Apple, Samsung cite and rebut internal memos in patent trial

SAN CALIFORNIA: Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in January 2007, he said the device's new touchscreen technology worked like magic. He also said, "And boy, have we patented it!"

Apple's lawyer, Harold J McElhinny, on Tuesday said that Apple's rivals should have taken Jobs's proclamation as a warning not to copy the iPhone. But Samsung did not get the message, he said.

In closing arguments in the latest patent trial between Apple and Samsung, McElhinny argued that Samsung quickly became a world leader in the mobile market by copying features of Apple's iPhones and iPads, violating multiple patents along the way.

But Samsung offered jurors a different story: Samsung's phones have been successful not because of copying but because the company came up with its own inventions and built its brand and reputation through a huge marketing budget.

In the month-long trial, Apple has accused Samsung of selling phones and tablets that violate five of its mobile-software patents. Samsung has accused Apple of violating two of its patents.

The eight-person jury, which includes a retired IBM engineer, a police officer, a store clerk and a retired teacher, started deliberations on Tuesday afternoon.

If they conclude that patents were infringed, they will determine damages. Apple wants $2 billion from Samsung. Samsung wants about $6 million from Apple and has argued that it should owe only about $38 million if it is found to have infringed all five patents.

William C Price, Samsung's lawyer, said that at the trial, Apple had used the word "copy" so many times to incense jurors. "They have to get you a little angry to justify this number," he said.

McElhinny said that Samsung did not have anything similar to an iPhone when Apple's smartphone was introduced. But Samsung, he said, eventually released many phones that copied "feature after feature of the iPhone."

"Samsung knew about the patents, it knew it was facing a crisis of design, and it intentionally copied the iPhone," McElhinny told the jury.

McElhinny said Samsung was trying to play down the importance of some features covered by Apple's patents. But, he said, internal Samsung documents contradicted those claims.

For instance, an internal Samsung presentation revealed that Samsung's designers viewed Apple's "slide to unlock" feature, which allows access to an iPhone, as a creative way to solve user interface complexity.

"They didn't say it was obvious," McElhinny said, suggesting the idea would not have come to Samsung if Apple had not had it first.

An internal document brought up repeatedly throughout the trial was a 2010 staff memo from JK Shin, the chief executive of Samsung's mobile business. In it, he said that the company was suffering a "crisis of design" and that the difference between iPhones and Samsung phones was the "difference between heaven and earth."

McElhinny added that Apple had met with Samsung a year before suing to ask the South Korean manufacturer to stop copying but that Samsung never considered that.

"Apple cannot walk away from its inventions," McElhinny told jurors. "We're counting on you for justice."

Price said that Google was the bigger target in this case and that Apple was using patents to limit consumer choice and gain an unfair advantage against its main competitor, Google's Android operating system. Apple's complaint targets some features that Google put in Android, like the ability to tap on a phone number inside a text message to dial the number.

Apple has repeatedly stressed that Google was not a defendant in this case and that Samsung, not Google, chose to sell devices with infringing features.

But Google's role in the trial turned out to be more formal than expected. Last week, a Google lawyer testified that the company had agreed to cover some of Samsung's legal costs for claims in the trial and to indemnify Samsung if it lost on those claims.

Samsung also had internal Apple documents to show as evidence that Apple was concerned about falling behind competitors. In a 2010 email, Jobs acknowledged that Apple faced tough competition and was trailing Google in internet services like email and calendars. He declared that Apple was in a "holy war with Google."

And in reaction to an article in The Wall Street Journal questioning whether Apple had lost its edge to Samsung, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, wrote in an email to colleagues, "We have a lot of work to do to turn this around."

Lawyers on both sides argued that each party had misinterpreted the other's internal documents. McElhinny, Apple's lawyer, said "holy war" referred to a broad competitive strategy that Apple was going to execute to make better products.

Responding to the "crisis of design" memo, Price, Samsung's lawyer, said that the company's chief was restating that carriers, not Samsung, wanted a copy of the iPhone.

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Apple, Samsung cite and rebut internal memos in patent trial

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