Weekly Review: Apple Wins Patent Lawsuit; New Devices on Display at IFA Trade Show
Last week’s highlight was the verdict in the Apple-Samsung patent lawsuit – Samsung has been found guilty of several patent claims, and must pay Apple US$1 billion in damages. Apple’s cases in Japan and Korean, on the other hand, were not such a sweeping victory. The court in Japan found both parties guilty, while Apple lost its case entirely in Korea. Furthermore, Samsung will not take the decision lying down – the company has hinted it will sue Apple again if the Cupertino-company introduces a smartphone with 4G LTE support. Samsung holds several LTE patents, but has yet to make a move against Apple despite the fact that LTE support is available on one of the iPad models. Clearly, the latest Apple-Samsung battle has not ended the war, but rumors have emerged recently regarding Apple and Google’s respective CEOs meeting in private over patent issues – whether or not something will come out of the secret discussions is anyone’s guess.
In other news, the IFA consumer electronics trade show opened in Berlin on August 31. Prior to the start of the exhibition, many cell phone makers unveiled next-generation devices to garner media attention. Samsung, for instance, introduced several new smartphones and tablets – in addition to the highly-discussed Galaxy Note II, the Korean maker jumped the gun on Nokia with its new Windows Phone 8 device (Nokia is set to unveil on September 5). And of course, rumors continue to fly regarding Apple’s next-gen products: the “iPad mini,”the new iPhone’s speculated A6 processor and possible support for near-field communication (NFC) technology, and of course proposed iPhone specifications.
Lastly, China is well worth keeping an eye on, as many vendors believe it will become the largest market for mobile devices in the future. While mobile phone usage data and other market statistics has always been incomplete, Baidu (China’s largest search engine) provides some insight on the status of China’s mobile market.
