The Patent War in Silicon Valley Continues

The federal circuit court in Washington DC ruled in favour of Apple and has significantly reduced Samsung’s chances of escaping the hefty fine due to Apple for patent infringements.  Samsung now has only two routes left: they may either lodge an appeal with the U.S Supreme Court or else to pay Apple the fine which has totalled up to $548m.

The feud between these two major tech companies has been going on for years. In fact in 2012, the district court in California had concluded that Samsung must pay a fine for infringing Apple’s iPhone Patents. Players within the tech industry have often pointed out that the products in dispute are no longer really sought after in the market due to the fact that Apple has launched various other products since then. Nonetheless, Apple will continue to fight for its unique and novel designs.

Consequently, Samsung went to the appeals court in Washington DC in July of this year to dispute Apple’s accusations. However, the appeals court held that it would not uphold Samsung’s request to hear its pleas. A rejection like this by the court is not new since the Washington DC court had already ruled against Samsung before.

Samsung has been relying on its Silicon Valley allies, which include Facebook, eBay, Dell, Google, and Hewlett-Packard. These companies have rooted for Samsung in front of the Circuit Court but to no avail. These companies are all well aware of the consequence of such a ruling and thus they have maintained that the 2012 ruling in favour of Apple would have a terrible effect on those companies which have a high expenditure dedicated to research and innovation.

As of right now Samsung have remained silent and have not divulged any information with respect to their future legal plans. Presenting their case in front of the Supreme Court may prove to be difficult, since the odds of a positive outcome for Samsung is meagre when considering the low success rate in front of this Court. Watch this space.

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