Apple, Samsung fire final salvos as case closes

Samsung's position
Samsung lead attorney Charles Verhoeven spent much of his time reviewing testimony under cross examination that he claimed shredded Apple’s arguments. He also argued Samsung’s case that Apple infringed five of its patents including two it claims are essential to the 3G cellular standard set by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

Verhoeven argued Apple had not provided evidence showing consumers confused Samsung smartphones and tablets for iPhones and iPads. He turned on Samsung phones and tablets to show they displayed the company’s name and that users would have to navigate through unlock and home screens to get to an allegedly infringing apps screen.

“It’s obvious to any consumer that wants to buy one of these things it’s a Samsung product—it’s just incredible to suggest there’s confusion,” he said.

“The reason [Apple] didn’t provide any evidence of deception is they didn’t have any,” Verhoeven said. “Apple is here asking for what they are not entitled to, it’s here asking you to stop its biggest competitor from giving customers what they want—[mobile systems with] bigger screens,” he said.

“Rather than competing in the marketplace, Apple is seeking a competitive edge in the courtroom,” he said. “They are seeking to block their biggest most successful competitor from even attending the game,” he added.

Like Apple’s Lee, Verhoeven also invoked the spirit of patriotism and the innovation zeitgeist of Silicon Valley.

“If you go Apple’s way, it could change the way competition works in this country…[creating a market where] giant competitors with patent arsenals block competition,” Verhoeven told jurors. “Silicon Valley back in the day was all orchards, and now there are thousands of jobs, and it happened because of competition,” he said.

“It’s not against the law to be inspired by competition and say ‘how can we do better,’” he added, citing examples of how Apple studied competing products.

Verhoeven also argued smartphones like TVs have naturally evolved into big screen devices without buttons. “Every smartphone has a rectangular shape with rounded corners and 90 percent of that device is a screen—there’s nothing nefarious about this, it’s the way technology has evolved,” he said.

Apple’s witnesses were inconstant in their testimony, he charged. He noted they dismissed minor differences between Samsung and Apple’s products when claiming infringement, but used some of the same differences to dismiss prior art Samsung presented on Apple patents.

“When he’s talking about [patent] validity, [front side] flatness is incredibly important, and when he’s talking about infringement it’s not—it’s not credible testimony,” Verhoeven said, a refrain he often repeated.

“Either you have to say the phones infringe and the patents are invalid or they don’t infringe,” he told the jury.

“Samsung is a good corporate citizen and just wants to make products consumers want--all this copying nonsense is hand waving [because] they don’t have any evidence of [market] confusion,” he concluded.