The beginning is always the hardest, so they say. It appears the beginning of this second legal case between Apple and Samsung really hit hard.
Apple Inc. lawyers accused its rival Samsung Electronics Co. of deceiving jurors in its second round of a patent infringement trial at the same courtroom in San Jose, Calif., presided over by the same federal judge, Lucy Koh.
"During opening statements, Samsung's counsel repeatedly made irrelevant, misleading, and even untrue statements that have undoubtedly caused the jury to form impressions that are highly prejudicial to Apple," lawyers of Apple said in the court motion.
What were the statements of Samsung that Apple took badly?
"Apple wants you believe these claims are worth over $2 billion even though they're not valuable enough for Apple to use," said Samsung attorney John Quinn in his opening arguments.
"Apple is seeking massive damages on fictitious lost sales because of very small features you'll learn didn't have an impact on sales at all," Quinn added.
Recall that Apple earlier said Samsung has infringed on its patents for the iPhone and adopted these patents to a number of Samsung smartphones. Apple has sought damages plus the removal of said smartphones from the market.
iPhone and iPad bring in two-thirds of total sales in Apple. Samsung, meanwhile, has been regarded as the biggest maker of smartphones in the world.
On the court's table now are infringement accusations on software features such as universal search, auto-correct, data sync and slide to unlock.
Samsung lawyers, however, countered that Apple doesn't use three of the five patents presented in court. To which Apple argued that the patents are in actual use.
The issue of the three patents has already come up in early March in a pretrial motion. During that time, Apple has agreed it would not assert that the patents in question are in use. Apple lawyers, though, said that agreeing not to assert it currently uses these patents doesn't mean it doesn't use them.
"Apple has sold and continues to sell products that use each of Apple's asserted patents," the company said in its filing.
However, whether the patents are in use or not, the question and accusation remains the same: did Samsung really infringe these patents? Thing is, Apple might find it hard to defend the loss of sales and seek damages if proven that it didn't use the argued patents, as claimed by Samsung.
Apple has asked for $2 billion as damages in this case, but Samsung said the final amount should only be $39 million because the former also owes about $7 million in damages for similarly infringing on two of Samsung's patents.
"Apple's motion grossly misrepresents stipulated facts in an attempt to paint Samsung's opening argument as misleading, and in hopes of obtaining relief that the court has denied time and again," Samsung lawyers said.
"The Court's order limiting Apple's ability to contend that it practices the '414, '172, and '959 patents at trial does not (and cannot) permit Samsung to affirmatively present false factual statements to the jury," Apple lawyers also argued in court.
Gathered reports showed that Apple has used in its latest case nearly the same evidence and arguments presented in its 2012 case against Samsung. The trial began Tuesday and parties are due in court again on Friday.
Observers said the case between the two has always been about more than money, that there's more at stake than what's visible to the naked eye.
