I'm not sure how comparable the employment numbers are given that Samsung does more of their own manufacturing whereas Apple outsources to Foxconn (or Samsung) et al. It makes Apple look like they have a much larger percentage of U.S. workers when you discount the six digit number of factory workers making iPhones in China.
But let's go ahead and assume Apple employs more U.S. workers per device shipped than Samsung. It's still the case that the money gained in litigation doesn't go to the workers. Apple isn't going to hire any researchers or manufacturers with $121B in the bank that they wouldn't have with $120B. The people who get the extra money are the shareholders in the form of either dividends or stock price, and the stockholders are again predominantly large institutional investors for both companies.
Where the economic effect comes in is that those investors will now expect based on past performance for Apple's stock to improve and Samsung's to decline, and so increase their holdings in Apple. If Apple as a rule employes more U.S. workers than Samsung then this is ostensibly a good thing for the U.S. because then Samsung may not have as much available capital to develop new products etc. and Apple will have more, so Apple will be more competitive in the market and need to hire new employees to meet demand etc. There is every possibility that this doesn't actually happen because Samsung can afford to take the hit and keep doing what they were going to do anyway and Apple doesn't have any productive internal use for the extra money, but if it does happen, that would be the national economic good that Congress would be interested in preserving.
But that's where we get back to the premise -- does the patent system help or hurt? Apple's U.S. employees are the researchers, not the manufacturers. Having more sales because the competition has been damaged by litigation and can no longer compete effectively will cause Apple to need more factory workers to sell the extra devices, but those workers are in China. Conversely, by harming the competition's ability to compete, Apple is less in need of the R&D jobs that employ U.S. workers, because the bar has been lowered as to how good of a device Apple needs to produce to make the sale, so why spend more on R&D? Why even spend as much as they might have against a more competitive Samsung?
The point is, funneling money into U.S. companies doesn't inherently produce U.S. economic growth or provide any benefits to U.S. citizens. And if it simultaneously causes economic inefficiency, it can in fact do the opposite.
But let's go ahead and assume Apple employs more U.S. workers per device shipped than Samsung. It's still the case that the money gained in litigation doesn't go to the workers. Apple isn't going to hire any researchers or manufacturers with $121B in the bank that they wouldn't have with $120B. The people who get the extra money are the shareholders in the form of either dividends or stock price, and the stockholders are again predominantly large institutional investors for both companies.
Where the economic effect comes in is that those investors will now expect based on past performance for Apple's stock to improve and Samsung's to decline, and so increase their holdings in Apple. If Apple as a rule employes more U.S. workers than Samsung then this is ostensibly a good thing for the U.S. because then Samsung may not have as much available capital to develop new products etc. and Apple will have more, so Apple will be more competitive in the market and need to hire new employees to meet demand etc. There is every possibility that this doesn't actually happen because Samsung can afford to take the hit and keep doing what they were going to do anyway and Apple doesn't have any productive internal use for the extra money, but if it does happen, that would be the national economic good that Congress would be interested in preserving.
But that's where we get back to the premise -- does the patent system help or hurt? Apple's U.S. employees are the researchers, not the manufacturers. Having more sales because the competition has been damaged by litigation and can no longer compete effectively will cause Apple to need more factory workers to sell the extra devices, but those workers are in China. Conversely, by harming the competition's ability to compete, Apple is less in need of the R&D jobs that employ U.S. workers, because the bar has been lowered as to how good of a device Apple needs to produce to make the sale, so why spend more on R&D? Why even spend as much as they might have against a more competitive Samsung?
The point is, funneling money into U.S. companies doesn't inherently produce U.S. economic growth or provide any benefits to U.S. citizens. And if it simultaneously causes economic inefficiency, it can in fact do the opposite.