Samsung - Apple Patent War Case Analysis: Focus on the Strategy to Deal with Patent Litigation

In case that they do not have counterstrategies ready for patent disputes in advance, they would not be able to survive competitions or would fall behind in the market. Most of domestic companies are not equipped with appropriate counterstrategies, and there are only few studies on the countermeasures for patent disputes. Thus, this study examined counterstrategies for patent disputes drawn from cases of smartphone patent disputes and preceding researches, and conducted interviews and surveys with patent experts and company executives to grasp their opinions about the effectiveness of countermeasures for patent disputes related to the smartphone field. As for analysis tool, the Delphi method is selected that is usually used for analyzing relatively a small number of expert opinions. As a result of interviewing patent experts, effective countermeasures turned out to be cross licensing, counter-suit, and patent invalidation suit, in order, and as a result of surveys with company executives, they turned out to be patent invalidation suit, counter-suit, cross licensing, suit through solidarity, and loyalty agreement, in order. It is anticipated that the study results could be used for smartphone manufacturing companies and ICT companies to establish counterstrategies for patent disputes.