Apple and Samsung make closing arguments in (latest) patent case

Apple argues for $2bn in damages over "slide to unlock" and other patents

Apple exaggerates the value of its the patented features it uses on the iPhone, according to Samsung, while Samsung could not possibly have become a rival to Apple in smartphones without ripping-off Apple's technology.

Those were the closing arguments in the latest Apple-Samsung patent dispute being heard this week in California. This week's Apple-Samsung intellectual property case involves five Apple patents that were not in the 2012 trial, covering such iPhone features as "slide to unlock", search technology and two patents on streaming video.

It is the latest in a three-year round of litigation between the two companies that peaked in 2012 when Apple was awarded $930m in damages in a trial presided over by US District Judge Lucy Koh. However, Koh refused to issue a permanent injunction against the sale of Samsung phones in the US.

In the latest trial, Apple is seeking a further $2bn in damages and to ban the sales of a number of Samsung smartphones.

However, Samsung argued that some of the patents at issue were not even included in the iPhone, undermining Apple's damages claim. "They'll be dancing in the streets of Cupertino if you give them 100 million," said Samsung attorney John Quinn.

But Apple accused Samsung of seeking to devalue the patent system by knocking down Apple's damages claim. Its alleged copying of Apple had proved "wildly successful", according to Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny, and the company had paid its own "expert witness" as much as $5m in order to make its case.

The fact that Samsung's smartphones generally run Google's Android operating system is irrelevant, he added, even though some of the features that Apple claims to own were invented by Google, according to Samsung's lawyers and Google executive testimony.

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