As the final moments of witness testimony in Apple and Samsung's patent trial approached this morning, the companies' counsel brought up (and re-brought up) expert witnesses in an effort to sway jurors to their point of view. Early talk centered around Samsung's 3G, standards-related patents.
Michael Walker, former chairman of the European telecommunications standards organization ETSI, testified on behalf of Apple about these 3G patents. He said that Samsung did not disclose the patents in a timely enough fashion for Apple to owe licensing fees to Samsung.
These Samsung utility patents fall under a theory called FRAND, “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory," which means they should be licensed to third parties at a reasonable price.
Samsung argued it did not need to disclose the patents because they were confidential at the time, while Apple countered that the company did not treat them as confidential to ETSI. Apple also claims Samsung's terms (2.4 percent of the cost of an infringing iOS device) are unreasonable. A second witness, former Texas Instruments patent lawyer Richard Donaldson also testified that Samsung's terms were unreasonable -- both in the percentage compensation Samsung is looking for, and that the percent is applied to the total sticker price of the iPhone or iPad.
Both sides finally wrapped up testimony around 3:40 p.m. on Friday. “We are done,” Judge Lucy Koh said after Apple attorney Bill Lee concluded his final cross examination of a Samsung witness. Each side completed 25 total hours of testimony.
Now, both parties have to finalize the instructions that will be given to the nine jurors deciding the case. Tuesday, each side will deliver two hours of closing arguments. Then the jurors deliberate.
Koh has repeatedly urged both sides to consider settling out of court and narrowing the breadth of the complicated intellectual property case.
Friday marks the end of the third week of the Apple v. Samsung jury trial. The companies' feud began when Apple sued Samsung for infringing design patents for the iPhone and iPad. More than a year later, both companies are suing the other, dozens of patents are involved, and each company is seeking billions in damages. The trial is expected to conclude towards the end of August.
