As the battle between the federal government and Apple heats up over the company’s encryption of iPhones after the San Bernardino shooting, observers should not forget the tremendous effort that goes into developing smartphone technology. Top tech competitors Apple and Samsung have fought on the market and in the courtroom to promote and protect their unique products. It is no surprise Apple CEO Tim Cook strongly objected when ordered to help the FBI break into the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Calling it the “software equivalent of cancer,” Cook plans to “take this issue all the way” to the Supreme Court. Apple is certainly prepared to do so given the lengths they have been willing to go to in the past to protect the originality and integrity of their products.
In the past few years, the demand for smartphones has risen dramatically. Parents give them to children to keep track of them. The elderly trade in their corded home phones to be able to communicate with their grandchildren who live halfway across the world through FaceTime or Skype. None of this could be possible without the unprecedented innovation that improves the accessibility of these technologies. The intense competition in this growing market has led many smartphone hardware and software companies to get caught up in expensive and drawn out infringement cases in their efforts to lead the industry.
iPhones dominate much of the smartphone market. However, Samsung has put up a fight. The company’s continual efforts to put out new products and software interfaces in an attempt to compete with Apple has put them at risk of overstepping the patented boundaries put in place by the very company they are trying to challenge.
The United States Trade and Patent Office, USTPO, defines a patent as a grant of property rights to an inventor for an idea, utility, design or plant. Patents give an inventor “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” their idea. Anyone can apply for a patent, but the process is expensive, lengthy and not always fruitful. This basic idea comes straight from the Constitution, which empowers Congress “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
The Apple-Samsung saga over the basic protection of property rights is is long and complex. In 2012, Apple sued Samsung over the uncanny similarities between the Galaxy and iPhone/iPad patented software. The similarities included Apple’s slide-to-unlock, autocorrect and quicklink features. Apple sought $2.5 billion for their loss in profits due to Samsung’s newest release of the Galaxy S III, one of the largest requests for damages in the history of patent cases (Silicon Valley). After Apple had filed, Samsung alleged that Apple had infringed upon their patents as well, which created a storm of infringement cases later discussed in the San Jose Federal Court.
Just last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a split 2-1 decision that “Samsung’s infringement harmed Apple by causing lost market share and lost downstream sales and by forcing Apple to compete against its own patented invention” (The Wall Street Journal). However, far from the $2.5 billion initially requested, Apple won $119.6 million, which is pocket change. Moreover, the ruling did not force Samsung to remove the disputed features from their phones.
“The right to exclude competitors from using one’s property rights is important,” the Federal Circuit ruled in the Apple-Samsung case. “And the right to maintain exclusivity -- a hallmark and crucial guarantee of patent rights deriving from the Constitution itself -— is likewise important.” When it comes to the specific details of a software that turns a company profit, the patent protection rights of these ideas are vital in keeping not only the integrity of company, but the loyalty of its consumers. The importance of these details can lead a company to be strongly protective of its software against competing companies and, as we are currently seeing, the government.