It's been seven years since Apple sued Samsung for 'slavishly copying' various aspects of its iPhone OS, functionality and smartphone design. The long legal battle has finally concluded in Apple's favour with Samsung losing and now being asked to pay the Cupertino company US $539 million in damages.
More important for Apple, it sets the record straight on who copied whom as well as legitimizes the notion that Samsung made is smartphone fortune mostly on the back of the throusands of man hours and R&D Apple put into the iPhone.
“We believe deeply in the value of design, and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers,” the company said.
Why is this important today? Apple and Samsung are the two most popular premium smartphone makers today with competitors and their products biting the dust left and right. (RIP Essential, HTC, LG). Neither Samsung or Apple need to bundle HDTVs in order to sell their latest smartphones which continue to be well received despite inching up in price.
Bloomberg's report stated "Samsung previously paid Apple $548 million -- $399 million for products that infringed the design patents plus more for infringing a utility patent not at issue in the retrial."
Source: Bloomberg