Samsung’s Execs Gained Access to Confidential Apple and Nokia Licensing Agreements

Apple-Vs-Samsung

Foss Patent has reported on Wednesday that Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has ordered a sanction against Samsung. The matter relates to documents Apple handed over to Samsung’s lawyers ( marking the exhibits (Highly Confidential — Attorney Eyes’ Only) during their lawsuit trial last year. The documents contain information on Apple patent licensing agreements with Nokia and three other manufacturers, Ericsson, Sharp, and Philips.

 

However, Samsung’s executives managed to produce this document in patent negotiations with Nokia, blatantly violating the order.

“I must say that I’m shocked,”  said.

Unfortunately, he shouldn’t be. Here is a list of Samsung’s wrongdoing over the years (via CNN Apple 2.0):

  •  July 7, 2004: Jury advised of adverse interference when Samsung allowed emails to be automatically deleted even after it was told to retain relevant emails. After Samsung’s appeal, Judge William Martini found “Samsung’s actions go far beyond mere negligence, demonstrating knowing and intentional conduct.”
  • October 17, 2005: The U.S. Department of Justice fined Samsung nearly $300M for memory price fixing within the U.S.
  • Feb. 7, 2007: U.S. government fined Samsung for $90M for memory chip price fixing for violations in 2006.
  • Jan.15, 2008: Samsung’s offices in Korea were raided after evidence showed that a slush fund was used to bribe government officials and other business leaders.
  • July 16 2008, Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-He was found guilty in Seoul of financial wrongdoing and tax evasion. Despite prosecutor request of seven years in prison, sentence was reduced to three years followed by a pardon by the South Korean Government in 2009 to allow him to help with its successful bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. He is now a member of the International Olympic Committee and this ‘pardoned criminal’ returned as Samsung’s Chairman in March 2010.
  • May 19, 2010: The EU Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that shared confidential information and fixed memory chip prices (along with eight other firms).
  • Nov. 1, 2011: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that fixed prices and reduced output for TFT-LCD screens between 2001 and 2006.
  • March 15, 2012: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for a mobile phone price fixing scheme and consumer fraud whereby consumers would be paying more than what the discounted prices advertised.
  •  July 25, 2012: Magistrate Grewal informs the jury that they could take into account that “spoliation” of evidence occurred when Samsung destroyed evidence that could have been used in the Apple lawsuit; Samsung had a policy of automatically deleting emails that were two weeks old and should have suspended that policy between August 2010 (when Apple informed Samsung of patent infringement) and April 2011 (when Apple initiated the lawsuit).
  • August 24, 2012 a jury returned a verdict finding Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple’s design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple’s trade dresses related to the iPhone. But Samsung continues to fight the ruling, and continues in their copying behavior.
  • Dec 2012: EU issued a Statement of Objections (SO) against Samsung for abusing its Standard-Essential Patents in not providing FRAND rates. Samsung withdrew all SEP-based injunction requests against Apple in Europe days before the SO was issued, but to no avail.
  • April. 2013, Samsung is accused of and admits hiring people in several countries to falsify reports of HTC phones “constantly crashing” and posting fake benchmark reviews.
  • October 2013 Samsung in confirmed reports from independent and objective testing, found to be intentionally falsifying performance benchmarks of its flagship products: the Galaxy S4 and Note 3.
Posted by | Posted at October 4, 2013 09:29 | Tags: , , ,
Storm is a technology enthusiast, who resides in the UK. He enjoys reading and writing about technology.

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