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staff photographer)

By Kim Seon-sik, staff reporter

“The purpose of the patent system is to encourage innovation, but the system is still too often exploited in pursuit of other goals,” said Research in Motion (RIM) Chief Legal Officer Steve Zipperstein in a statement earlier this month.

Zipperstein’s statement came after U.S. District Court overturned a lower court jury’s verdict ordering RIM to pay damages for patent infringement, ruling that there was no evidence to support the initial verdict.

The lower court had ordered RIM, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry smartphone, to pay US$147.2 million in damages to New Jersey-based software company Mformation Technologies.

The Samsung-Apple verdict also highlights the problems of the patent system. Many are pointing out that with so many patent disputes being launched, legal fees are increasing and innovation is being hindered.

Critics are asking is whether its appropriate to give jurors with no expertise the authority to rule on complex technology patents. The Associated Press pointed out that a jury composed of everyone from a 24-year-old youth who wore a Beatles T-shirt in the courtroom to a bicycle shop manager and a discharged Navy sailor decided the future of smartphone and tablet design.

The jury was given 109 pages of instructions and a 20-page verdict form, but UC Hastings Law School intellectual property professor Robin Feldman said, “I don’t give that much reading to my law students. They can’t possibly digest it. The trial is evidence of a patent system that is out of control.”

The biggest problem is that the patent system is being used as a weapon to block the appearance of innovative competitors.

Chicago federal court judge Richard Posner recently criticized the patent system, noting that it is being used as a tool to punish violators rather that award damages to victims.

Commenting sarcastically that the real guilty party in the Samsung-Apple case was the US Patent Office, the LA Times asked, “Is making a hand-held phone flat and rectangular with rounded corners such a unique idea that all other flat and rectangular phones with rounded corners should be pulled off the shelves?”

The criticism is that the US Patent Office is blindly handing out patents for even things that shouldn’t be patented. The paper quipped that if in the old days, Xerox had sued Apple for stealing its graphic user interface, there’d be no Apple today.

A petition is already circulating in the United States called “Defend Innovation”. The petition seeks to shorten a software patent’s protection period from 20 years to five. Julie Samuels, the staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the group pushing the campaign, noted, “Apple v. Samsung is just a proxy for everything else that’s wrong with the patent system right now.”

Meanwhile, some also predict the verdict could bring fresh air to the smart phone industry. The Financial Times and others predicted that thanks to Apple’s victory, other smartphone makers will work to produce products with new designs and inner workings to avoid getting sued by Apple, and this would ultimately bring new innovation.

With the release of new products being delayed and sales of certain products being suspended, there is a strong possibility this would lead to a loss for consumers. German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung said if companies fought wars with their products, it would benefit the consumer, but patent wars just fill the pockets of lawyers. It worried that the verdict would spark even more mudslinging lawsuits using patents as weapons.

Apple has filed papers demanding an injunction banning sales in the US of eight Samsung smartphones and one tablet. The San Jose district court jury had ruled that a total of 28 Samsung products violated Apple patents.

The products against which Apple is seeking injunctions include four Galaxy S II models offered by various US telecom providers, two Galaxy S models and the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Not included are Samsung’s latest products, including the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 10.1.

As its leading products were excluded from injunction request, it appears Samsung won’t suffer that much even if the request is accepted. On the other hand, a fierce battle is expected over expanding and lifting sales bans on the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

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