When it comes to the patent war between Apple and Samsung, it looks like several of the big names from Silicon Valley are siding with the latter. A group of these digital giants have sent a petition to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that the ruling they handed down, telling Samsung to pay Apple for some of the patent infringement suits they lost, will be a precedent to stifling innovation as well as eliminating choices for consumers.

The companies that have filed the “friend of the court” briefing last July 1 include Dell, eBay, Facebook, Google, HP, and others. They believe that if the ruling stands, this can actually lead to “absurd results” and admittedly, will have negative consequences on companies like them. And since they spend billions annually on research and development for complex technologies and new products, this will affect not just their current businesses but any future products they will come up with.

The Federal Court ordered Samsung to turn over their profits to Apple for certain products since they lost the patent infringement lawsuit that was brought against them for six out of seven Apple products. The amount is more than half a billion dollars in the appeals court, but the original ruling was actually $1.05 billion. More than just the money (although that amount is significant too), it’s the spirit of the ruling that is bothering a lot of the Silicon Valley powerhouses.

The group argues that technology is an industry where it is hard to actually get the legal definition of patents since there will sometimes be certain elements of a design that might seem “copied” but not entirely as a whole. They also believe that software products and online platforms will be facing the same dangers as well. But Apple says their petition should be dismissed since some of the companies, specifically Google, has a direct stake since they are behind the Android platform after all, which Samsung uses, calling them not an impartial “friend of the court.”

VIA: Inside Sources

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