The Patent Ban On Apple's iPhone And iPad: Proof Perfect That The Patent System Is Broken

You’ll have heard the news that some of Apple‘s older models of iPhone and iPad have received an import ban: as a result of Samsung successfully claiming that they breach one of its patents. Apple has of course announced it will appeal. But there’s no real problem for Apple here. The models are so old that they’re not being actively promoted at present. Which is just the thing we need to know to be sure that the patent system is therefore not currently fit for purpose.

The ruling is here:

Having examined the record of this investigation, including the ALJ’s final ID and submissions from the parties and from the public, the Commission has determined that Samsung has proven a violation of section 337 based on articles that infringe claims 75-76 and 82-84 of the ’348 patent. The Commission has determined to modify the ALJ’s construction of certain terms in the asserted claims of the ’348 patent, including “controller,” “10 bit TFCI information,” and “puncturing.” Under the modified constructions, the Commission has determined that Samsung has proven that the accused iPhone 4 (AT&T models); iPhone 3GS (AT&T models); iPhone 3 (AT&T models); iPad 3G (AT&T models); and iPad 2 3G (AT&T models) infringe the asserted claims of the ’348 patent. The Commission has further determined that the properly construed claims have not been proven by Apple to be invalid and that Samsung has proven that a domestic industry exists in the United States with respect to the ‘348 patent. The Commission has determined that Apple failed to prove an affirmative defense based on Samsung’s FRAND declarations.

The important point here is that those are old models. Ones that Apple isn’t particularly promoting for sale and really doesn’t care very much about whether they get banned or not. More to the point, nor does Samsung care all that much about their sale being banned (they’ll be very interested in the last part of the case, what Apple might have to pay in compensation, but not all that much about the ban).

And that’s where the problem is. We all know that the law grinds slowly and it grinds small. But the slowly can mean justice denied. Apples sold about as many of these models as it ever will: if there really is a patent violation here then obviously Samsung would rather like this ruling to have come some years ago.

What’s really the basic point here is that in a fast moving tech world the legal system just isn’t fast enough. But quite how we get from here to one that is fast enough to keep up with modern technology cycles is something I’m not quite sure about. The procedures of the law are there for a reason: to protect the defendant. As the law should protect those accused of anything at all. And any lawyer worth his fee can use said procedures to delay a decision upon a case until what the decision actually is doesn’t matter all that much. It’s a tricky problem.

Data source: via Forbes (By Tim Worstall)

Image source: TUAW