session in which a pool of 74 potential jurors was whittled down to 10. Those 10 individuals -- seven men and three women ranging in occupation from social worker to an unemployed video gamer seeking a software degree -- will hear arguments from Apple and Samsung in a case the latter described as "fighting over rectangles."
If you're into sports, then you know how maddening it can be to see the referees penalize teams like crazy in one game, and then swallow their whistles in the next. That makes it hard for players and coaches to decipher the rules, which is exactly how Samsung must be feeling right about now. Not only are different courts around the world issuing opposite rulings in Samsung's patent fight with Apple, at least one is also factoring in the size of Samsung's devices, or so it seems.
Nearly a dozen game developers, including Electronic Arts (EA), stand accused of infringing upon a patent held by Uniloc that relates to a "system and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data." According to Uniloc, EA and others are using the patented technology, without permission, in certain Android-based mobile games, including Bejeweled 2, which was specifically named in the lawsuit.
One step forward and two steps back. That must be how Samsung feels as it dances with Apple in various courts around the world defending its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet and other products the Cupertino outfit claims infringes on the look and feel of iPad and iPhone devices. The latest setback took place in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which denied two of Samsung's motions related to the preliminary injunction levied against the Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Nobody likes to eat crow, but what do you do when a judge in a court of law hands you plate full of it and orders you to shove it down your gullet? The answer to that question is forthcoming. Apple, which has been on a crusade to bury Samsung for allegedly copying the look and feel of its iPad and iPhone devices, was ordered by a U.K. judge to flip the script and take out ads stating Samsung is innocent.
Samsung hasn't had much to celebrate lately in the legal arena, and the fact that a U.K. judge deemed the company's Galaxy Tab "not as cool" as Apple's iPad seems like it would only rub salt in the wound. However, it's for that very reason that Judge Colin Birss sided with Samsung, ruling that Apple's patent infringement claim, which has been successful in the U.S., is bogus.
Even for a company as financially stable as Intel, paying a $1.3 billion fine doesn't come easy, or without hesitation. It's even tougher to fork over the funds when it's believed the fine is based on "profoundly inadequate" evidence, as the Santa Clara chip maker referred to the European Commission's investigation, which led to the record breaking penalty. Intel is hoping to have the three-year-old fine removed, or at least reduced, via appeal.
Samsung is having a crummy week. After losing a court battle in which Apple was successfully able to convince an appeals court to ban sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the U.S., Samsung learned a day later that it would also have to pull its Galaxy Nexus smartphone from store shelves. Adding insult to injury, Samsung has just been denied a preliminary injunction against sales of said smartphones.
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