14 DAY TRIAL // Apple and Samsung have managed to weather a few days of courtroom meetings without angering the judge or “polluting” the jury again, so we can pay attention to some of the actual evidence for once, instead of the drama.
The trial in San Jose, California, overseen by Judge Lucy Koh, is taking place under the eyes of ten jurors and seeks to determine whether or not Samsung really copied Apple's design.
In trying to discover whether or not Samsung's Galaxy devices impaired Apple product sales, the judge ordered the two legal teams representing both parties to provide the internal documents detailing the sales.
Samsung's filing shows that 21.25 million “accused” phones were shipped between June 2010 and the present time, along with 1.4 million tablets.
Apple's papers go back further, all the way to 2007. 85 million iPhones have shipped so far, along with 46 million iPod Touch devices and 34 million iPads.
What does this all mean? Apple has clearly sold many more devices than Samsung, which clashes with the former's arguments that the latter's practices “severely impair” and/or “damage” Apple's ability to do business.
Granted, Samsung has been a “rival” of Apple for a fairly short while (two years), so there might not have been enough time to see if those arguments have weight.
The Californian lawsuit has become the highlight of the worldwide patent war between Apple and Samsung, even though everything began in Australia.
On a related note, there is indication that the reason that South Korean authorities froze the fight in the region was a wish to see what the US jury decides.
Truth be told, we can understand why. The UK has already ruled that Samsung did not, in fact, copy Apple, which led to a rather bizarre situation. Apple doesn't have to publicly admit it was wrong, yet, but it might have to, which would be awkward if it wins in the US.
