Phil Schiller Testifies As Apple Seeks $2 Billion In Damages From Samsung
The first day of Apple and Samsung’s second major patent trial came to a close yesterday, and saw marketing guru Phil Schiller take to the stand as Cupertino claimed $2 billion in damages – a figure Samsung dismissed as being a “gross exaggeration.”
Apple attorney Harold McElhinny opened the trial with Cupertino’s central argument “that Samsung copied the iPhone and it also took many other Apple inventions that had not yet appeared in Apple products,” Re/code’s Ina Fried reports.
He added that Samsung has sold as many as 37 million infringing smartphones and tablets in the United States, and noted that Apple is seeking lost profits on these sales at an average of $33 per phone, but as much as $40 per handset, hence the $2 billion figure.
Claiming that copying the iPhone was “literally built into the Samsung development process,” McElhinny added that Apple’s case isn’t against Google, which develops and distributes the Android OS that runs on Samsung’s infringing smartphones and tablets. “It is Samsung that has made the decision to copy these features,” he reiterated.
As expected, Apple senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller testified in the case. When asked about his first impressions of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone, he said:
It looked so much like an attempt to copy the iPhone. It has caused people to question some of the innovations we created. I think it has confused people as to which products are creating this experience.
On Twitter, Mike Swift (@swiftstories) added that Phil Schiller said Samsung’s blatant “copying” hurts Apple’s marketing efforts, due to the fact that it diminishes “whether people see Apple as the innovator we are,” according to the SVP.
Schiller certainly isn’t afraid of publicly calling out Apple’s rivals: a Twitter update he published in March 2013 cited a report linking Google’s Android OS to mobile malware, and in October 2013, he published another update drawing attention to Samsung’s mobile benchmarking “shenanigans.”
For a reminder of the products Apple and Samsung are accusing and defending, be sure to see our article “Apple, Samsung Draw Up A Refined List Of Infringed Patents Ahead Of Trial.”
The trial continues, and we’ll keep you updated with further significant developments as the information reaches us.
In the meantime, see: Now Anyone With An Apple ID Can Create An iAd, Apple Launches Updates For All Of The iWork Applications, and You’ll Never Be Without Doughnuts Again Thanks To Doughbot.
