After a year of scorched-earth process of legal action, a nine-person United States jury in San Jose, California last week found that Apple’s biggest rival Samsung has infringed six of the seven patents for Apple mobile devices — the big issue of the trial. The jurors also confirmed the validity of all seven of Apple’s innovative patents, many of which covered the design of the iPhone. The United States jury ordered the South Korean company to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages, less than half of the amount Apple attempted to obtain. Apple had sought nearly $2.75 billion in damages, claiming Samsung had illegally copied four design and three software patents.

Apple Inc. filed its patent infringement lawsuit in April 2011, occupying a vast number of the United States’ highest-paid attorneys to demand $2.75 billion from its giant smartphone rival. Samsung Electronics Co. fired back with its own lawsuit claiming that the Californian company infringed five of its own patents and demanded $399 million. Samsung’s lawyers supported that Apple was trying to prevent Samsung from accomplishing legitimate competition. However, the verdict favored Apple since the jury rejected all of Samsung’s claims against the Californian company.

The jurors needed less than three days to deliver the verdict, causing some surprise, considering the complexities of the case. The nine-person jury was asked more than 600 questions during their deliberation. The jury decided that Samsung had illegally used Apple’s tech innovations in some of its own products, such as the ‘bounce-back’ feature when a user scrolls to an end picture and the ability to zoom texts with tapping a finger.

Harold McElhinny, Apple’s lawyer, claimed that after iPhone’s launch in 2007, the South Korean company was facing a design crisis and thus company’s executives decided to illegally take advantage of the revolutionary device’s success. Besides the billions Apple sought for damages, the company’s attorneys also demanded that Samsung pull its most popular mobile devices and computer tablets from the United States market.

Of course Samsung’s lawyers argued that the company had not done anything illegal. The South Korean tech giant was only giving customers what they wanted: smart phones with big screens. They claimed that Samsung’s manufacturers did not infringe on Apple’s software and design patents, though, according to them, many of Apple’s revolutionary patents were actually concepts or ideas stolen from Sony Corp. and other companies. According to Samsung’s lawyers, Apple’s products may be great but that does not mean the company has a monopoly on the design of phones with rounded corners.

Apple’s legal victory in California did not give the company’s legal team many reasons to celebrate, because the effect of the verdict on the other legal battles between the two companies outside of the United States still remain unclear. The U.S trial was only the first part of this historic patent battle, as both companies have pursued legal actions in eight other countries including South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Last Friday, Samsung won a motherland court ruling. According to Judges in Seoul, Samsung did not infringed the design patents for iPhone, but they said that the Korean company did violate the patent on the ‘bounce-back’ feature. Judges also decided that Apple infringed on Samsung’s wireless technology and both companies were ordered to pay damages.

Yesterday, a United States Judge set a court date for December 6 in order to hear Apple’s request for a permanent ban against Samsung’s mobile devices. Apple claimed to have eight devices it will demand for a permanent sales ban on.

While Apple and Samsung have both pursued legal actions against each other’s manufacturers, experts say this is not a battle between Apple and Samsung. The real target is Google. The truth is Apple and Samsung are using courts in order to help them negotiate and set prices for cross-licensing agreements.

The two tech rivals are trying to figure out whose intellectual property is worth what. Samsung has emerged as one of Apple’s greatest competitors, becoming the leading smartphone-making company thanks to Google. It was Google that gave Samsung and other phone makers the Android mobile operating system for free. In the end it is going to be a battle between the two operating systems.

The article Apple vs Samsung: A Battle between Titans? appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Wolverhampton, England — Drivers of unreliable cars, parents of teens, and everyone who has ever found themselves feeling vulnerable in an unfamiliar place, rejoice: Call4Help, a new app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, lets users call people they trust for assistance — even if they have no idea where they are.

Released this week by Toffa International, Call4Help pinpoints the caller’s location for the recipient of the call or text. It’s accurate to within a few feet, giving the recipient a satellite-view Google Maps location, latitude/longitude coordinates, and an address for the caller.

Call4Help features phone, text and e-mail “quick buttons” that can be quickly and inconspicuously pressed if needed. With one tap, the phone button dials the caller’s preferred contact; the text and e-mail buttons send a message that is automatically populated with a request for assistance, followed by the sender’s detailed location information.

The app is easy to set up. Once downloaded, the user enters the name and number of the person he or she wants to call for assistance should the need arise. Multiple contacts can be added to the text and e-mail quick buttons, and additional contacts can be added to the app’s “Emergency Numbers” section.

Call4Help can also come in handy for anyone who is lost but doesn’t want to call for help. The app’s “My Current Location” button shows a real-time view of the phone on Google Maps. As the phone moves, the app shows the user moving on the map, making it easy to tell whether one is headed to a main road or a dead-end.

“Call4Help is a simple app with the potential to save lives — or at least bring peace of mind to users and their loved ones,” stated Chris Jukes, Toffa International CEO. “Not many people can say they’ve never run into car trouble or found themselves in an uncomfortable situation with no idea of where they are. Call4Help uses Google Maps and smart phone technology to call in the cavalry and get the user to safety.”

Call4Help is available on the Apple App Store for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Click here to download.

About Toffa International

For 16 years, Toffa has been a leading developer of synchronization software for mobile devices. Its GooSync is now the market leader for Google synchronization. Products now in the design stage at Toffa include iPhone and Android applications. Despite the company’s quick, steady growth, Toffa continually provides highly personal, direct service to customers, representing countless sectors and industries but sharing the common need for efficient, reliable communications. Learn more at http://www.toffa.com.

The article Call4Help: New App Helps Driver Who Feel Vulnerable appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.