The biggest patent battle of the modern technology world has finally come to an end after seven years.
Apple and Samsung Electronics told a judge Wednesday they’d resolved the first filed but last remaining of the legal disputes that once spanned four continents. The string of lawsuits started in 2011 after Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder who died that year, threatened to go “thermonuclear” on rivals that used the Android operating system. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the accord.
While the overall Smartphone Wars included every major maker of mobile devices, the fight between Apple and Samsung was the most intense. The ensuing litigation cost each company hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees, and tested their reputations as innovators.
“The sumo wrestlers have tired of the wrestling match,” said Paul Berghoff, a patent lawyer with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff in Chicago who followed the cases over the years. “They both were tired and happy to stop paying the outside lawyers. We may never know who blinked first, who made the call.”
For Apple, the Samsung case had become a distraction over “ancient history,” Mr Berghoff said. The iPhone maker is embroiled in a multibillion-dollar legal battle over patent royalties to be paid to mobile-chip designer Qualcomm, a fight that’s swept in regulators including the US Federal Trade Commission and Apple’s contract manufacturers.
By many accounts, the iPhone revolutionised the market for smartphones when it was introduced in 2007 by Jobs, who described the device as “magic” and warned, “boy, have we patented it.”
Samsung, which was already on the market, had to adapt quickly as consumers snapped up the sleek iPhone, with its ease of use and design awards. These days, Samsung taunts Apple in commercials featuring people opening new boxes of Galaxy smartphones while a singer croons “I’m leaving you,” an obvious reference to the iPhone.
The technology landscape has shifted significantly since the dispute began. Apple has expanded its iPhone lineup to include more expensive as well as cheaper models. It’s also revamped the phone’s interface with new icons, colors and gestures. Samsung has added new models with curved screens and iris scanners that Apple has eschewed.
The two companies remain far ahead of the competition globally in phone sales, but Chinese phone makers such as Huawei and Oppo have begun to eat into Samsung’s market share while Apple’s has remained fairly steady.
In the first quarter this year, Apple held 16 per cent of the smartphone market, while Samsung accounted for 23 per cent, according to data from IDC. That compares with 30 per cent for Samsung and 19 per cent for Apple in 2012, the year of the original trial.
The smartphone wars follow a long American tradition of patent disputes whenever there are dramatic innovations in an industry, whether it be sewing machines, airplanes, radios, computers or diapers. Companies use their patents to slow down the growth of their rivals, for bragging rights or to force competitors to change their products.
“It always ends in a settlement because it just makes sense, once they get tired, to tie up all loose ends and call off the dogs,” said Mr Berghoff. “You never stamp out the other side, but you can inflict some monetary pain and make them alter their technology. Sometimes that results in the other side coming up with a better product.”
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The mobile-device companies were coming up with new ideas, but it’s unclear whether the patent disputes were a motivating factor, said Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey, who specialises in antitrust and intellectual property law.
“What Apple/Samsung showed is that litigation is not the ideal way to solve these fights,” Mr Carrier said. “At the end of the day, I’m not sure Apple would have said this was worth it. It was expensive litigation that went on for years, and I’m not sure what they got out of it.”
While the rulings were never significant to either company’s bottom line, Apple has long maintained there was a bigger principle at stake. After the 2012 jury sided with Apple, chief executive Tim Cook said the lawsuit was about values, and that the company “chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying” its work.
Apple won a $539 million jury award against Samsung in May in a retrial over damages stemming from their original showdown in federal court in California, that ended with a $1.05 billion verdict. Part of that money had already been paid to Apple before a Supreme Court ruling on how damages were calculated, as was a $119.6m verdict against Samsung that was upheld on appeal.
“This case has been sending toward settlement for some time,” said Michael Risch, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law in Pennsylvania. “This appears to be the final nail, which was waiting for a jury verdict and little headway to be made on appeal.”
Apple said after its May victory that the case “has always been about more than money” and “it is important that we continue to protect the hard work and innovation of so many people at Apple.”
A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment on the settlement and Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The iPhone maker previously reached separate settlements with Google, which developed Android, and HTC, the Taiwanese mobile device maker.
In 2012, HTC agreed to make quarterly royalty payments to Apple and pledged not to make phones that looked like copies of the Apple products. In Apple’s 2014 settlement with Google, which had bought Motorola Mobility, the two sides agreed just to drop their respective fights and work together on political issues involving patents.
Although the smartphone market is no longer growing, Apple and Samsung will probably remain competitors for decades to come in new categories such as self-driving cars, augmented reality glasses, smart speakers and artificial intelligence software.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs: 2019 BMW X4
Price, base / as tested: Dh276,675 / Dh346,800
Engine: 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 354hp @ 5,500rpm
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Fuel economy, combined: 9.0L / 100km
The biog
Age: 35
Inspiration: Wife and kids
Favourite book: Changes all the time but my new favourite is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Best Travel Destination: Bora Bora , French Polynesia
Favourite run: Jabel Hafeet, I also enjoy running the 30km loop in Al Wathba cycling track
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
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Without Remorse
Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Michael B Jordan
4/5
DMZ facts
- The DMZ was created as a buffer after the 1950-53 Korean War.
- It runs 248 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula and is 4km wide.
- The zone is jointly overseen by the US-led United Nations Command and North Korea.
- It is littered with an estimated 2 million mines, tank traps, razor wire fences and guard posts.
- Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met at a building in Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed to stop the Korean War.
- Panmunjom is 52km north of the Korean capital Seoul and 147km south of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
- Former US president Bill Clinton visited Panmunjom in 1993, while Ronald Reagan visited the DMZ in 1983, George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama visited a nearby military camp in 2012.
- Mr Trump planned to visit in November 2017, but heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing.
'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
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Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
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The Sky Is Pink
Director: Shonali Bose
Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim, Rohit Saraf
Three stars
Zayed Sustainability Prize
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
T20 World Cup Qualifier, Muscat
UAE FIXTURES
Friday February 18: v Ireland
Saturday February 19: v Germany
Monday February 21: v Philippines
Tuesday February 22: semi-finals
Thursday February 24: final
Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
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