At the renewal of its long-running patent war with Samsung, Apple Inc. announced that Samsung Electronics Co. had copied the companys flagship iPhone in order to overcome Apples rivalry. On its turn, Samsung claimed that it was being used as a replacement target of Google Inc. in its continuous competition with Apple.
The courts jury consists of six women and four men and includes a retired software systems manager of International Business Machines Corp., a community service officer and medical billing administrator. Accoring to one of the court filings, Apple Inc. accuses Samsung of infringing five patents of the company and using them on 10 of its products, including its flagship smartphone Samsung Galaxy S3. Apple seeks a compensation of about 2 billion dollars for the damages.
Samsung Electronics, however, claims that two patents were breached by nine products of Apple Inc., including the iPhone 5 and versions of its iPad and iPod devices. According to a court filing, the company is seeking about 6.9 million in damages.
The opening arguments of both companies were heard yesterday by a courts jury in the trial over smartphone technology, which is estimated to about 2 billion dollars. According to evidence shown before the jury, Steve Jobs himself warned Apple that it faced an “innovators dilemma” and even promised a “holy war” when it comes to Android-based smartphones.
Apples lawyer Bill Lee said during the trial: “This isnt Apple versus Google, its Apple versus Samsung.” The lead attorney of the company – Mr. Harold McElthinny commented for the Wall Street Journal: “The introduction of the iPhone literally changed how we interact with the phone. Samsung recognized that it simply did not have a product that could compete successfully against the iPhone. They chose to use our inventions because they believed that those inventions were fundamental to success.”
John Quinn, who is the lawyer of Samsung Electronics, said: “That is a gross, gross exaggeration and an insult to your intelligence. We will prove to you that they vastly overrated the scope of those patent claims.”
The trial between both companies comes at a time when the smartphone market was valued at 338.2 billion dollars. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Apple Inc. holds about 15.2% of the overall revenue of the industry, and Samsung Electronics Co. has 31.3%.
Apple Inc. rose by 0.91% to $541.65 per share on Tuesday, marking a one-year change of +26.03% and a market capitalization of $483.15 billion. According to CNN Money, the 45 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Apple Inc. have a median target of $590.00, with a high estimate of $777.00 and a low estimate of $360.00. The median estimate represents a +8.93% increase from the last price of $541.65.
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