Counterintuitive: Did Samsung emerge a winner?

This tea leaf reading continues to be ridiculous.

So, based on the trial outcome:

1.) Apple won, because they established the validity of their patents and that Samsung was guilty of willful infringement of many of them.

2.) Samsung won, because the damages aren't so severe to have made their strategy of ape'ing the iPhone a bad decision, and now they get to be mentioned in the same conversations as the iPhone.

3.) "Companies that innovate" won, because the jury has reaffirmed the patent system to protect companies from being ripped off.

4.) "The technology industry" won, because now mobile phone manufacturers will be forced to differentiate their products, hopefully leading to better designs.

5.) Apple lost, because in spite of the ruling, they've pissed off the nerd community by behaving like the 500-pound gorilla that they've become, instead of the scrappy underdog people want to root for.

6.) Samsung lost, because they have to pay out a pretty sizable amount of money, and are now going to be referred to as "that company who copied the iPhone".

7.) Google lost, because this will cause problems for other Android manufacturers, and many consider this case to be a proxy war between Apple and Google.

8.) The industry in general lost, because patents are fundamentally icky, and this case reaffirms the strong-arm strategy that companies (Apple in particular) have been refining to artificially hamstring their competition.

9.) The justice system lost, because mere mortals aren't possibly intelligent enough to understand a patent lawsuit, because if they were, obviously they wouldn't think patents could ever be valid.

10.) Lawyers won, because everyone involved got a massive payday, and there'll be a lengthy appeals process.

Did I miss anyone?

Thanks media, your insightful commentary on this complicated issue has been super valuable!

The result feels a bit like David vs. Goliath, but only because it pits one of the most talented and influential software and hardware firms against one of the least talented and least influential.

But it's important to remember first that Samsung is a massive, massive company. They are the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, and made $6 billion in profit last quarter. It will take them two weeks to pay off the damages from the lawsuit.

Second, it's important to remember that Samsung deliberately and shamelessly copied Apple's products, and they have a reputation of doing just that to their competitors in the mobile industry. They were warned by Apple and by Google to stop what they were doing, and they ignored those warnings. That's how we got to this point.

Third, it's important to remember that Samsung is a terrible software company. Companies like Palm, RIM, Microsoft, and Apple have made real and important innovations and contributions that have moved the state of the art forward and have inspired countless new innovations. What the hell has Samsung done? I've been following the mobile software industry for over 10 years, and all Samsung is known for is selling other people's work and piggy-backing on others' brands.

Finally, I believe Samsung's inevitable fall from the top of the smartphone industry will come not as a result of this lawsuit but will instead be driven by the carriers, who still control most of the cards and have a long history of moving against manufacturers that become too big and assert too much power. Samsung will be replaced by another Android manufacturer, or perhaps even Nokia.

Samsung played it well. They knew that they would sooner or later lose in court against Apple because the Galaxy S was just too similar. But they were able to drag it out so long that they now have their third-generation high end phone S III on the market which is sufficiently distinct from the iPhone. They also introduced some evidence late in this trial which was disallowed, which seems amateurish. It was probably done on purpose so they have more grounds for appeal - and until that goes to trial they will be the dominant force in the market and all the models infringing can be phased out by new models without much cost.

The interesting question is how far Apple will go attacking core Android with their "obvious" patents.

The only positive thing I can see from this trial is that now Samsung has something to use against carriers who want to iPhone-ify Android phones in order to increase sales.

The only problem is if Apple can use this to get features removed from stock Android. However, Google was able to work around the universal search issue by modifying the code, and they replaced the bounceback behavior in scrolling with the "glow" thing, which (IMO) works just as well. So hopefully Google will be able to keep Android free of any patent issues (or maybe use the Motorola Mobility patents to force Apple into a cross-licensing deal).

So in the end, this may result in less meddling with the Android codebase by OEMs and carriers, something that all consumers will benefit from.

Samsung's success should not be attributed to the fact that they copied iPhone and iOS design to some extent. Samsung makes great hardware and they simply made the best Android phones. They benefited from the strength of Google/Android ecosystem. It is ridiculous to claim that HTC and others are not doing as good as Samsung because they haven't copied iPhone and iOS enough.

1) I don't know the value of Samsung's profit-margin on Apple hardware, but it may be possible for Samsung to pay the penalty with the money Apple will pay Samsung this year for the hardware in its iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Heck, Samsung probably built its modern factories thanks to the money and contracts coming from Apple.

Samsung's lineup of phones is poised to overtake the iPhone in sales, even if their appeal goes nowhere. Samsung's growth over the years has been amazing, and now that they can take advantage of the same economies of scale that Apple has, they should be able to come close to the same profit margins that Apple enjoys. They should also be able to take advantage of Google's R&D for the Android software (which no longer needs customization) while manufacturing its own hardware, thus spending much less money than Apple to develop each device.

2) Even better, Samsung now has a chance to create a tv commercial to frame the court ruling as a win:

"As you know, we recently sued Apple to protect American freedom of innovation. An independent jury found that Apple and Samsung devices are very similar in looks and features at a fraction of the price. So why not make your next device a Samsung device? Samsung."

I think this article is too focused on the bubble of the tech world. The average person doesn't think that deeply about Apple and Samsung. They don't think Samsung being associated with copying Apple in a lawsuit means Samsung makes products like Apple.

If you are a tech-geek, you'll know the difference, you'll have your own opinion on the case and the OS and hardware that you prefer.

I really don't think this is the case – I suspect that Android is already in normal people's minds as either the thing on their phone because they couldn't afford an iPhone, or they are completely unware of it. I doubt very much many normal people even know Samsung make mobile phones.

If anything, they will have just seen headlines saying that they owe Apple a billion dollars for copying them, so if anything they will go from not really thinking much about phones, to thinking that Samsung copy Apple.

Not exactly a win.

According to Betteridge, no.

I don't know who won but I know who lost. It's you. You who own a mobile phone. You lost.