Just this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on the high-volume business Apple is doing with Samsung, a key supplier of components for various products including the new flagship iPhone, the iPhone X, on which Samsung will reportedly make $110 per unit. But as device makers, the two remain fierce competitors--and adversaries in court.
A few months after the Supreme Court of the United States requested the Trump Administration's perspective on Samsung's most recent petition for writ of certiorari, the Solicitor General of the United States, Noel Francisco, has expressed the views of the U.S. federal government (this post continues below the document):
16-1102 Views of the United States by Florian Mueller on Scribd
The short version is this: the DoJ tells the Supreme Court to deny all three parts of Samsung's petition, but it's not a ringing endorsement of the Federal Circuit's controversial en banc decision. Not at all. It's completely based on procedural and standard-of-review considerations.
The following passages show that the DoJ doesn't necessarily agree with the Fed. Cir. majority:
"The sufficiency-of-the-evidence question presented on appeal was a close one, and the court of appeals may have erred in concluding that substantial evidence supported aspects of the jury's verdict."
"If the Federal Circuit continues to develop and enforce rigid rules for demonstrating obviousness, this Court's review may ultimately be warranted. This case, however, would be an unsuitable vehicle for addressing that issue. Because petitioners did not preserve any objection that the jury instructions [...]"
"Although the phrase 'some connection' may be infelicitous, [...]"
In the famous design patents case, the DoJ agreed with Samsung on the key legal question (article of manufacture). It additionally brought up a procedural question that could have enabled Apple to defend the original damages award. Now, with respect to the more recent petition relating to invalidity, injunctive relief, and infringement, the DoJ cautiously distances itself from the en banc opinion and indicates only between the lines that it may disagree, to some extent, from a policy perspective ("rigid rules for demonstrating obviousness" etc.). It would have been nice if the DoJ had been clearer about the implications of this for U.S. tech companies and for the work of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which is supposed to protect real technological progress, which is hard to do if even weak evidence of non-obviousness gets a lot of weight. The DoJ could have expressed more clearly a concern over what this means for patent quality, but unfortunately it didn't.
So what does this mean for the prospects of Samsung's cert petition?
The George Mason Law Review published an empirical analysis of cert procedures (PDF), according to which the Supreme Court became more likely to grant certiorari in a case where the Solicitor General was invited to file a brief regardless of whether the SG recommended cert or not. It's a fact that the Supreme Court grants more petitions following a Call for Views of the Solicitor General than the SG recommends should be granted.
Of course, it's too early to have statistics on how the Supreme Court views Solicitor General Francisco's recommendations. But it's not like it's over for Samsung. It's a setback for them and, conversely, a significant intermediate victory for Apple, but the Supreme Court can still decide either way.
Share with other professionals via LinkedIn:
