Week 5 - Post 2: Apple Scores Against Samsung

        The other article I read this week was about how Samsung lost a case against Apple in Japan in which Samsung claimed Apple had infringed on several of Samsung's patents.  The Toky District Court rejected Samsung's request to have all relevant Apple devices banned, claiming that Samsung had not "sincerely negotiated" with Apple over the patents in question.  The only problem I had with this article was the wording "sincerely negotiated", because that term is very vague.  Sincere negotiations would be very hard to define, and even harder to evaluate in a court setting, so I wonder how the Tokyo court will be able to uphold this decision without being challenged, as their ruling seems debatable.
       In addition, at the end of the article it is mentioned that Samsung and Apple are due for a large patent infringement showdown in the United States in 2014, but that the judge who will preside over the case already notified both companies to reduce the number of claims that they were suing over.  I find it very interesting that judges have now started to request and actively deny certain patent claims.  Clearly more and more people are becoming aware of the existence of patent trolls, as well as companies such as Apple that file patents to sue and slow down all of their competitors.  The U.S. patent system is a mess, and hopefully the judicial arm of the government can help address the patent nightmare.

Link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57571794-37/apple-scores-patent-win-against-samsung-in-japan/