Apple vs. Samsung: The Longer View

[Commentary] While Apple and its legal team had every reason to celebrate the court victory over Samsung, the mobile-device wars aren’t over yet -- not by a long shot.

The verdict represented just one round in a bout being fought fiercely among at least a half-dozen companies, on four continents, that likely will continue for years. Samsung will not have to write a billion-dollar check anytime soon, if ever. And the effect on Samsung of a possible injunction would not be cataclysmic; the devices in question are older ones and will account for less than 1.4 percent of the Korean company’s worldwide profits next year, says Mark Newman, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein who previously worked at Samsung. The best way to view Apple’s smartphone victory is that the company now has the upper hand in a global negotiation being conducted via litigation. That’s right: a negotiation. Apple and Samsung are using the courts to help set prices for a series of eventual cross-licensing agreements covering each other’s intellectual property. Apple, which already cross-licenses some of its mobile patents with Microsoft, just saw the price of its IP go up as a result of the San Jose verdict, but it did not mortally wound Samsung.