European telecom official takes dim view of Samsung patents
Apple brings out the former board chief of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to knock down two patents in its case against Samsung.
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Samsung did not comply with multiple guidelines set forth by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, according to the group's former top board member.
During testimony, Dr. Michael Walker -- who served as ETSI's chairman of the board between 2008 through 2011 -- said that Samsung had failed to disclose two of the patents it's using in its case against Apple to the standards group in a timely manner.
As a result of that, Walker says that Samsung should not be able to use them as ammunition in the case.
To prove that, Walker explained that he had conducted two parallel investigations into the chronology of Samsung's filings, and found that the company had not disclosed the necessary priority paperwork until years after work had begun on a particular standard.
In the case of a working group standard, that's a big no-no, Walker explained, since companies with intellectual property that might go into a standard need to alert the others in the group who could one day have to pay royalties on the technology. Walker said Samsung did not comply with these obligations.
"If you believe it's going to be adopted, you should disclose that to ETSI," Walker said.
Samsung responded by saying that the patents were confidential, and cited a section of the standards group's policy that protects privacy, while noting that ETSI did not take action on its disclosures when they were originally filed.
The patents are just two of the five Samsung says Apple is infringing with the iPhone and wireless-enabled iPad, and cover low-level features like power management and high-speed data transmission. Apple has spent most of the last two days -- and part of this morning -- bringing out a series of experts who say that the two patents are invalid, and that Apple's devices are not infringing. In its complaint, Samsung has also cited patents for user-facing features like MP3 music playback, and e-mailing photos.
Today both companies are using up some of their last few hours, or in Samsung's case -- minutes -- on rebuttal. Next week brings closing arguments and the all-important jury deliberation.
Complete coverage: Apple v. Samsung, a battle over billions