Friends of the Court
Facebook and Google sided with Samsung Electronics when the Korean company argued that indemnities resulting from its violation of Apple's patents were excessive.
According to Forbes on July 21, companies like Facebook, Google, Dell, HP, and eBay filed a “friend of the court” brief on July 1 (local time), which backed Samsung in its patent infringement lawsuit with Apple.
Experts are saying that their backing is attributable to the belief that the amount of indemnities demanded by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in last May is not reasonable. At that time, the court ruled that Samsung phones do not violate Apple's trade dress, ordering Samsung to pay US$548 million in damages in addition to the US$380 million decided by the first court ruling. The number is nearly half of the original US$1.5 billion in the first trial in August 2012. However, the Korean tech giant was ordered to pay back profits from smartphone sales, even though it violated only a fraction of Apple's numerous patents for tech used in making smartphones. As a result, Samsung asked the court to review the case in June.
In the brief, companies that support Samsung pointed out that current patent laws are irrational. They said, “Under the panel’s reasoning, the manufacturer of a smart television containing a component that infringed on any single design patent could be required to pay in damages its total profit on the entire television, no matter how insignificant the design of the infringing feature was to the manufacturer’s profits or to consumer demand.”
In response, Apple said that it cannot accept those companies' support for Samsung. It remarked, “Google, in particular, had special interest to back Samsung in this fight and was no 'impartial' friend of the court.”