Samsung tells court Apple’s multitouch is better than Android's

Apple and Samsung are currently embroiled in a patent war spanning the globe. Apple is on the war path aiming to get Samsung devices banned. A US jury had recently ordered Samsung to pay Apple USD 1.05 billion. The hearing for the amount to be paid in damages is yet to take place but it was indeed a big win for Apple. A lawsuit is also going on in the Netherlands, and in what seems as a desperate attempt to avoid a sales ban in the country, a Samsung lawyer has stated that Android’s multitouch software is not good as Apple’s.

According to a report by Loek Essers, Apple had told the court that Samsung should be barred from selling their Android devices in Netherlands because they infringed on a multitouch patent that belonged to Apple called ‘touch event model.’ This patent revolves around the way the device handles presses that do not take place on the intended area. Apple have stated that Android devices that run on Android operating software of Gingerbread and later violate their patent.

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Lawyers praise their competitors

In a bid to salvage its case and avoid a ban, Samsung has done the unthinkable, and claimed that Apple’s multitouch is better than that of Android, and hence the two cannot be compared.

To quote the author, “Samsung has claimed that the way Android’s multitouch software works is not as good as Apple’s, in a bid to avoid a recall and ban on sales of its Android smartphones in a patent dispute with Apple in the Netherlands.”

The author goes on to state, “While Apple’s technology is a “very nice invention,” the technique used in Android differs from the iOS solution, argued Bas Berghuis van Woortman, one of Samsung’s lawyers. Because the Android based method is more hierarchical the system is more complex and therefore harder for developers to use, he said. In addition, Apple devices disallow touch input in sections of the screen on the OS level, while Android does that on the application level, he said. Both are reasons Samsung’s Android devices do not infringe on the patent, he added.”

What comes as a bigger shock is that Apple too has, in a way, backed the Android operating system. Essers states, “Apple disagrees. “They suggest that they have a lesser solution, but that is simply not true,” said Apple’s lawyer Theo Blomme to judge Peter Blok, who presided over a team of three judges, in a response to Samsung’s claim. The technique used in Android does solve a multiple input “conflict situation” and in that way the Android software essentially does the same as Apple’s, he said. It is also possible to assign exclusivity to one particular “view” in Android, and thus Samsung infringes on the patent, said Rutger Kleemans, Apple’s other lawyer in the courtroom.”

The proceedings of the lawsuit appear to have turned out to be hilarious for the observer in that, instead of condemning each other’s software, the two companies are praising them in a bit to win the case.

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