Jury to Decide How Much More Samsung Must Pay Apple in Patent Case

In August last year, a California jury found that Samsung infringed on a series of Apple patents and needed to pay more than $1 billion in damages. But the judge later revisited that price tag and vacated about $450 million of that original award, saying it was unclear how the jury calculated the original figure.

Samsung was still required to pay Apple $600 million. And the judge, Lucy H. Koh, of the Federal District Court for Northern California, ordered the new trial to assess whether Samsung should pay more or less than the $450 million that was vacated.

For Samsung and Apple, the two biggest profit makers in the electronics industry, a single handoff of $1 billion would not greatly affect the companies’ finances. But the fight over damages is more about the future than the present. Samsung and Apple are embattled in multiple patent disputes, and the final award could influence another jury to make similar damage calculations in future cases.

“This is a judgment based on some of its products, particularly old products,” said James E. Bessen, a lecturer in law at the Boston University School of Law. “Samsung doesn’t want similar judgments on more recent products as well.”

In the original case, Apple accused Samsung of violating several of its patents and “ripped off” its iPhones and iPads. In the trial, which lasted about a month, Apple’s executives and designers detailed their design processes and compared Apple’s products with Samsung’s to illustrate how the products were similar.

Jury selection for the trial on the damages award started Tuesday, and is expected to last about a week. Some of Apple’s top leaders, including Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, are expected to testify.

The trial will involve five patents, including one that covers the design of the face of a mobile device. It will also cover 13 products, including Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet and Samsung’s Captivate smartphone.

Much of the trial is likely to focus on how the damages should be calculated. The jury could decide Samsung has to pay for Apple’s lost profit as a result of Samsung’s products being in the market. Or it could also decide that Samsung must pay royalties for each device it has sold that carry the features covered by the patents.

The amount of damages may have become muddied in last year’s trial because the jurors were required to fill out a complex 20-page form when calculating the amount owed to Apple. In the new damages trial, jurors will instead be required to fill out a much simpler one-page form.

Apple and Samsung declined to comment.

In the trial last year, Samsung was criticized for engaging in some foul play, like when it publicly released some evidence that the judge had ordered to be excluded.

Samsung was scrutinized again last week in a separate case, in which a judge determined that the company violated a court-ordered agreement to keep some Apple documents secret. During the discovery process, Apple had given Samsung confidential patent licensing agreements with Nokia, Ericsson and other companies — privileged information only for Samsung’s lawyers working on the case.

But Samsung was found to have shared the documents internally with employees and unauthorized lawyers so it could leverage its negotiations with Nokia and Ericsson. Apple and Nokia are expected to recommend a punishment for Samsung in a hearing on Dec. 9.

In its patent feud with Samsung, Apple has been largely victorious in the United States. Both companies convinced the United States International Trade Commission that the other had violated patents, resulting in bans on each other’s products. However, the Obama administration ultimately vetoed the ban on Apple products, but upheld the ban on Samsung products.

Another battle between Apple and Samsung is not far away. The two companies are scheduled for another trial in March 2014, which involves a different set of Apple patents and some newer products, including Samsung’s popular Galaxy S III smartphone — a product that surpassed the iPhone in sales at one point. That lawsuit, which will also be overseen by Judge Koh, could result in even larger damages if Samsung were to be found guilty.

That lawsuit is most likely what Samsung is most concerned with, Mr. Bessen said. “People already are aware that Samsung was found guilty,” Mr. Bessen said. “Their new trial is coming up on some of the later products. If Samsung can show they were able to reduce the damages, it might help them.”

Judge Sets Restrictions for Apple on E-Books

But the judge, Denise L. Cote of Federal District Court in Manhattan, rejected some of the measures sought by the Justice Department, including extensive government oversight over Apple’s App Store.

In a filing this week, Judge Cote issued her final ruling on the penalties to be imposed on Apple after the long-running lawsuit against the technology giant filed by the Justice Department in April 2012.

The government accused Apple, along with five major book publishers, of illegally colluding to raise the price of e-books and of trying to curb Amazon’s influence in the publishing industry as Apple prepared to introduce its iPad in 2010.

All five publishers, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group and Penguin Group USA, have since settled, while saying that they did nothing wrong. Random House, which was not named in the lawsuit, merged with Penguin earlier this year.

But Apple, confident of its innocence and with the financial resources to fight in court, went to trial this summer. It defended itself with testimony from a string of high-ranking Apple executives, including Eddy Cue, the company’s senior vice president for Internet software and services, who led the negotiations with publishers.

In July, Judge Cote ruled against Apple in a nonjury trial, saying there was compelling evidence it had violated antitrust laws by conspiring with the publishers.

In her ruling this week, Judge Cote said that Apple may not enter into any agreement with the five settling publishers that “restricts, limits or impedes Apple’s ability to set, alter or reduce the retail price of any e-book.”

The ruling also said that Apple would be prohibited from discussing with any publisher its contractual negotiations with another publisher.

In addition, Judge Cote ordered that Apple cooperate with an external monitor who will evaluate and report on the company’s training reforms and antitrust compliance.

William J. Baer, the assistant attorney general, said in a statement on Friday that the Justice Department was pleased by the court’s ruling.

“Consumers will continue to benefit from lower e-books prices as a result of the department’s enforcement action to restore competition in this important industry,” he said. “By appointing an external monitor to ensure future compliance with the antitrust laws, the court has helped protect consumers from further misconduct by Apple. The court’s ruling reinforces the victory the department has won for consumers.”

Apple has said that it will appeal Judge Cote’s July ruling.

“Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing,” Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, said in an e-mail on Friday. “The iBook-
store gave customers more choice and injected much-needed innovation and competition into the market.”

At a hearing in United States District Court in Manhattan last week, Judge Cote said that she wished to “intrude as little as possible” on Apple’s business.

Judge Issues Injunction Against Apple in E-Books Case

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in New York also said she would appoint an external monitor to review Apple's antitrust compliance policies, procedures and training for two years.

The injunction was narrower than the U.S. Justice Department had sought, in line with Cote's statement last week that she wanted it "to rest as lightly as possible on how Apple runs its business."

The department had sought a broader injunction that could have affected Apple's agreements with suppliers of movies, music and TV shows.

Cote ruled on July 10 that Apple was liable for conspiring with five publishers to raise e-book prices above those established by the dominant retailer in the market, Amazon.com Inc.

The five publishers, all of which have settled with regulators, include Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group Inc, News Corp's HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Penguin Random House LLC, CBS Corp's Simon & Schuster Inc and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH's Macmillan.

The terms of Friday's judgment will expire after five years, but Cote's order allows for extensions in one-year increments if necessary.

The Justice Department welcomed the injunction.

"Consumers will continue to benefit from lower e-book prices as a result of the department's enforcement action to restore competition in this important industry," Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer said in a statement.

Apple said it would appeal the injunction.

"Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing," said company spokesman Tom Neumayr. "The iBookstore gave customers more choice and injected much-needed innovation and competition into the market."

Apple's shares rose 0.6 percent to $498.22 (318.58 pounds) on Friday.

It faces a separate trial on damages demanded by states that are pursuing related claims.

The case is U.S. v. Apple Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-02826.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Eddie Evans and Ken Wills)

Patent Case Has Potential to Give Apple the Upper Hand

But if a final ruling in a case against Samsung goes Apple’s way on Friday, Apple would clearly hold the momentum in the patent disputes engulfing the mobile market.

The federal International Trade Commission is expected to say on Friday whether it will uphold a preliminary finding that Samsung mobile products violated a handful of Apple patents. A decision against Samsung by the commission could result in an import ban on some of the company’s mobile devices.

A decision for Apple would be its second major legal win against Samsung in less than a week. On Saturday, the Obama administration vetoed the federal commission’s ban on Apple mobile products in a separate case brought by Samsung.

That rare move — the first time for such a veto since 1987 — was a major victory for Apple and other companies that had argued that disputes over a class of patents known as standards-essential patents should not lead to import bans by the trade commission.

Carolina Milanesi, a Gartner analyst, said that if Apple were to score a second victory with the International Trade Commission this week, the company would climb to a significant position of power in patent feuds — not just against Samsung, but against other companies as well.

“Apple can use that as a warning and say, ‘Look, if it hasn’t worked with Samsung, why would it work with you?’ ” she said. “It’s not real power. It’s more like a mind game.”

The patent disputes have led to a possible political skirmish between the United States and South Korea, where Samsung is a celebrated hometown legend. The decision on Saturday vexed the South Korean government, which issued a statement expressing concern that the ruling may have violated Samsung’s patent rights. The government pledged to watch the commission’s ruling on Friday in the separate case for fairness.

Essential patents, like those at the center of the dispute in Saturday’s veto, cover basic technologies that companies have to support in their products to comply with industry standards. In the case between Apple and Samsung, the standard involved wireless communications. The Obama administration said it overruled the decision on Saturday partly because it feared essential patents, which holders agree to license on reasonable terms, were being used in ways that could hurt competition and consumers. Apple and Samsung disagreed on whether Samsung was offering to license it essential patents on reasonable terms.

The decision on Friday is not over essential patents. But if the commission hands Apple another victory, Robert P. Merges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the Obama administration could again overrule any import ban the commission puts in place, as part of a strategy to diminish the power of patent litigation as an industry weapon.

“I think there are a lot of political implications,” he said, referring to the possible reaction by other governments. “You’ll have the obvious favoring-the-home-team problem. But I would be shocked if they didn’t think this through carefully.”

Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, declined to comment on the case before the commission’s decision. David Steel, an executive vice president for Samsung, declined to comment.

Already, Apple has scored the biggest legal victory by far, by winning against Samsung in a federal court last year. In that case, a jury awarded Apple $1 billion in damages for violations of mobile patents related to the iPhone and iPad. That award was later reduced to $599 million by a judge, though the figure could go back up as the case drags on in court.

Although the case was a decisive win for Apple, the judge overseeing it denied a request by Apple for a permanent injunction against the sale of some Samsung mobile products. A Federal Appeals Court is expected to hear arguments on Friday from Apple about why such an injunction should be granted.

In another positive development for Apple, a Federal Appeals Court sent a patent case that Apple brought against Motorola Mobility, which is owned by Google, back to the trade commission this week. The ruling gives Apple another shot at winning an important ban on Motorola mobile products after the commission dismissed Apple’s complaint.

Apple has long argued that companies making smartphones based on Google’s operating system, especially Samsung, are copycats that have swiped many of the technical innovations that, at one point, gave the iPhone and iPad a huge edge.

But the wheels of justice grind along slowly, and as Apple’s suits have snaked their way through the courts in the last several years, the popularity of Android phones has continued to grow, swallowing much of the mobile market. In the second quarter of the year, Android phones accounted for almost 80 percent of global smartphone shipments, up from just under 70 percent the year before, according to IDC, the research firm.

The iPhone accounted for 13.2 percent of smartphone shipments in that same period, while Samsung’s share was 30.4 percent, IDC estimated.

It is unclear whether a series of legal setbacks would be more than a speed bump for Samsung, now the world’s largest mobile phone maker. Samsung has argued that it can modify the software in its phones so they steer clear of Apple’s patents, which could allow it to dodge sales bans.

Still, if the tide of legal battles begins to shift decisively in Apple’s favor, the company could extract a juicy financial settlement from Samsung and put the distraction of fighting its biggest rival behind it.

Bits Blog: Obama Administration Overturns Ban on Apple Products

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Bits Blog: Is Google More Like Microsoft or Apple?

The Boss: From Apple to Nest Labs, Always a Designer

During summers, we would return to Detroit, where my grandfather, a high school teacher and later a school superintendent, would teach my brother and me how to fix things around the house and build projects, like a soapbox racer, in his workshop.

Computers have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. In grade school, I took a summer programming class, using a mainframe computer with punch cards. My grandfather helped me buy an Apple II; he didn’t know anything about computers but recognized that, for me, it was an important tool — just like his hammers and drills. In high school, a friend and I started a small company, Quality Computers. We worked from his parents’ basement, reselling Apple II hardware and writing software.

In 1987, I entered the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, to study computer engineering. But my classes didn’t satisfy my interest in computers, so I founded an educational software company and another company to design computer processors for the Apple IIgs model.

After I graduated in 1991, I moved to Silicon Valley to pursue my dream job: working with General Magic, whose founders created the first Apple Macintosh. I knocked on their door until they hired me later that year. I spent four years there, developing hardware and software to create personal hand-held communications devices, including Sony’s MagicLink. In 1995, I pitched a hand-held product to the C.E.O. of Philips, the Dutch electronics giant. He hired me to build its mobile computing group to develop the Velo and Nino personal digital assistants.

Music has always been one of my passions. Philips wanted to expand in the United States, and the company named me vice president for business development to manage its digital music strategy and investments. Being a corporate guy wasn’t enough for me, so I left to start Fuse Systems, a consumer electronics company. But it foundered when the Internet bubble burst in 2001. That same year, Apple Computer hired me as a consultant in designing what would become the iPod digital music player. Computers plus music plus Apple — it was another dream gig.

Eight weeks later, I approached Steve Jobs with the initial iPod concept and was put in charge of building and leading the development team. One iPod led to another, eventually becoming 18 generations of iPods — and then three generations of the iPhone.

My wife also worked at Apple. Eventually I wanted to spend more time with our two children, and I also wanted a break. So in 2008, I stepped away as senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division and became a strategic adviser to Mr. Jobs. He was an incredible influence on how I think about bringing products to market.

