The BBC has an interesting take on the Apple versus Samsung patent case that is finally heading to the Supreme Court today, arguing that a definitive ruling is needed in order to bring a 19th Century law into the 21st Century. It also explains why the legal battle probably won’t end with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
A one-paragraph recap for anyone who hasn’t been following the case closely. Samsung infringed several of Apple’s design patents – that is, patents concerned with how things look (in either hardware or software) rather than what they do. Samsung is no longer denying that. The lower courts ruled that Samsung must pay all of the profits made by infringing these patents. That’s the bit Samsung is fighting, arguing that it should pay a much smaller sum.
And it is this element of patent law which the BBC’s Dave Lee suggests needs to advance a century or two …
Filed under: Apple
