What spoons have to do with the Samsung-Apple patent lawsuit; PBSNewsHour, 10/11/16

Gretchen Frazee, PBS NewsHour; What spoons have to do with the Samsung-Apple patent lawsuit:

"The court’s task is not to determine whether Samsung infringed on Apple’s patents but to determine how much money Samsung should pay Apple for doing so.

It marks the first time in 120 years that the the court has reviewed a design patent case. (The Supreme Court has reviewed patents based on function, but not appearance.) And the last design patent cases reviewed by the high court dealt in saddles, rugs and spoons.

In fact, one particular case involving 19th-century spoons, Gorham v. White, was cited multiple times by lawyers before the Supreme Court on Tuesday."

Look Who's Winning A New Generation Of U.S.-China Patent Disputes; Forbes, 7/5/16

Ralph Jennings, Forbes; Look Who's Winning A New Generation Of U.S.-China Patent Disputes:

"Chinese officials now as ever don’t like being told by foreigners, whether companies or government agencies, that their business people are breaking laws that hurt peers offshore. Now the Communist Party-backed legal system may want to bite back at the old allegations. Chinese smartphone developers conservatively took a 17% share of the world’s 349,000 smartphone sales in the first quarter, per data by market research firm Gartner, so their lawyers will be hard to ignore. Tech hardware firms tend to do a lot of suing anyway – just part of business...

Foreign business people are watching the Qualcomm case as another bellwether, like the Apple cases, for how Chinese courts will rule and watch for any political overtones. “If, now that Qualcomm has met those demands, China’s courts don’t uphold Qualcomm’s IP rights, then it will send a resounding message to other foreign firms that there’s really nothing you can do to protect your technology there,” says Mark Natkin, managing director with market research firm Marbridge Consulting in Beijing."