Tee hee, ha ha. Everybody loves a good troll, right? On a scale of one to 10, this one rates perhaps a three. A California judge and jury ruled that Samsung owes $1,051,855,000 for patent infringement and associated naughtiness. And, if Sammy paid the iPhone maker in nickels that would be about 21 billion five cent pieces.
Yes, Apple won the largest patent verdict in history against Samsung on August 24. Whether or not all or any part of the $1-billion-plus gets paid is another matter and will likely takes years to sort out.
No, Samsung hasn’t and frankly couldn’t pay Apple with nickels, at least entirely so, if for no other reason than there aren’t that many in circulation. In fact, nowhere close to that number exists.
The recent Apple iPhone 5 asymmetric screw hoax was a pretty good troll as it had both elements of a good troll — believable and extremely difficult to disprove. Rate that one an eight.
But that’s often the point of a “good” troll — otherwise smart people waste their time looking for pedantic, logical ways to disprove the troll.
“Oh dude, you totally fell for it… Tee hee, ha, ha!”
With a little imagination, however, there are lulz to had here. For example, think of Samsung’s CEO (dressed ninja style) shouting, “I’ve got your effing billion right here, Apple! Mu-wah-ha-ha-ha…” as a dump truck full of nickels empties its payload into the iPhone maker’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarter lobby.
That said, if you really want to find who foisted the “Samsung to pay Apple with nickels” troll on a suspicious internet and give them pageviews (i.e. a nickel for your trouble), then by all means have at it…