Technology strategy and Management

Another scenario, however, could be less cheerful.

Maybe no company comes up with a better design. Cadillac dominates the market and becomes the most valuable company in history. Its Investors are delighted and so are Its affluent customers. As for everyone else, they make do with Inferior threshold icicles or continue to drive horses and buggies.

In some ways, the August 2012 California Jury verdict against Samsung (the world's largest maker of smartness) In the case brought by Apple (the world's second largest maker) could evolve to resemble this Cadillac fantasy.I say "could evolve" because we are not there yet but patent offices, Judges, and Jurors around the Samsung on newer products and additional patents not covered in this particular litigation. It will also probably go after Google, maker of the Android operating system used in the Samsung products, as well as other phone makers that did what Samsung did?introduce products patterned after the Apple phone and pad, running Google Android software. Google gives away its software and makes money from mobile ads; it will be difficult to calculate damages compared to companies actually selling products.But the phone has already lost a lot of market share to Android phones, and someone will place a value on these lost sales.

At the time of the case, the Apple phone had merely 19% of the global smartened market, compared to 64% for Android phones. 10 28 I JAG nun ARRAY 31 Volvo. 551 no. 1 Case study The basic facts of the case seem straightforward.

The Jury awarded Apple $1. 05 billion in damages (which the Judge might triple because Samsung was found to have willingly copied Apple). The lawsuit covered some two dozen older devices mostly sold outside the U. S. , not the current models Samsung is pushing. Apple will have to go after the newer models and other potential patent violations in separate litigation, which it is doing.

In fact, as many as 250,000 patents are filed that cover the design and functionality of the phone and other smartness, and there are already dozens of lawsuits and counterfeits between Apple and Samsung in 10 countries. Samsung has already fared better overseas. Japanese court found in favor of Samsung, saying it did not violate an Apple patent on technology that synchronizes music and videos between devices and servers. Though Apple had sought only $1.

Million in damages, this is a victory for Samsung. A South Korean court also rendered a mixed decision in another Apple versus Samsung patent case. 8 In the August 2012 case, the U. S. Jurors found that all seven of Apple's patents were valid and that Samsung violated six of those that help define the look and feel of the phone.

Four were "design patents" related to the appearance of the phone (the use of white and black on the devices and the rounded edges on the user-interface icons, which Samsung was found to have violated, and the tablet computer's rectangular design, which Samsung did not violate).Three "utility patents" were more technical, involving both hardware and software controlling how the device enlarges documents when the user taps the screen, distinguishes single-touch versus multitude gestures, and appears to bounce back when scrolling to the end of a page. 9 In the wake of the Samsung verdict in the U. S.

The largest smartened and tablet market in the world, we are likely to have more innovation as well as competition. Microsoft and its partner Monika ISO software so explicitly.At the same time, whether billions of consumers will be able to buy phone-like smartness and pad-like tablets that are rectangular and have touch screens and other functions that work in similar ways has a lot to do with how patent offices, Juries, and Judges act in the future. These cases are complex because there are valid arguments on the different sides.

From he innovators' point of view, strong intellectual property protection is desirable to stimulate and protect their investments.Apple may not have developed the Macintosh in 1984 or the pod, phone, or pad products in the asses if Steve Jobs did not believe he could prevent others from copying the designs, at least to some extent. From the competitors' point of view, strong patent protection is not desirable when they want to "borrow' or "build on" good ideas or follow the "dominant design" established in the marketplace. C From the point of view of consumers and society at rage, we all lose if companies do not have sufficient incentives to invest in research and development.We also lose when patents prevent advances in a particular discussion of the "dominant design" concept, see J. Turtleback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation (Harvard Business School, 1994).

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