Samsung began making its case this morning that Apple had infringed two of its standards-essentials patents, but it was Intel that took center stage as Cupertino pointed to the chip manufacturer as its main defense. Tim Williams testified about two of Samsung's standards-essential patents — the '941 and '516 patents — that cover technologies relating to packet transmission and power regulation for data channels on cellular devices. In his research, Williams found that both the iPhone 4 and the 3G variant of the iPad 2 infringed the patents (the features of both patents are incorporated into the 3GPP Release 6 standard, which Apple itself says it supports).

The problem is Intel. Apple attorney William Lee pointed out that the functions in question all occur within an Intel-made baseband processor that Apple buys, and that Intel itself already has a license to use the inventions. Under questioning, Williams admitted that Apple devices don't perform the functions anywhere else, and that as far as he knew, Apple engineers had no hand in the design of the baseband processor in question.

Samsung was eager to point out Williams' bona fides — he holds 27 patents relating to communications systems — with the witness himself saying that he was participating in the trial because "I want a strong US economy for my children and I want a strong US patent system." Apple took his assertion head-on, revealing that Williams had testified several times against Apple on behalf of both Motorola and HTC. Lee also forced Williams also admit that he had taken home around $1 million from law firms for each of the last two years for such testimony — though nearly all of the expert witnesses we've seen have reported large payouts in connection with their testimony.