Blame a dysfunctional patent system for Apple vs. Samsung verdict

Whether you think that Apple is already too big for its britches or that Samsung deserved to get slammed for $1 billion by a Silicon Valley jury last week for infringing on the iPhone design, there’s no doubt where the blame for this corporate firefight lies. “Apple v. Samsung is just a proxy for everything else that’s wrong with the patent system right now,” says Julie Samuels, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is campaigning to reform the system. Apple charged that Samsung infringed its patents on such software-based iPhone features as its tap-to-zoom function, while copying its devices’ appearances to “confuse” shoppers. Patent examiners could have put the kibosh on the Samsung case by asking such questions as these before approving Apple’s patent claims: Are the rows of icons on the iPhone really revolutionary? The San Jose jury seemed blindly to accept Apple’s position that customers routinely walked out of electronics stores with Samsung phones, confused into thinking they’d bought iPhones.