Apple lawyer says it owns a "thicket of patents"

A 65-page document recently filed in Australia by Apple in the Samsung patent case says that not only does Apple own "a thicket of patents" (which I'll guess just means "a whole lot"), but that Apple is willing to license some of its patents, while still keeping others for itself.

According to FOSS Patents' Florian Müller, Apple does have an extensive set of patents for its mobile devices. But rather than companies like Microsoft, who will often nail down patents only to make as much money as possible licensing them out to other hardware companies, Apple prefers to hold patents in order to differentiate its devices. It would rather benefit from having original features on its devices rather than just charging something like a per-unit fee.

This of course matters in the Samsung case, because Apple is alleging that Samsung knew that patents on certain features were held by Apple, and Samsung went ahead and released phones with those features anyway. If Apple really did plan to license the patents out, then Samsung could just pay the damages, and the agreement would go down as if it were a simple licensing deal. But if Apple really didn't want to ever share the patented technology, then the damages to the company would be more extensive.

Indeed, the document does state that Apple was willing to license some "lower-level" patents. But all in all, it's fairly clear that Apple was planning on keeping most of the patented technology for itself. And that means that the outlook for Samsung in this case is getting worse and worse as time goes on.

[via AppleInsider]