Keep in mind, that I'm not a lawyer and offer no expertise with the law. Recently, Apple won a major victory against Samsung in their patent lawsuit. They alleged that Samsung used Apple's patented technology in the Galaxy S phone and other devices.
Samsung now faces the possible banning of devices in the US market. That may end up not happening. There are appeals and all sorts of legal maneuvering yet to come in pretty much every court in the world.
This is generally seen as a proxy war against Google and Android. Many of the interface issues the jury found to be infringing were Android interface issues, and some of them were even items that have been removed in Android Jelly Bean, such as notifications menus that bounce a little when you pull them down. The pinch to zoom motion is still problematic, and it will be interesting to see how Google manages to respond to this.
So, is this going to ruin the phone market, or is it going to force greater innovation? At this point, it's hard to tell.
