Following one of the largest patent trials in electronic history where Apple Inc. scored an overwhelming win over Samsung Electronics Company, Apple is seeking a US sales ban on eight different models of the Samsung's smartphones, mostly from their Galaxy line, and including a future ban on a Samsung tablet computer. Apple was also awarded more than $1 billion in damages. More importantly, they proved that their patent strategy held up in court, and they essentially gained an extreme stronghold on the electronics industry. In the future, cell phones not created by Apple will not be able to use the shape of the phone, the simplistic look of the onscreen icons, and the minimalist design (Rosenblatt). .
After six of the seven Apple patents that Samsung contested in court held up at trial, Apple rebutted by identifying eight smartphones that they want removed from the market. While removing these products from store shelves will cost Samsung some money, Mark Newman, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and former employee at Samsung, is confident that Samsung's sales will not be compacted too much. The eight models of smartphones that Apple is asking to be removed from shelves do not cover any of the newest smartphones that will make up the majority of sales in the coming year. In fact, according to Newman, the eight models in question would only account for less than 1.4 percent of Samsung's profits in 2013. Profits would be reduced by 6.3 percent if Apple did include newer devices (Rosenblatt). .
"Samsung can live to fight another day," Newman commented (Rosenblatt).
Although the removal of the devices from shelves might not make a huge impact on next year's profits, Samsung will likely have to shell out money to change their designs as they work to find a new angle to compete with Apple's new iPhone and possibly a smaller iPad. Additionally, new devices will probably be delayed in their release (Rosenblatt).