For seven years, the mobile development industry has followed a patent lawsuit between Apple and Samsung. But now the battle is at an end. The two smartphone makers have settled their dispute for an undisclosed sum.
Apple was the plaintiff in the case, accusing Samsung of copying the iPhone’s design. That led to a raft of suits and countersuits, one of which went all the way to the Supreme Court. In May a jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $539 million, a fraction of the $2 billion it wanted. The decision was subject to appeal
“And if I had to characterize it, it didn’t really accomplish anything,” said Brian J. Love, a Santa Clara University law professor who tracked the case. “Close to a decade of litigation, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on lawyers, and at the end of the day, no products went off the market.”
