Apple does seem to have better luck in fighting it out over patents in the US courts than it does in the European ones. Here's the latest from Holland:
A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that Samsung Electronics does not infringe an Apple Inc patent by using certain multi-touch techniques on some of the Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablet computers.
Samsung and Apple, the world's top two smartphone makers, are locked in patent disputes in 10 countries as they vie to dominate the lucrative mobile market and win over customers with their latest gadgets.
Apple argued in September in the Hague court that Samsung infringed its patent on multi-touch function, which lets users use two fingers at one time on a touch screen.
"With these products Samsung does not infringe the claims that Apple has made," the court said in its ruling.
The case in California over very much the same point went the other way: Samsung had indeed breached Apple's patent. And this isn't the only European case that has been decided this way at all:
Apple lost a preliminary injunction on this patent in the Dutch courts last year and also lost its battle in the courts in Britain against HTC Corp, and in Germany against Samsung and Motorola Mobility, which is owned by Google.
Apple also lost a significant "design patent" case in England. This is rather different as design patents are really trademark law rather than patent. But skipping over that difference, the design patents are EU wide patents, not national ones. Thus the English ruling is binding on all EU courts: at least unless and until it is appealed up to the more senior courts. Except that Apple has already tried that and lost again.
As to why the different success rates. Well, you don't have to go far to find someone who will tell you it's all just because US courts will naturally favour a US company. Whereas in Europe we've got two foreign companies, neither with that home court advantage, so we're getting the cases decided upon the law. That would be a rather cynical thing to agree with though. It's also possible that the law in the different places is itself different but I'm not sure, with patents, that it particularly is. If you look through the list of the different cases around the world the thing that will strike you (well, it did strike me) is that the US case was the only one heard with a jury. And I would expect that (not the judges at all) to be where any home court advantage existed. If it exists at all.