After leaving Apple, we decided to build a “green” home in Lake Tahoe, Calif. While researching heating and cooling systems, I realized that the thermostat was ripe for innovation. I founded Nest Labs to build the self-programming Nest Learning Thermostat. When owners are away, sensors adjust the temperature to save energy. The thermostat has been selling in the United States and Canada for 20 months, but because the device is Wi-Fi connected, we know that it is being used in more than 80 countries.

We designed the thermostat for do-it-yourself installation, and we even include a custom screwdriver in each box. I think my grandfather would have liked that.

The Boss: From Apple to Nest Labs, Always a Designer

During summers, we would return to Detroit, where my grandfather, a high school teacher and later a school superintendent, would teach my brother and me how to fix things around the house and build projects, like a soapbox racer, in his workshop.

Computers have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. In grade school, I took a summer programming class, using a mainframe computer with punch cards. My grandfather helped me buy an Apple II; he didn’t know anything about computers but recognized that, for me, it was an important tool — just like his hammers and drills. In high school, a friend and I started a small company, Quality Computers. We worked from his parents’ basement, reselling Apple II hardware and writing software.

In 1987, I entered the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, to study computer engineering. But my classes didn’t satisfy my interest in computers, so I founded an educational software company and another company to design computer processors for the Apple IIgs model.

After I graduated in 1991, I moved to Silicon Valley to pursue my dream job: working with General Magic, whose founders created the first Apple Macintosh. I knocked on their door until they hired me later that year. I spent four years there, developing hardware and software to create personal hand-held communications devices, including Sony’s MagicLink. In 1995, I pitched a hand-held product to the C.E.O. of Philips, the Dutch electronics giant. He hired me to build its mobile computing group to develop the Velo and Nino personal digital assistants.

Music has always been one of my passions. Philips wanted to expand in the United States, and the company named me vice president for business development to manage its digital music strategy and investments. Being a corporate guy wasn’t enough for me, so I left to start Fuse Systems, a consumer electronics company. But it foundered when the Internet bubble burst in 2001. That same year, Apple Computer hired me as a consultant in designing what would become the iPod digital music player. Computers plus music plus Apple — it was another dream gig.

Eight weeks later, I approached Steve Jobs with the initial iPod concept and was put in charge of building and leading the development team. One iPod led to another, eventually becoming 18 generations of iPods — and then three generations of the iPhone.

My wife also worked at Apple. Eventually I wanted to spend more time with our two children, and I also wanted a break. So in 2008, I stepped away as senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division and became a strategic adviser to Mr. Jobs. He was an incredible influence on how I think about bringing products to market.

After leaving Apple, we decided to build a “green” home in Lake Tahoe, Calif. While researching heating and cooling systems, I realized that the thermostat was ripe for innovation. I founded Nest Labs to build the self-programming Nest Learning Thermostat. When owners are away, sensors adjust the temperature to save energy. The thermostat has been selling in the United States and Canada for 20 months, but because the device is Wi-Fi connected, we know that it is being used in more than 80 countries.

We designed the thermostat for do-it-yourself installation, and we even include a custom screwdriver in each box. I think my grandfather would have liked that.

Judge Rules Against Apple in E-Books Trial

“Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the spring of 2010,” the judge, Denise L. Cote of United States District Court in Manhattan, said in her ruling. She said a trial for damages would follow.

Government lawyers argued in court last month that Apple had colluded with five big American publishers to raise prices for electronic books across the publishing market.

The Justice Department brought the antitrust case against Apple and the publishers a year ago. The publishers settled their cases, but Apple executives insisted that the company had done nothing wrong, and the company continued to insist that on Wednesday.

“Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations,” Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, said. “When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge’s decision.”

The Justice Department said the judge’s decision was a victory for people who buy e-books.

“Companies cannot ignore the antitrust laws when they believe it is in their economic self-interest to do so,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “This decision by the court is a critical step in undoing the harm caused by Apple’s illegal actions.”

It appears unlikely that the ruling will have an immediate effect on the book-buying public. The publishers who have already settled with the government are operating under the settlement’s terms, which prohibit publishers from restricting a retailer’s ability to discount books.

Since those settlements have gone into effect, prices on many newly released and best-selling e-books have gone down. One New York Times best-seller, “And the Mountains Echoed,” by Khaled Hosseini, is sold on Amazon.com for $10.99. But other e-books seem to have held closer to pre-settlement prices: “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” by Neil Gaiman, is listed for $12.80 on Amazon.

The antitrust battle underscores the turmoil in the book industry as readers shift from ink and paper to electronic devices like tablets and smartphones, where they can buy content with the push of a button. While the publishers want to embrace new media, they are also trying to protect their profits and retain control of their businesses. Apple’s lawyers noted at the trial that the publishers had long complained that Amazon.com’s uniform pricing of $9.99 for new e-book titles was too low.

A recent survey of the publishing industry revealed that in the United States, e-books account for 20 percent of publishers’ revenue, more than $3 billion, up from 15 percent the year before. E-books have had a slower rate of adoption in Europe and the rest of the world, but analysts expect that major growth will develop in the next several years. A report by Forrester predicted that by 2017, Europe will be the largest e-book market in the world, generating revenue of $19 billion.

In his testimony, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, who was in charge of negotiating deals with the publishers, conceded that Apple opened the door for book publishers to raise prices in its own e-book store. But he said that the company was not intending to push Amazon, the dominant player in the e-book market, to raise its prices, too.

“Amazon could have negotiated a better deal,” Mr. Cue said in his testimony. “They had a lot more power.”

But the Justice Department said Apple’s deal with the publishers left Amazon with no choice but to raise prices. When Apple entered the e-book market in 2010, it changed the way publishers sold books by introducing a model called agency pricing, where the publisher — not the retailer — sets the price, and Apple took a cut of each sale. As a result, the publishers were able to set e-book prices higher. Apple proposed price caps of $12.99 and $14.99.

Pogue’s Posts Blog: A Better Google Maps App for Apple and Android Devices

Google Map’s new directory buttons.

Our story so far: Last September, Apple decided to dump the Google Maps app that had been on the iPhone for years. Apple replaced it with its own Maps app — software with so many problems that Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, apologized and even recommended that people use other apps until Apple could fix its own one.

In December — incredibly quickly — Google responded by introducing its own Maps app for iPhone. It’s a spectacular app, among the best apps ever written. It’s fast, beautiful and so good at guessing what you mean when you start typing a destination, it’s almost mind reading. You can read the details here.

Today, that delightful news gets even better. Not only has Google improved Google Maps for iPhone, it’s also brought that same free app to three machines that never had it: the iPad, Android phones and Android tablets. (The Android versions are available for download today; it requires the Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean version of Android — recent versions, in other words. The iOS versions will be available shortly.)

