Tim Cook: trial victory against Samsung is ‘about values’

25 August, 2012 - Paul Dixon
Tim Cook - Apple CEO

After Apple’s lawsuit victory against Samsung, Apple CEO Tim Cook sent out a memo to the Cupertino company’s corporate employees. In the email, which 9to5Mac obtained a copy of, Cook describes the lawsuit as being ‘about values’ rather than patents or money.


Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.

Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than we knew.

The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.

I am very proud of the work that each of you do.

Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.

Tim

Following just under three days of deliberations, a nine-person jury ruled that Samsung must pay Apple $1.05 billion (£665m) in damages for infringing a number of its design and utility patents.

About the author

Paul Dixon is the owner of Macsessed. He lives in Lancashire in the UK where he works as a web designer. You can find him on and Twitter.