The world is witnessing one of the greatest tech-battles between Apple and Samsung. After weeks of intensive hearing which saw disclosure of many secrets of both the companies, the court pronounced Apple as the winner who walked out with a cash prize of $1 billion. More recently Samsung faced a ban of its 8 Smartphones which is certainly going to prove fatal for the South Korean company.
Samsung has now said that it will appeal in a higher court. This war is not yet over and it doesn’t seem it will be in quite a few months. Now let’s take a look on the battles like this which have been the most influential in the technology world:
9. eBay’s fight over 'Buy it Now'
In one of another marathon cases, Virginia-based MercExchange fought with auction giant eBay for seven years. In 2001, MercExchange complained that eBay’s “Buy It Now” feature, which allows users to purchase items without going through the bidding process, infringed on three of its patents.
The case was settled in 2008 when eBay agreed to purchase the patents.
8. U.S. v. Microsoft
This one is the biggest ever that lasted several years. It started in 1998 when US regulators from 20 states complained that the software maker has used its Windows monopoly to unfairly compete. They accused Microsoft of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act as it bundled its Internet Explorer web browser software with its Windows operating system. This restricted the market for competing web browsers such as Netscape Navigator or Opera that were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store. Microsoft said that Windows and Internet Explorer was now the same product and that consumers were now getting all the benefits of IE for free.
In this hard fought war, a massive PR campaign was also involved between Microsoft and its critics. Microsoft went to the extent of publishing full-page ads in The New York Times in an attempt to convince President Bill Clinton that the case wasn’t in the public’s interest. In 2001, the software giant settled with the Justice Department.
7. Oracle quarrels with feds over PeopleSoft acquisition
In 2004, the feds filed a suit claiming that Oracle is trying to kill competition by acquiring PeopleSoft, the maker of customer relationship and business financial software. Mentioning it as violation of antitrust laws, The Department of Justice said that PeopleSoft acquisition would result in higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices for customers. Oracle characterized the government's suit as "without basis in fact or in law." Although PeopleSoft got some help from the US government, the US officials failed to prove their case in the federal court.
One of the Feds' main concerns was that Oracle would end up bidding only against SAP for human resources management and financial management services software deals.
In December the same year, Oracle announced the acquisition worth $10 billion. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison fired half of the company’s 11,000 employees a month after taking control.
6. Oracle and Google fight over Java
In 2010, Oracle filed a suit against Google claiming that the Android’s technology violated some copyrights and patents related to Java, which Oracle acquired along with Sun Microsystems.
Back when Google first announced plans to develop Android in 2007, it immediately raised the pressure of Java developers at Sun. Google's Java implementation is different than the one done by a Java standards group, which worried those tech industry veterans who remembered the problems that Microsoft caused for Java by following a similar path on Windows.
Oracle argued that Java is a mobile operating system competitor against Android, and that Google is using Java-derived technologies without a proper license.
It was predicted that Google will lose big-time and would pay heavily but that never happened.
The court decided that Google had infringed the Java patents, but they couldn’t decide whether it was fair use or not. Some among the jurors said Oracle was never close to win.
5. Breaking up the Bells
In 1974, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against the old American Telephone & Telegraph Company and accused it of using its monopoly powers to prevent its competition to grow.
It was then the world's largest corporation with assets valued at $125 billion, which made it bigger than U.S. Steel, General Motors and Exxon combined. It was also the second largest employer in the nation next only to federal government.
10 years after the filing of the suit, the parties settled and the huge conglomerate was split into seven Bell telecommunication companies and became a much smaller AT&T. This litigation was then commonly referred to as Ma Bell.
The breakup of Ma Bell marked the beginning of a telecommunications revolution thanks to innovations such as fiber optics and microprocessors. New telephone technology provided features like call forwarding, remote retrieval of stored calls, and cordless phones.
4. TiVo fight for DVR Technology
This was one of the longest running patent cases. In 2004, TiVo sued Dish and Echostar (when they were still one company), for copying the company's DVR technology, which is a system for recording television programs. It was introduced in 1999, and allows users to record television shows as well as search for shows to record based on their interests though the "WishList" option. When the DVR is connected to a home network, users can perform an advanced search, online scheduling, download movies and television shows, and view personal photos.
Initially the court gave the verdict in favour of TiVo but then agreed to reconsider it. After 5 long years, Dish and Echostar agreed to shell out $500 million to settle the case last year. In addition, TiVo granted Dish Network a license under its Time Warp patent. As for EchoStar, TiVo granted it a license under the same patent.
3. File sharing's Joan of Arc
A Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found liable for downloading 24 unauthorized song files in 2007 and was ordered to pay $222,000 in statutory damages. The court later granted her motion for a new trial because of an error in its jury instructions. In a second trial in 2009, the court once more found against Thomas-Rasset, this time awarding $1,920,000 in statutory damages, a sum that was later reduced to $54,000. The record labels refused to accept the reduced award. She eventually ended up owing the top four record labels $1.5 million in damages, which In July 2011, was again reduced to $54,000, or $2,250 per song. The case is still in the courts.
This copyright case is big among the many Web users who pirate music and movies via torrent sites or cyberlockers. Thomas became a popular symbol of defiance against big entertainment companies
2. RIM vs NTP
The Defense Department claimed that the dispute between NTP and Research In Motion threatened national security. This dispute had could have shut down the popular wireless e-mail service for its 3 million users.
In 2000, NTP accused RIM of violating its e-mail patents. RIM argued the technology was in the public domain before NTP registered the patents. The court was in favour of NTP.
The Defense Department told the court that so many of its employees relied on RIM, that the phone was crucial for national defense.
The two sides settled for national secuirty when RIM agreed to pay $612 million. Under the settlement, NTP granted RIM the right to keep running its BlackBerry business. RIM had negotiated a settlement with NTP of $450 million earlier in 2004, but the deal was not completed.
Also, Microsoft and Motorola missed a gigantic opportunity as they could have capitalized on RIM's situation by introducing major wireless products, but that they had not done so.
1. SCO vs Novell
In 2004, Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) filed a Slander of Title lawsuit against Novell and asked that the courts assign all of that company's UNIX copyright registrations to it saying that it owns the source code for the UNIX operating system, including portions of Linux. SCO sought to have the court declare that it owned the rights to the UNIX code, including the copyrights.
SCO said the rights were part of an asset-transfer agreement the parties had entered. Novell claimed that the asset-transfer agreements did not transfer the intellectual property rights SCO looked for. Novell further asked the Court to find that SCO had breached the agreements by signing UNIX license agreements with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft without paying Novell the agreed percentage of those agreements.
Novell was found to be the owner of the UNIX copyrights, and SCO was found to have breached the asset-transfer agreements. The court announced the verdict in its favour.
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