For Androidians, the biggest news is the design of the app itself. It’s modeled on the iPhone app, the one that’s simple and fast and elegant. It’s also uncluttered by the morass of menus that have always plagued the existing Maps app for Android.

But for practitioners of all religions — tablet, phone, iOS, Android — the other news is the new features that today’s new version brings. They include:

* Greater speed. All app versions are faster than before.

* Better place information. Half the time, you don’t even need navigation instructions; you just use Google Maps as the world’s smartest Yellow Pages, to find a nearby restaurant, movie theater, drugstore or whatever.

The details for found places now include a one-line description (“Chinese restaurant famous for dim sum”); a five-star rating system (including a decimal — “4.3,” for example — because, let’s face it, almost everything these days winds up with a four-star rating); the ability to upload your own photos of a place; and a more complete integration of the Zagat guides, which Google bought.

* Greater emphasis on exploration. Google Maps has always excelled at getting you to a known destination. But Google now wants the app to help you choose a restaurant, bar, store, recreation center or hotel, at least in major United States and European cities.

If you tap in the Search box without typing anything, new, photographic buttons appear: Eat, Drink, Shop, Play, Sleep. Each opens lists of corresponding facilities, sorted by criteria like Local Favorites, Popular with Tourists and so on. (Google says that these recommendations are never paid placement.)

* Traffic incidents and auto-rerouting. At last: Google Maps shows more than colored lines indicating current traffic speeds on major roads. Now it also displays tiny icons that represent accidents and construction. Tap one to read the details: “Right lane blocked on 680,” for example. (In case you were wondering, the information on traffic incidents doesn’t come from Waze, the traffic-incident app that Google recently bought. That data has yet to be incorporated into Maps.)

Better yet: Maps now looks ahead for traffic jams on your route, and interrupts your drive with a dialog box that offers to route you around it (if the new path would be quicker, of course). On its own.

* Offline maps. This feature is something of an Easter egg. It’s undocumented, a feature inserted by Google engineers simply because they wanted it. You can access it only if you know the secret. But wow, is it worth it.

This feature memorizes the map data for whatever area is displayed on your screen right now (up to a whole city in size). That way, you can use Google Maps even when you’re overseas and don’t want to turn on data roaming (because that’s insanely expensive), or when you’re in an area where there’s no cell reception. It’s very handy.

To capture a map snapshot like this, tap in the Search box. Use the speech-recognition button and say, “OK Maps.” (It’s a riff on the command “OK Glass” that prepares Google Glass, the company’s “smart headband,” for voice commands.)

A message quietly lets you know you’ve successfully stored the displayed area.

*Nice tablet layouts. On a tablet, Maps really shines. The app smartly reformats itself to take best advantage of whatever screen shape you have: two or three columns of place listings, for example, and luxuriously displayed photos and reviews for each business.

This new, improved Maps app works identically on both major flavors of phone and tablet. You know what? I don’t care how much you distrust Google and its motives. This is crazy good software, some the best work Google has ever done.

Apple Executive Defends Pricing in Case on E-Books

“Wow, we have really lit the fuse on a powder keg,” Mr. Jobs wrote in the e-mail dated Jan. 30, 2010, to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services.

The e-mail was brought up as evidence during the second half of Mr. Cue’s testimony in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, where much of the discussion focused on whether Apple intended to help the publishers raise Amazon’s prices.

Mr. Cue testified on Monday that Mr. Jobs’s e-mail was not a memo congratulating him about how Apple’s entry into the e-book market affected Amazon, causing it to switch to a business model called agency pricing, where the publishers, not the retailer, set the price of the books. Mr. Cue said Mr. Jobs was remarking on the company’s ability to “cause ripples” in the e-book industry, which was then largely dominated by Amazon.

While Mr. Cue conceded that some e-book prices had gone up as a result of agency pricing, he noted that many titles might not have become available in any digital store at all if Apple had not introduced agency pricing to the market. He said he had learned from his meetings with publishers that they were unhappy with Amazon’s uniform $9.99 pricing for e-books and that they were planning to use a tactic known as windowing — delaying the release of an e-book until after the more expensive hardcover had been in stores for a while.

Mr. Cue testified that both he and Mr. Jobs believed that “withholding books is a disaster for any bookstore.”

The Justice Department was not persuaded. Lawrence Buterman, a Justice Department lawyer, asked Mr. Cue whether he was aware that only 37 e-books had ever been windowed.

“The number doesn’t matter,” Mr. Cue said. “What matters is which books. Thirty-seven could be a huge number if it’s the right books.”

Both parties showed their evidence on a projector screen. Apple’s legal team used a MacBook to shuffle between evidence documents, stacking them side by side in split screens and zooming in on specific paragraphs.

In contrast, the Justice Department’s lawyers could show only one piece of evidence at a time. One video that Mr. Buterman played as evidence failed to produce the audio commentary needed to make his point.

In its antitrust case brought a year ago, the federal government is trying to cast Apple as the ringmaster that conspired with five big book publishers to raise e-book prices. The publishers have all settled their cases.

On Monday, the Justice Department’s lawyers homed in on a condition in Apple’s contracts with the publishers: the “most favored nation” clause, which required publishers to allow Apple to sell e-books at the same price as the books would be sold in any other store. Apple has said this clause existed to guarantee that Apple customers got the lowest e-book prices. But Mr. Buterman argued that it defeated Amazon’s ability to compete on price, and that it left Amazon with no choice but to switch to the agency model while allowing the publishers to raise prices.

Mr. Cue said he disagreed. He noted that Amazon had 90 percent of the e-book market before Apple entered the game.

“Amazon could have negotiated a better deal,” he said. “They had a lot more power.”

Lawyers for Apple and the government spent much of the hearing debating whether the e-mails exchanged between Apple executives and publishers illustrated Apple’s intent to help the publishers force Amazon’s hand. In one e-mail sent to Mr. Jobs, Mr. Cue was reviewing his meeting with the publishers, saying they were interested in solving the “Amazon issue.”

Mr. Cue said he was referring to the publishers’ ability to price books above Amazon’s uniform price of $9.99 in Apple’s iBookstore. Apple had proposed price caps of $12.99 to $14.99 for new releases. But he said this did not refer to enabling the publishers to force Amazon to raise prices, too.

Media Decoder: Apple Is Said to Be Pressing to Complete Deals for Internet Radio

After months of stalled negotiations over its planned Internet radio service, Apple is pushing to complete licensing deals with music companies so it can reveal the service as early as next week, according to people briefed on the talks.

News from the technology industry, including start-ups, the Internet, enterprise and gadgets.
On Twitter: @nytimesbits.

Apple’s service, a Pandora-like feature that would tailor streams of music to each user’s taste, has been planned since at least last summer. But Apple has made little progress with record labels and music publishers, which have been seeking higher royalty rates and guaranteed minimum payments, according to these people, who spoke anonymously about the private talks.

While it is still at odds with some music companies over deal terms, Apple is said to be eager to get the licenses in time to unveil the service — nicknamed iRadio by the technology press — at its annual developers conference, which begins June 10 in San Francisco.

Apple has signed a deal with the Universal Music Group for its recorded music rights, but not for music publishing — the part of the business that deals with songwriting. Over the weekend, Apple also signed a deal with the Warner Music Group for both rights. It is still in talks with Sony Music Entertainment and Sony’s separate publishing arm, Sony/ATV, whose songwriters include Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.

Representatives for Apple and the music companies declined to comment.

Apple’s Internet radio feature is expected to be free and supported by advertising, and would represent a relatively late arrival by the company into what has become a fast-growing — if low-margin — sector of the music business. Pandora has more than 70 million regular users, the vast majority of whom do not pay, and similar features have been introduced by Google, Spotify and the radio company Clear Channel Communications.

The licensing fees paid by Pandora have been a sore spot for music companies, which see promise in Apple’s service, particularly since it can be linked to sales through Apple’s iTunes store, but want higher rates. Publishers, for instance, are paid about 4 percent of Pandora’s revenue, but want as much as 10 percent from Apple.

Apple is said to be negotiating directly with the music groups because it wants more extensive licensing terms.

E-Book Antitrust Trial of Apple to Begin

But the evidence in the case will not just determine whether Apple has violated antitrust laws. It will also tell a broader story of how the introduction of e-books created upheaval in the publishing industry — with guest appearances by major players like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and e-mails from the late Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s former chief executive.

In the case, brought a year ago, the Justice Department accused Apple and five book publishers of conspiring to raise e-book prices. The idea, the government said, was to allow publishers to set their own prices rather than letting retailers do so.

Their motivation, according to the Justice Department, was to defend themselves against Amazon, which was setting the price of most new e-books at $9.99 and becoming increasingly dominant in the market. Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and the Hachette Book Group settled the day that charges were filed; Penguin and Macmillan settled months later.

Complaints by Amazon, which now controls at least 60 percent of the e-book market, are widely believed to have incited the investigation. Amazon declined to comment.

After the lawsuit was filed, the expectation was that e-book prices would drop sharply; the publishers that settled agreed to allow retailers to discount their e-books for two years. But the price drop has still not happened.

A government victory against Apple, which would not involve monetary damages, might also not affect e-book prices.

“Are consumers going to be better off as a result of any government win here?” said Charles E. Elder, an antitrust lawyer at Irell & Manella, which is not involved in the case. “That’s going to have to be seen depending on what happens to book publishing generally. It’s in trouble, and e-books are either the savior or they’re going to hasten the demise of book publishers.”

Apple declined to comment, but has said it has done nothing wrong.

“The e-book case to me is bizarre,” Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said during an onstage interview at a business conference last week in Southern California. “We’ve done nothing wrong there, and so we’re taking a very principled position of this. We were asked to sign something that says we did do something, and we’re not going to sign something that says we did something we didn’t do. And so we’re going to fight.”

Apple certainly has the money to fight, and a brand to protect, at a time when its stock is sagging and its tax practices and manufacturing processes are under scrutiny. Yet it is bigger than ever — with hundreds of millions of its iPhones and iPads in the hands of customers all over the globe.

The trial, before Judge Denise L. Cote of United States District Court, is expected to feature testimony from chief executives from the five publishers, who will offer a window into their world of fierce price negotiations. But the star witness may well be Mr. Jobs, even though he died in October 2011.

In the case, the government cast Apple as the “ringmaster” of the conspiracy. It said that when the company entered the e-book industry in 2010 with the introduction of the iPad, it wanted to pressure Amazon to raise its prices above its uniform $9.99 for new e-books.

At the time, publishers’ agreements to sell e-books were made under the so-called wholesale model of print books; publishers charged retailers about half the cover price for a book, and the retailers then set their own prices. The government said Mr. Jobs had persuaded publishers to agree to agency pricing, which allowed publishers to set their own prices for e-books, giving Apple a 30 percent commission for books sold in its online store.

The publishers’ contracts with Apple included a “most favored nation” clause, requiring that no other retailer sell e-books for a lower price; if they did, the publisher would have to match the price of the e-book in Apple’s store. That, the Justice Department said, resulted in higher prices that harmed consumers.

Strategies: At Apple and JPMorgan, a Good Week for the C.E.O.

That ancient tension between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion, and between a corporation’s self-interest and the fundamental requirements of a government and its citizens, remains at the heart of the American system. It was on full display at the Senate hearing last week on Apple’s tax practices in the 21st century.

“We don’t use gimmicks,” Apple’s C.E.O., Timothy D. Cook, declared in prepared testimony.

That statement seemed absurd to one expert witness at the hearing, J. Richard Harvey Jr., a professor at Villanova Law School. “Apple does not use tax gimmicks?” Professor Harvey testified. “I about fell off my chair when I read that.” Mr. Harvey said Apple had set up corporations in Ireland that were little more than empty shells. By exploiting gaps in international law, Apple’s tax strategizing saved the company $7.7 billion in 2011 alone, he said.

The hearing furnished an illuminating blueprint of Apple’s tax strategies, and was a riveting spectacle. But for anyone hoping that it would result in an swell of support for closing tax loopholes and repatriating hundreds of billions of dollars in cash held “overseas” by American corporations — in Apple’s case, actually deposited in Manhattan bank accounts — the event was something of a letdown.

Mr. Cook, after all, received rave reviews from senators in the room, starting with Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican. Even before Mr. Cook took the stand, Mr. Paul posted pre-emptively on Twitter, “If there is anyone to blame here it is not Apple, it is Congress and the tax code it created.” And news reports afterward generally said Mr. Cook’s genial manner — and the aura surrounding Apple’s immensely popular products — effectively disarmed the Senate panel.

For Nell Minow, who has spent the last 27 years researching and advocating policies that she says are aimed at improving corporate America’s behavior, it was a difficult week. “With corporate governance battles, you get used to tilting at windmills,” she said.

Beyond the Apple hearing, she pointed to another prominent event that could be viewed as a corporate governance setback. That was a vote on whether the jobs of chairman and C.E.O. should be held by the same person at a major company, JPMorgan Chase. Splitting the two jobs — under the theory that an independent chairman offers meaningful oversight over a C.E.O. — has been a trend. In 2002, only 25 percent of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies separated the two roles. In 2012, some 43 percent did, according to a survey by Spencer Stuart, the executive search firm.

But at JPMorgan, shareholders voted last week by a roughly two-to-one margin against splitting the jobs, both held by Jamie Dimon. Like Mr. Cook, Mr. Dimon is often said to be an extremely effective leader, and his personal popularity may have been an influence. Heavy lobbying and aggressive tactics by the company also helped in the vote, which in any case was only advisory. (Even if it had gone against Mr. Dimon, he wouldn’t have been required to heed it.)

It’s possible that another factor introduced voting bias. Seven of the 10 institutional investors who are JPMorgan’s largest shareholders are themselves run by C.E.O.’s who are also chairmen. That was reported by Bloomberg News, which found that the top 10 shareholders held 29.5 percent of JPMorgan’s stock.

A cozy sense of entitlement is a tendency that separating the jobs is intended to combat, Erik Gordon, a professor of law and business and the University of Michigan, said in an e-mail.

“If you ask C.E.O.’s who also are chairs of their board whether it is a good idea to let another C.E.O./chair do the same thing, the answer is obvious: it is a very good idea,” he said. “That’s what they’ve told their own boards. It is hard to change corporate governance when people who like things just as they are control the votes. It’s like asking members of Congress to vote in favor of giving up their privileges.”

DOES splitting the two jobs improve a corporation? Not necessarily. Mr. Dimon suggested before the polling that he might leave JPMorgan if the vote for job-splitting prevailed, a move that some shareholders said would hurt the company.

But instituting checks and balances is good policy in government, corporate and otherwise, said Robert A. G. Monks, a shareholder advocate. Having an independent chairman is “a prerequisite of good governance but it’s not a guarantee,” he said.

Apple has had independent chairmen for years. Still, Mr. Monks contended, while it has been a colossally creative and successful company, it’s also been “an irresponsible corporate citizen,” for, among other failings, “gaming the international system” to avoid paying taxes. And such tax revenue, he said, is “badly needed right here in the United States.”

At the hearing, Mr. Cook said, “We pay every penny we owe.” Mr. Monks said that while this may be true, Apple’s tax avoidance hurts the country.

Ms. Minow put the idea a bit differently. Corporate behavior can be lethal for the body politic, she said. As a modern corporation, she said, Apple is “designed to offload as many costs as possible, and to keep as many of its revenues as possible” and is thus an “externalizing machine in the same way that sharks are killing machines.”

In the JPMorgan vote, Mr. Monks said, he was heartened by large numbers of negative votes cast against members of the board’s risk committee, an action that may portend a shake-up. JPMorgan lost $6 billion in a derivatives trading debacle in London last year — a reminder, he said, of the financial system’s vulnerability to feckless risk-taking by giant banks.

“It will take relentless effort by shareholders and by the government to make corporations behave like good citizens,” he said. Like Ms. Minow, Mr. Monks is a co-founder of the Corporate Library, a governance research firm, and of its successor, GMI Ratings. He is also the author of a new book, “Citizens DisUnited: Passive Investors, Drone C.E.O.’s and the Corporate Capture of the American Dream.”

Along with the setbacks, Ms. Minow said, corporate democracy has won victories. Earlier this month, she said, Hess, the oil company, agreed under pressure to appoint three dissidents to its board and to separate the jobs of chairman and C.E.O. “Every so often,” she said, “if you tilt at windmills long enough, you’ll find that one of them falls over.”

DealBook: Apple Raises $17 Billion in Record Debt Sale

Eric Risberg/Associated PressTimothy Cook, the chief of Apple.

With a $145 billion cash hoard, Apple could acquire Facebook, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo — and still have more than $10 billion left over.

Despite its uncommonly flush balance sheet, Apple borrowed money on Tuesday for the first time in nearly two decades. In a record bond deal, the company raised $17 billion, according to a person briefed on the deal, paying interest rates that rival those of debt issued by the United States Treasury.

Apple’s corporate-finance maneuver raises a riddle: Why would a company with so much cash even bother to issue debt?

The answer has a lot to do with the frenzied state of the bond markets. Companies are issuing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to exploit historically low interest rates and strong investor demand for bonds as an alternative to money market funds and Treasury bills that paying virtually nothing.

“If you look at these big companies like Apple and Microsoft doing these big, low-cost bond offerings, it’s a way for them to raise money in an effort to create better returns for their shareholders,” said Steven Miller, a credit analyst at S&P Capital IQ. “The bond markets are practically begging these corporations to issue debt because of how cheap it is to raise money.”

But Apple’s move also reflects the challenges of a highly successful business with a flagging stock price. In an effort to assuage a growing chorus of concerned and disappointed Apple investors, the company is issuing bonds to help finance a $100 billion payout to its shareholders. It will distribute most of that amount over the next two and a half years in the form of paying increased dividends and buying back its stock.

While Apple’s shareholders and analysts welcome the company’s financial tactics, they say that the maker of iPhones, iPads and iMacs must continue to innovate and fend off increasing competition.

“This is a substantial return of cash, and it’s the right thing to do on many levels,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Bernstein Research. “But, ultimately, the company has to execute. This is no substitute for that.”

By raising cheap debt for the shareholder payouts, Apple will also avoid a potentially big tax hit. About two-thirds of Apple’s cash — about $102 billion — sits overseas in lower-tax jurisdictions. If it returned some of that cash to the United States to reward its investors, the company could have significant tax consequences.

“We are continuing to generate significant cash offshore and repatriating this cash would result in significant tax consequences under current U.S. tax law,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple chief financial officer, during an earnings call last week.

In some ways, the bond issue on Tuesday was made necessary by Apple’s tax strategies.

“They have been so successful with their tax planning that they’ve created a new problem,” said Martin A. Sullivan, chief economist at Tax Analysts, a publisher of tax information. “They’ve got so much money offshore.”

The $17 billion debt sale by Apple is the largest on record, surpassing a $16.5 billion deal from the drugmaker Roche Holding in 2009. Apple joins a parade of large companies issuing debt with astonishingly low yields. Last week, the shoe company Nike sold bonds that mature in 10 years that yielded only 2.27 percent. Last July, Bristol-Myers issued five-year debt yielding 1.06 percent. In November, Microsoft set the record for the lowest yield on a five-year bond, issuing the debt at 0.99 percent.

Despite Apple’s $145 billion cash pile, the credit-ratings agencies did not award the company their coveted triple-A rating, citing increased competition and a concern that its future product offerings could disappoint. Moody’s Investors Service gave the company its second-highest rating, AA1, as did Standard & Poor’s, rating the company AA+. (The four companies awarded the highest credit ratings by both Moody’s and S.&P. are Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, Johnson & Johnson and Automatic Data Processing.)

“There are inherent long-run risks for any company with high exposure to shifting consumer preferences in the rapidly evolving technology and wireless communications sectors,” wrote Gerald Granovsky, a Moody’s analyst.

Apple’s less-than-perfect rating did not drive away bond investors on Tuesday. The offering generated investor demand well in excess of the $17 billion raised, according to person briefed on the deal. Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank led the sale of the issuance.

Desperate for returns in a yield-starved world, all types of investors — including individual, pension funds and mutual funds — are snapping up corporate debt. The demand appears to be insatiable: this year, through last Wednesday, a record $55 billion has flowed into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that invest in corporate debt with high-quality ratings, according to the fund data provider Lipper.

The last time Apple sold debt was in 1996, when the Internet was in its infancy and sales of Apple’s niche computers were struggling. Facing an uncertain future and struggling with a weak balance sheet, Apple had a junk credit rating and was paying 6.5 percent on its debt.

DealBook: Comparing the Valuations Behind Amazon and Apple Shares

And people wonder why it’s hard to understand the stock market.

Take a consumer sitting at home buying stuff on Amazon.com with his iPhone. To him, Apple’s product is a clear leader in the market, while Amazon is the retailer he uses most. Amazon’s shares are up nearly 40 percent over the last 12 months, while Apple’s are down nearly 30 percent over the same period. So why have their stock prices diverged so much when both companies appear to be at the top of their game?

Growth is the most common answer you’ll hear. When a company convinces investors that its earnings can keep going up, an enthusiasm grows around the shares, and they tend to perform well. Wall Street analysts expect Amazon’s earnings next year to be 66 percent higher than the forecast for 2013. They project a 10 percent uptick for Apple.

But there’s another conversation you need to have.

It revolves around whether the market has already factored the hoped-for growth into the stock price. It is possible to pay too much for excellence.

There are all sorts of ways to gauge how much credibility investors ascribe to a company’s “growth story.” One is to look at what investors are paying now for a company’s free cash flows, or the hard dollars it takes in from profits (minus the spending it does on plant and equipment). The results are stark. Apple’s stock market value is nine times last year’s free cash flows. On this metric, Amazon is at over 300 times. Sane investors would never touch a stock with such a dear valuation unless they felt cash flows were going to soar in the future.

And this brings us to the part of investing that usually separates winners from losers: guessing whether companies will actually do what we expect them to.

Amazon’s believers don’t mind that it’s spending such huge amounts on setting up new operations for its retail and data businesses. At some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, that spending will fall as the expansion reaches its limits. In that case, Amazon will be churning out much bigger cash flows as it enjoys near unassailable dominance.

Sure, but how wondrous will those cash flows be? Amazon’s operations produced $4.2 billion of cash flows last year. Let’s generously assume 10 percent annual growth for them, which would take them to $5.1 billion by the end of 2014.

Let’s be kind again and assume that capital expenditures fall a lot, to, say, $1 billion a year, from last year’s $3.8 billion. Free cash flows in 2014 would therefore total $4.1 billion.

Now, remember, at this future point, Amazon’s growth in free cash flow will have slowed a lot. Investors will probably decide to attach a lower valuation to the company. Being generous, let’s assume they value those hypothetical 2014 free cash flows at 21 times, Google’s multiple today. That would give Amazon a market worth of about $86 billion. That’s 30 percent lower than today.

Of course, the stock market believes what it wants to believe. It may well decide to remain starry-eyed about Amazon and give it a much higher valuation for years to come. But Apple’s recent drubbing suggests even the strongest runs can end nastily.

DealBook: Judge Sides With Einhorn and Halts an Apple Shareholder Vote

Eduardo Munoz/ReutersDavid Einhorn of Greenlight Capital argues that Apple violated securities regulations by bundling shareholder proposals.

9:26 p.m. | Updated

A federal judge on Friday ordered Apple to halt collecting shareholder votes on a contentious proposal to change some of its corporate charter, handing a victory to the hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

The ruling issued Friday touches on a fairly narrow legal point. But it signals a clear victory for Mr. Einhorn, who has taken up a fight with Apple over using some of the $137 billion in its corporate treasury to make additional payouts to shareholders.

Mr. Einhorn’s hedge fund firm, Greenlight Capital, has sued Apple in Federal District Court in Manhattan, arguing that the company improperly tied together several shareholder issues to be put for a vote into one proposal. Such bundling violated rules set by the Securities and Exchange Commission, lawyers for the hedge fund argued.

At the heart of the hedge fund’s complaint was that Apple combined a plan to eliminate its ability to issue preferred stock without shareholder approval with two other initiatives that Greenlight favored. By allowing the vote to proceed, lawyers for the firm argued, Greenlight was being forced to vote against its own interests.

The judge overseeing the case, Richard Sullivan, firmly agreed with that interpretation.

“Given the language and purpose of the rules, it is plain to the court that Proposal No. 2 impermissibly bundles ‘separate matters’ for shareholder consideration,” Judge Sullivan wrote in his order. The judge said at a hearing on Tuesday that he was leaning toward Mr. Einhorn’s point of view on the matter.

His ruling comes just days before the company’s shareholder meeting next Wednesday. It will also prevent Apple from accepting shareholder votes on Proposal No. 2, which had included Apple’s plans to eliminate its preferred shares. Some shareholder rights advocates have contended that preferred shares have been used as an anti-takeover tactic by boards and have pushed for their elimination.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesTim Cook, the chief of Apple.

Mr. Einhorn’s bigger goal has been to persuade Apple to return some of its billions sitting in cash to shareholders as a way to unlock the company’s value. Greenlight Capital has contended that the company has far more cash than it will ever need, and that preferred shares could provide additional payouts worth about $61 a share, while still leaving the company with an enormous war chest.

“We know they embrace innovation and can recognize it when they see it, even if it isn’t the kind of innovation people usually think of when they think of Apple,” Mr. Einhorn said in a conference call with analysts on Thursday.

Mr. Einhorn said that Apple should issue preferred shares, that would augment a stock dividend and buyback program that the company already has in place.

Although Apple was once the stock market darling for its meteoric rise, in recent months, share prices have sagged.

In a statement on Friday, Greenlight praised the judge’s ruling. “This is a significant win for all Apple shareholders and for good corporate governance,” the firm said. “We are pleased the court has recognized that Apple’s proxy is not compliant with the S.E.C.’s rules.”

Apple will now most likely have to break Proposal No. 2 into its separate elements and resubmit them to a vote.

“We are disappointed with the court’s ruling,” said Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple. “Proposal No. 2 is part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders’ best interests. Unfortunately, due to today’s decision, shareholders will not be able to vote on Proposal No. 2 at our annual meeting next week.”

Apple had argued that the plan in its entirety was actually shareholder-friendly, and enjoyed the backing of prominent investors like the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Anne Simpson, the Calpers director of global governance, said in a statement: “We continue to support Apple in their efforts, and believe that the implementation of majority voting and shareholder approval for the issuance of new stock — preferred or otherwise — is worth waiting for.”

Ruling for Greenlight Capital in Battle With Apple

Common Sense: Some Columns Revisited: Apple, ‘The Voice’ and Gay Marriage

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Samsung Drops Action to Block Apple in Europe

PARIS — Samsung said Tuesday that it had dropped its request for a ban on sales of certain Apple phones and tablet computers in Europe, a sharp tactical turn in a patent war that the companies have been fighting on multiple fronts around the world.

Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, had been seeking injunctions in a number of countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, contending that Apple, Samsung’s biggest rival in the smartphone market, had infringed on Samsung patents.

The move came only a day after a ruling in a related case in San Francisco, where a U.S. District Court judge rejected a request by Apple, which is based in California, for an injunction to block sales of certain Samsung devices. The decision followed a previous jury ruling that Samsung had violated Apple patents.

After the latest twist in the European case, Samsung said it had acted “in the interest of protecting consumer choice.” Analysts said other factors might have been in play, including a possible nudge from the European Commission.

In January, the commission opened a formal antitrust investigation of Samsung’s terms for licensing patents covering wireless technologies. Under a previous agreement, Samsung had pledged to make the patents available to competitors on “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” terms.

“The scope of what was withdrawn precisely matches the area in which the European Commission has been investigating,” said Florian Müller, a patent consultant in Germering, Germany. “It’s not just that the plot is thickening; in my view, there can be no other plausible view than that there is pressure from Brussels.”

The commission had said previously that it was concerned about possible abuse of patents like the ones at issue in the Apple-Samsung injunction request, those covering technologies needed for a device to function. Without some of these “standard essential patents” from Samsung, for example, phones cannot connect to high-speed wireless networks.

“Regulators have been saying, if the patent holders try to abuse these patents, then they are going to get in trouble,” Mr. Müller said.

The commission declined to comment directly on whether there might be a link between Samsung’s announcement Tuesday and the antitrust case in Brussels. “We take note of this development,” said Antoine Colombani, the spokesman for the E.U. competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia. “Our investigation is ongoing.”

Samsung, meanwhile, said it could not comment on the proceedings. It said it was “fully co-operating with the European Commission.”

“Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court,” it said in a statement.

There has been speculation that Samsung and Apple have been in talks to try to reach a settlement, though the broad scale of the litigation between the two companies, with lawsuits seeking sales bans or damages continuing on several continents, could make that challenging.

“We cannot comment on details of ongoing legal proceedings, but we believe a commercial resolution is achievable,” Samsung said in a statement.

Alan Hely, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment.

The announcement by Samsung does not end litigation between the two companies in Europe. Samsung said it planned to pursue lawsuits seeking damages from Apple for what it contends is patent infringement.

Apple and Samsung have also been battling over other patents, covering nonessential features of their devices, like design.

Apple, too, has previously secured bans on the sale of certain Samsung products. Last year, for example, a court in Düsseldorf ruled that Samsung could not sell one of its Galaxy tablet devices in Germany because it bore too close a resemblance to the iPad 2 from Apple.

While some analysts cited regulatory pressure as a possible reason for Samsung’s decision Tuesday, others said the company might have decided that the lawsuits were simply a distraction. Samsung’s phones, especially its Galaxy S3, have been selling well.

In the third quarter, the S3 surpassed the iPhone 4S to become the world’s best-selling smartphone, according to Strategy Analytics, a research firm.

“Maybe the market was telling them that they were succeeding and their time was better spent promoting sales of their product,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research.

James Kanter contributed reporting from Brussels.

State of the Art: All-in-One PCs From Vizio, H.P. and Apple - State of the Art

Right. Nobody knows.

And nobody cares. Today, it’s all about phones and tablets, baby. Nobody buzzes about the PC anymore. Innovation is dead. Sales are down, right?

Actually, there’s one pocket of surging sales and innovation in PC land: the luxury all-in-one computer, of the type made famous by the iMac.

I took a look at three silver, high-design, screen-on-a-stalk competitors: Apple’s new iMac ($1,300 and up), Hewlett-Packard’s SpectreOne ($1,300 and up), and the Vizio All-in-One Touch PC ($1,000 and up). (Lenovo, Dell, Samsung and Acer also offer, or soon will offer, very similar all-in-ones.)

What characterizes these computers? First, an emphasis on looks. They’re shiny, sleek, futuristic, uncluttered and cordless (they come with Bluetooth wireless keyboard and trackpad or mouse). They’re sculpture. In your kitchen or on your desk, they contribute to the décor even when they’re turned off.

The usual box of innards is missing. In the iMac, the guts are concealed behind the screen. In the Vizio, they’re in the foot of the monitor. In the H.P., they’re inside the stalk that supports the screen.

The second common trait is state-of-the-art components. These computers offer gorgeous, vivid, high-definition screens. And they’re fast; they’re powered by the latest Intel chips and lots of memory.

Third characteristic: no DVD drive.

What? Do these companies really think that the era of the disc is over? That nobody will ever again want to digitize music from a CD? Or burn some files to a disc to hand to a colleague? Or borrow a DVD from the library?

Apple, H.P. and Vizio seem to believe that everything is online now. Well, it’s not. Want to rent an Indiana Jones movie, “Jurassic Park” or “Schindler’s List”? How about “Star Wars,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”? Too bad; they’re not available to rent online.

You can, of course, buy an external DVD drive. But aren’t these called “all in ones”? A drive just looks stupid.

Now, on a laptop, eliminating the DVD drive is understandable. You carry laptops. Weight matters. Bulk matters. But why eliminate DVD drives on computers that stay in one place?

All right, end of rant.

The new iMac, clad in its traditional aluminum, is stunning. The stand is still a thin, curved L of metal — but now, the screen appears to be just as thin (0. 2 inches). Where are the guts?

Turns out it’s a trick — an illusion. Behind the screen, you see a substantial bulge; Apple tapered the aluminum as it approaches the screen, so that from front angles it seems that the whole screen is razor thin. Apple has also eliminated much of the glare that has long dogged today’s glossy screens. Viewed side-by-side with its rivals, the iMac is a lot less reflective.

There are two iMac sizes: 21.5 and 27 inches. The $1,300 and $1,800 base models come with a 1-terabyte hard drive, 8 gigabytes of memory and an i5 Intel processor. Each has four USB 3.0 jacks, two Thunderbolt jacks (for video input or output or external hard drives), and camera memory-card slot, awkwardly positioned on the back. Apple has ditched the FireWire jack it spent so many years promoting.

On the 21.5-incher, you can’t upgrade the memory yourself; what you buy is what you’ll have forever, unless you take it into the shop.

On the 27-inch model, you can install as much as 32 gigabytes yourself, through an easily opened door. (That, for the record, is about 262,144 times the memory as the original Macintosh.) Online, you can order your iMac with a 3-terabyte hard drive, 32 gigabytes of memory, a 768-gigabyte flash-memory drive and a $3,700 invoice.

Vizio isn’t a company you expect to be in the PC business; it made its mark selling high-quality, low-price TV sets. And sure enough, by far the best part of the All-in-One Touch PC is its lovely touch screen, available in 24- and 27-inch versions.

A nontouch version is also available, but the Vizio comes with Windows 8, which is far more pleasant to use with a touch screen.