The US Patent and Trademark office really botched it when it permitted the patenting of what icons and user interfaces look like, as shown by the recent discovery regarding the Apple-Samsung patent war. We won't even bother expressing any sentiment related to the fact that patenting visual preferences and no-brainer user interface functions is, in fact, allowed.
To cut right to the chase,
FOSS Patents did some digging and found Apple's damages claim, part of the lawsuit in California.
The company wants Samsung to pay $2.02 for every previously sold Samsung product that uses “overscroll bounce.” That's about the same as 1.66 Euro, according to exchange rates.
The Cupertino, California-based corporation wants a similar payment on every device that allows "tap to zoom and navigate."
What's more, Apple would like Samsung to pay $3.10 / 2.55 Euro for all those that involve a “scrolling API”.
As if that weren't enough, the corporation wants a massive $24 / 19.81 Euro for every device that, according to it, infringes a design patent or trade dress right.
All in all, Apple's claims amount to around $2 billion / 1.65 billion Euro for aesthetic patents alone, with only 525 million / 433.41 million more dollars/Euro being accounted for by alleged technical infringements.
Truly, Samsung and Apple don't really need to perform any negative PR about one another. This whole mess does it just fine on its own.
At this point, we would not be surprised if the
feelings of Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett, overseeing one Australian case instead of the one herein covered (in California), are echoed by the US justice system. The only difference would be that it wouldn't be Samsung in the position of the plaintiff when the proceedings are called ridiculous.
Nevertheless, Apple is pressing forward on all fronts in every country where such a war is being waged, and there is at least one court that agrees with it, if the
ban on the Galaxy Tab 7.7 in the EU is any indication.
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