Samsung Electronics Corp won a round in its long-running patent battle with Apple Inc on Tuesday when a US trade panel banned the import and sale of some older models of the iPhone and iPad.
The quasi-judicial International Trade Commission (ITC) said it issued a “limited exclusion order” for certain devices made by Apple, in a victory for the South Korean firm after a huge loss in a court fight with its US rival last year.
The loss dealt to Apple by the ITC could make the Cupertino, California-based company more amenable to negotiating settlements on some of the many legal fronts where it is waging patent war with Samsung.
“Up to now, Apple has been winning the big judgements, which means there was no reason to come to the table,” independent Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle said.
“It looked like Apple held all the cards,” he said. “But if this holds up and both companies have something to lose, you can get negotiation.”
Tuesday’s victory could be largely symbolic because the ban covers devices that are no longer actively sold in the US market — the AT&T Inc iPhone 4 and iPhone 3 and 3GS, as well as the iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G, also sold by AT&T.
However, it is likely that Samsung will explore the feasibility of launching similar legal attacks at newer products from the company, according to Enderle.
“Typically, once you win something like this you try to apply it to the new products,” the analyst said. “This may put enough risk on Apple to get them more open to talking with Samsung.”
The ITC ruling is a final order but may be appealed in the US Court of Appeals or reversed by a US presidential order.
“We believe the ITC’s final determination has confirmed Apple’s history of free-riding on Samsung’s technological innovations,” a Samsung statement said. “Our decades of research and development in mobile technologies will continue, and we will continue to offer innovative products to consumers in the United States.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Apple expects to expand its Silicon Valley workforce by nearly 50 percent during the next three years, signaling the company’s faith in its ability to keep coming up with hit products like the iPhone and iPad.
The projections detailed in a report released on Tuesday envision Apple hiring 7,400 more workers at its Cupertino, California, headquarters between now and the planned completion of a new office complex in 2016. Apple now employs about 16,000 people in and around Cupertino, the company’s hometown for most of its 37-year history. That accounts for about one-fifth of Apple’s nearly 73,000 employees worldwide.
Apple submitted the report to Cupertino City officials as part of its effort to win approval to build a new 320,000m2 campus.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy