The timing couldn’t be worse for Samsung as a six year old design lawsuit thrown down by Apple heads to the Supreme Court. Tomorrow the open proceedings of that design lawsuit are set to begin and at stake is a $548USD million patent infringement ruled against Samsung. Apple has infringement allegations against eleven of Samsung’s smartphones indicating the company used protected patents in each of those eleven devices. The case is not news as it has been pending Supreme Court oversight for years but it is significant considering the curve balls being hurled at Samsung this year.
Already this year Apple has won an $119USD million appeal against Samsung for their slide-to-unlock feature, should Apple win this Supreme Court ruling the total will climb to $667USD million. But court battles are the least of Samsung’s worries as they are battling a public relations nightmare over the Galaxy Note7. Samsung seemed to be heading for a stellar start to the annual smartphone wars between themselves and Apple, but that ground to a halt when the first Note7 exploding report hit the mainstream news.
Soon after reports came in of exploding Note7’s the company issued a recall in cooperation with government agencies. Not long after that happened reports of replacement Note7’s exhibiting the same problem began to surface and now carriers are not only replacing Note7’s but replacing them with other smartphones. The final straw landed this weekend with Samsung itself halting production of the device which is a huge blow to the company as a whole.
To Samsung’s credit, at least as it appears in public, they have tried to make things right and have taken steps to protect their customers. But some argue that the damage is done, the company will have an uphill battle to regain face from all of these compounding issues. We’re certainly not ready to stick a fork in Samsung, we’re waiting for more discovery concerning the cause of all these issues. Perhaps not only from Samsung itself, but maybe a third party investigation so as to keep results free from spin.
For now though, the PR nightmare that is the Note7 is certainly going to hound them and Apple’s lawsuits coming to a head is probably not helping company morale. What do you think of Samsung’s woes? How do you feel about the company now that these issues are spreading through the web? Let us know your thoughts and comments below or on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Catch up on our Note7 and Samsung coverage.
[button link=”http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/10/apple-and-samsungs-supreme-court/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Mac Rumors[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
