Bonum Certa Men Certa

Samsung is the 'New IBM', Sans the Trolling With Patents

IBM has itself become nothing but a trolls' feeder and patent bully

IBM floppy



Summary: The 'relic' company, IBM, loses its patent leadership (as measured using some yardstick) to Samsung, a company which is relatively calm when it comes to patent activity (unless/only when sued, as happens a lot nowadays)

SIZE matters. Especially when it comes to patents. Samsung is a very large company that employs a huge number of people and is viewed as a national asset. It's to Korea what IBM used to be for the US. Samsung has already been 'king' of patents at the EPO and now IBM see itself dethroned in its own country. Reports and analyses have recently suggested that Samsung silently became 'king' of patents at the USPTO. We'll come to the cited criteria in a moment (it depends on what's being measured).



This sort of 'triumph' of Samsung could not be celebrated today; it was clouded by late(r) Friday news from a Texan court. Yes, patent trolls carry on suing Samsung with dubious patents and hours ago we saw reports about that [1, 2, 3]. It's about a biometric patent or patents. And yes, it's in Texas, so PACid, the plaintiff, is quite possibly a troll if not some major parasite. It wants almost $3,000,000,000 (no typo!) and it went after Samsung because it's a leading OEM with many sales of Android devices. Speaking of Texas, in the Eastern District of Texas strikes again a Catalan university, exploiting the district in a get-rich-fast-type patent scam. Universities as patent trolls? No, IAM would not use the "T" word. Here is how its editor put it some hours ago:

Another tale of patent litigation with its roots in convergence is now being played out in the Eastern District of Texas. What makes this one slightly different to other stories is that its main protagonist is a small, Spanish company that was spun out of a Barcelona university back in the late 1990s. Earlier this week, antenna R&D business Fractus filed suits in Marshall against AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, accusing them of infringing its patents relating to cellular base station antenna technologies.


Anyway, we digress. The point of this detour may be to show that Texas is where trolls go not for justice and companies go to defend themselves from injustice. Things are different in California, where Judge Lucy Koh does some good things these days (invaliding abstract patents) and is now being recalled by a longtime Apple v Samsung watcher. As he has just put it, "One month prior to yet another Apple v. Samsung trial, old and new disagreements on design patents surface" (headline). He ought to know this stuff, having covered it for nearly 8 years. Here's the latest:

On May 14, Apple and Samsung will square off in court again. It's going to be the third trial in their first California case alone. What makes it interesting is that it will involve a design patent damages determination (damages in this case amounting to a disgorgement of infringer's profits) following a Supreme Court ruling in the same case. The exact amount of money that will change hands between Apple and Samsung won't impact the parties' positions in the smartphone market. However, it will be a signal to other design patent holders, including patent trolls. Should Apple be awarded a huge amount that Samsung could ultimately afford but the equivalent of which would potentially put many other companies out of business, design patents would be used in aggressive, extortionate ways.

Last week, Judge Lucy Koh ruled on the parties' Daubert motions. Daubert motions and rulings are hard to figure out from the outside unless they're just about numbers (such as damages claims that a court does or does not permit) because one would need to know the related expert reports to really understand the context. What became clear to me from Judge Koh's ruling, however, is that she gave Apple various opportunities beyond the test proposed by the United States government in 2016 to argue that the relevant article of manufacture for a disgorgement of design patent infringer's profits in this case is an entire phone, not just a casing. While Judge Koh adopted the broad lines of the DoJ's proposed test, her Daubert order explicitly and intentionally declines to apply parts of what the DoJ had argued in its amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court.


As we pointed out here many times before, Samsung tends to be more passive and defensive with patents. So we no longer view Samsung as much of a danger (if any).

Regarding Samsung's stance in the US, the CCIA has just pointed out that "[w]hile IBM is the largest single corporation recipient each year, Samsung actually receives more patents than IBM when you include the various Samsung subsidiaries."

Companies are filing for more patents every year—IBM received almost 1,000 more patents in 2017 than they did in 2016, an increase of 12% year-on-year. But, despite the fact that more patents are being filed for and granted every year, you still hear critics of patent reform claim that reforms have rendered patents worthless.

Samsung, IBM, Canon, Microsoft, Intel—these are all sophisticated users of the intellectual property system. They aren’t throwing money at something worthless; if they’re filing for patents, it’s because there’s value in doing so. And judging from all sorts of relevant statistics, as Patent Progress has previously covered, innovation is alive and well in the United States, including when it comes to patent filings.


A lot of IBM's patents are worthless software patents.

Here's a case -- or IPR rather -- against IBM patents (ZitoVault LLC v International Business Machines Corporation et al), based on prior art. The Docket Report put it explained:

Following two inter partes review proceedings, the court granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment that IPR estoppel under 35 U.S.C. 315(e)(2) barred defendants from asserting invalidity of previously instituted claims based on prior art that was known by defendants when they joined a third-party's IPR, but which defendant's failed to assert in that IPR.


There are many more patents like these which IBM loses nowadays. This barely happens to Samsung.

As IAM put it a short time ago, "Samsung’s patent portfolio is almost certainly the biggest in the world, it may also be the best."

There's a corresponding blog post and more behind a paywall. IAM, not IBM, said that "Samsung has the world's largest active patent portfolio and among the highest quality ones, too, exclusive IAM-commissioned research reveals."

From the summary:

In the IAM/ktMINE US Patent 100, published in issue 89 of IAM, we revealed that Samsung owns by far the largest US patent portfolio. Now, new research conducted for IAM shows that the Korean conglomerate not only has the largest portfolio in the world, but also one of the strongest. Below we provide a detailed analysis of Samsung’s patent holdings, including an examination of how the company has developed its assets and the most salient patent-related stories it has been involved in over the last five years. Patent portfolio breakdown With almost 250,000 granted patents worldwide....


We don't typically wish to cite IAM, but in order to understand some things we keep track even of its spam from Japan (latest ad from Shobayashi International Patent & Trademark Office, or Satoshi Watanabe trying to sell services).

SCMP, which is now connected to the Chinese government through its new owner, wrote a few days ago about Huawei v Samsung. This shows how China uses patents to help the CPC-connected (the nation's Communist regime) Huawei block/stop competition from Korea. We already wrote about these legal disputes many times before (LG has been driven out of China using such lawsuits) and here's the latest:

A Beijing court specialising in intellectual property (IP) rights disputes has dismissed requests from Samsung Electronics seeking invalidation of Huawei Technologies’ certain patent rights on smartphones after an earlier local Chinese court decision banned sales of certain phone models from the South Korean brand.

The Beijing IP Court confirmed that Huawei’s patent rights on smartphones involved in the disputes with Samsung were valid and it denied any procedural violation in the previous patent review process, which had dismissed Samsung’s requests on the grounds of they lacked a factual and legal basis, according to a report by China Intellectual Property News on Sunday – a newspaper supervised by the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).


Well, SIPO and its aggressive/short-sighted approach will be the subject of our next post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Punching People Doesn't Work
It makes nobody any safer
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
 
Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day
Look Ma, No "Cloud"
So far this year we've had an almost perfect uptime
Links 24/09/2025: Autism Blame-Shifting and Typhoon Ragasa Enters China
Links for the day
Buying From Oneself is Not Business Success
This isn't at all a joking matter even if you already laugh at the whole thing because your pension, savings etc. are tied to this scam at some level
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights