Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google vice president of Android, walked the jury through early development of Android and said engineers actually tried to make software that was very different from Apple's iOS mobile operating system.
"We liked to have our own identity; we liked to have our own ideas," Lockheimer said. "We were very passionate about what we were doing, and it was important that we have our own ideas."
Lockheimer was the first witness Samsung called in its defense against Apple. Apple has accused Samsung of copying its iPhones and iPads, but Samsung has argued that Google designed many of the features for Android first.
Earlier Friday, Apple rested its case against Samsung after an expert detailed the $2.191 billion in damages the company says it's due from Samsung.
Samsung's attorneys said the company may call as many as 17 witnesses by the end of the day Monday, though many would be via deposition. Nevertheless, Judge Lucy Koh said the company had to narrow its list.
Many of the other witnesses on tap for Samsung are Google executives. Dianne Hackborn and Cary Clark are slated to testify about the design, development, and operation of Android, as well as possible alterations made to the operating system. They should specifically talk about features for quick links, or automatically detecting data in messages, that Apple has accused of infringing its patent No. '647.
Almost two years after Apple and Samsung faced off in a messy patent dispute, the smartphone and tablet rivals have returned to the same courtroom here to argue once again over patents before federal Judge Koh. Apple is arguing that Samsung infringed on five of its patents for the iPhone, its biggest moneymaker, and that Apple is due $2 billion for that infringement. Samsung wants about $7 million from Apple for infringing two of its software patents.
While the companies are asking for damages, the case is about more than money. What's really at stake is the market for mobile devices. Apple now gets two-thirds of its sales from the iPhone and iPad; South Korea-based Samsung is the world's largest maker of smartphones; and both want to keep dominating the market. So far, Apple is ahead when it comes to litigation in the US. Samsung has been ordered to pay the company about $930 million in damages.
Most Samsung features that Apple says infringe are items that are a part of Android, Google's mobile operating system that powers Samsung's devices. All patents except one, called "slide to unlock," are built into Android. Apple has argued the patent-infringement trial has nothing to do with Android. However, Samsung argues that Apple's suit is an "attack on Android" and that Google had invented certain features before Apple patented them.
Suing Google wouldn't get Apple anywhere since Google doesn't make its own phones or tablets. Instead, Apple has sued companies that sell physical devices using Android, a rival to Apple's iOS mobile operating system. In particular, Apple believes Samsung has followed a strategy to copy its products and then undercut Apple's pricing. While Apple isn't suing Google, it expects that Google will make changes to its software if Samsung is found to infringe on patents through Samsung's Android devices.
Lockheimer on Friday said he joined Google in April 2006 to work on the Android team. At that time, there were only about 20 to 30 people on the team, and it operated like a startup. Currently, about 600 to 700 people working on Android report to Lockheimer, he said.
"People tend to think of Google as a big company, but we were a small team," Lockheimer said. "We were autonomous, and the company let us do our own thing."
Lockheimer also testified about what Android features handset vendors can tweak. For instance, phone makers don't have to use the Google keyboard, but if they include it, they can't change it.
Christopher Vellturo, an economist and principal at consultancy Quantitative Economic Solutions, earlier Friday wrapped up his testimony from earlier in the week, saying Apple should receive about $2.191 billion in damages from Samsung for patent infringement. He noted the figure includes damages -- such as lost profits -- of $1.067 billion and reasonable royalties of $1.124 billion.
Vellturo on Tuesday had testified he determined the amount by evaluating the scale of the infringement, the time span, the head-to-head rivalry between Apple and Samsung, and the belief that the patents were key for making Samsung devices easier to use and more attractive to buyers. Samsung sold more than 37 million infringing devices, Vellturo said. The total amount of sales in dollars was kept confidential.
Earlier this week, another expert hired by Apple, MIT marketing professor John Hauser, argued that the company's patented features made Samsung's devices more appealing and that fewer people would have purchased the gadgets if the features were missing.
Hauser and Vellturo are key to Apple's argument that it deserves about $2 billion in damages for Samsung's alleged infringement. The company argues that Samsung copied Apple's iPhone as it tried to figure out how to react and compete with the device. It realized it "simply did not have a product that could compete successfully against the iPhone," Apple attorneys said during opening arguments earlier this month. Samsung, however, argues that many of the patented items are features Google had earlier created for Android.
0 comments:
Post a Comment