Patents, Patents, Patents! The most talked about in the tech world nowadays and the culprits are Apple and Samsung. The tech giants are leaving no stone unturned to fight for supremacy in the race for the smartphone and tablet sales. It is a ‘patent war’ in true sense. Interestingly,there is no loss of interest in those following the two companies.
Talking about the latest, Apple’s claim was ruled out on Dec.3 by a decision of a court in San Jose, Calif., U.S. Apple had also requested a preliminary injunction blocking sales of Samsung’s Galaxy products in the U.S., on the basis that Samsung had blatant copied the designs of Apple products.
One might not want to go back into the history of this war, which started this spring after Apple alleged Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and tablets infringed its patents. The reason being that the two have since then been involved in ten countries, with around 22 cases hitting on each other.
Last week, Apple smelled a small victory, when it was successful in Australia, extending a ban on sales of Samsung’s tablet until Friday. But it was hoping to see the same result in U.S. even, which was much more than just important as everyone knows the potential size and importance of the U.S. market. Apple failed to prove its claim and thus Samsung would enjoy happy sales this crucial holiday-sales season, as the trial is not due to start until next year.
However, Apple is currently the leader in the tablet market and will surely dominate in the near future. Moreover, the future sales of tablets are even assumed to grow on a quicker basis. For a few notable stats, Canaccord Genuity said that sales would rise by 66% in 2012 compared to the current year. Apple definitely needs to be cautious as its closest competitor, Samsung seems unstoppable, even though it has a number of patent worries.
On the whole, Apple is not in the best of comfortys as not just Samsung, but even Amazon’s Kindle Fire is making rounds and has only happy reviews till now.
Talking about the smartphone market, Samsung has already announced its supremacy, which is leading all competitors, even including Apple’s iPhone who has 17.8% of the market, according to Gartner. The smartphone sales are only increasing and 2011’s third quarter saw the counting to go up to 115 million unit sales.
A few analysts had their say on the ruling, one of whose views had Seoul- based analysts C.W. Chung and Marcello Ahn at Nomura Holdings Inc. wrote in a note, “The situation is turning positive for Samsung. In the best case, Samsung will be able to receive patent license fees from Apple.”
Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at Global Equities Research in San Francisco said that the conflict will probably continue regardless of the San Jose ruling. “It’s getting more convoluted,” he said by phone today. “I don’t think this will be over. I do see that there may be some negotiated settlement, but not anytime soon.”
Apple’s spokesperson Kristin Huguet on Friday said that Samsung’s “blatant copying is wrong”, referring to previous Apple statements about the case.
However, the happy comment came from Samsung spokesman Jason Kim, who said Samsung welcomed Koh’s opinion. “This ruling confirms our long-held view that Apple’s arguments lack merit,” Kim said in an email.