End of Thermonuclear Legal War between Apple and Samsung
Steve Jobs of Apple started the
“thermo-nuclear” legal war with a powerful Asian manufacturer Samsung
Electronics who uses Google Inc’s Android software to create smartphones and
tablets. However, after 2 years of initial
patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung, Apple’s chance of blocking the
sale of Samsung products are growing dimer by the day.
A recent article on Reuters, about
the complicated relationship between Apple and rival Samsung claim that Tim
Cook of Apple was always opposed to suing Samsung but was overruled by then CEO
Steve Jobs. According to Reuters’
sources, Cook was against filing patent suits against Samsung “largely because
of that company’s critical role as a supplier of components of the iPhone and
the iPad.” In addition, during the April
2012 earnings call, Tim Cook of Apple revealed: “I’ve always hated
litigation. I continue to hate it. I jut want people to invent their own
stuff. If we could get some kind of
arrangement like that, I’d highly prefer to settle rather than battle.”
Reuters speculates, that given
Apple’s lack of success in obtaining sales bans for Samsung devices that the
two companies will reach some kind of agreement and will slowly wind down the
war.
Reuters article:
Insight: Apple and Samsung, frenemies for life
Reuters article:
Insight: Apple and Samsung, frenemies for life
I really like this post and I find it really interesting because I read a very similar article that quoted Eric Schmidt saying, “Literally patent wars prevent choice, prevent innovation and I think that is very bad,” (http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/google-hates-patent-wars.html/). It is pretty strange that all of these tech giant CEOs feel this way an yet spend more money on patent lawsuits than R&D.
ReplyDeleteIn the capitalistic system, the shareholder and the street demand the max return on their investment. So, the CEOs are forcing to spend more resource on patent litigation.
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