Samsung To Pay Apple $548 Million Over "Pinch to Zoom"

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Samsung To Pay Apple $548 Million Over "Pinch to Zoom"

engine

5:58 pm on Dec 4, 2015 (gmt 0)

This may appear settled, but it looks as if Samsung haven't yet given up on this.
I wonder why some of these things are even patented in the first place, and that seems to be one of the stumbling blocks where there may be some comeback at a later date.

Apple AAPL 2.99% and Samsung filed a joint statement to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Thursday, saying that Samsung has agreed to pay Apple $548 million over alleged patent violations. The amount is equal to the final settlement amount determined by the courts, but far below the more than $1 billion in damages Apple was initially awarded back in 2012 and even less than the $2.75 billion the company had hoped to collect on Samsung’s alleged infringement. Samsung To Pay Apple $548 Million Over "Pinch to Zoom" [fortune.com]

nakkers

7:28 pm on Dec 4, 2015 (gmt 0)

This is so ridiculous. Pinch to zoom is so natural, it's a basic human gesture. How that got patented blows my mind.

keyplyr

2:15 pm on Dec 5, 2015 (gmt 0)

I've owned 4 or 5 Android phones (none of them Samsung) and they have all used pinch-to-zoom. So what's the difference and why is Samsung being targeted, or is it just the continuing feud between the two companies?

I actually get the whole patent thing. I live a couple blocks from Qualcomm in San Diego. They generate more income from their patents than any physical products.

What I do think is strange is that companies can sue each other over one thing and at the same time have ongoing partnerships in other aspects of the same end of their business. Example: some builds of the new iPhone use Samsung's quad-core processor.

engine

11:31 am on Dec 9, 2015 (gmt 0)

Samsung was targeted in this because it is the largest phone maker of its kind, and therefore, the loss or gain, whichever way you look at it, would be greater.

keyplyr

11:55 am on Dec 9, 2015 (gmt 0)

Well isn't it really the OS that employs pinch-to-zoom not the hardware? So wouldn't it be Android that should be challenged?