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Apple v. Samsung: Apple says it has no interest in licensing its patents (Updated)

Another witness says users pay a premium for "Apple features" on Samsung phones.

It started out as a slow afternoon in the San Jose courtroom where Apple and Samsung have been battling out a high-profile patent infringement case. The jury seemed to be nodding off, and a Samsung lawyer briefly flashed an image of source code meant for the jury’s eyes only. But the two witnesses to take the stand for Apple had some interesting comments about the way Apple licenses its intellectual property—it doesn’t.

Boris Teskler, director of patent licensing strategy at Apple, testified at around 4pm today, saying that Steve Jobs and Tim Cook complained to Samsung when the Korean company introduced phones that looked and acted so similarly to the iPhone in 2010. Apple then exhibited a presentation to the jury that it allegedly gave to Samsung in 2010 before any legal action was taken. The presentation detailed the patents Apple believed Samsung was infringing upon.

When asked what Apple’s position on licensing this portion of its portfolio was, Forbes reported that Teskler testified, “It’s Apple’s position not to [license]… keeping in mind Apple does not want anyone to build a clone product. “

Apple’s lawyers also showed off shrewd time management skills in this case, in which both Samsung and Apple are allotted 25 hours to make their cases. Apple asked witness Dr. John Hauser, a professor of marketing at the MIT Sloan School of Management, about a survey he conducted to determine the value of the features that Samsung allegedly infringed, but let the witness describe only his findings without asking him about methodology.

Samsung’s lawyers thought spending time to question Apple’s witness about his methodology seemed unfair, but when they objected, Judge Lucy Koh overruled. Hauser’s report estimated that users would pay a $100 price premium for smartphone features and a $90 premium for tablet features “associated with the patents at issue in this case.” Apple then let Samsung grill Hauser about how exactly he came up with those numbers.

"Hauser was taken to task for only showing what customers might be willing to pay for Apple’s patented features even though the same study could have also offered a price for other things such as cameras, storage, and other features," AllThingsD reported. And weighing the importance of other features without corresponding Apple patents might bring Hauser's number down quite a bit, Samsung lawyers said.

By the end of the day, the judge announced that Apple had used 11 hours and 35 minutes of its time in the case, while Samsung has used 12 hours and 16 minutes, the Mercury News reports. Samsung will have to use whatever remains after Apple presents to argue its own case.

Update: A presentation made public Friday evening revealed that Apple offered to license some of its portfolio of patents to Samsung in October 2010 for $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet. When Samsung refused and made its own license-free devices, Apple gave Samsung a presentation, noting that "[b]ecause Samsung is a strategic supplier to Apple, we are prepared to offer a royalty-bearing license for this category of device."

Apple also offered a 20 percent discount on the royalties if Samsung would cross-license its patents with Apple.

Channel Ars Technica