Late Friday, the court ruled in the patent case of Apple versus Samsung. In short, Apple destroyed Samsung and most of the claims of patent infringement against Samsung were found legit.
Apple was awarded about $1.5 billion in damages, which is not a lot for Apple but it is more about values and principle for Apple than the money.
Of course, this means Samsung will likely have to make lots of changes on their devices. I am not sure what it means for existing devices.
The big question now is, will Apple sue Google over Android? The Verge has a statement from Google saying:
The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don't relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players - including newcomers - are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don't want anything to limit that.
They act like they are not worried but I would think Apple will go after Google. As a matter of principle.
Now if they do, what type of impact will this have on mobile search, voice search and image search? On that front, I suspect not much. But I am no lawyer. Greg Sterling, who was/is a lawyer and knows his thing on search, wrote a lot about this at Marketing Land.
For more coverage, see Techmeme.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
