Apple Wins Patent Infringement Case against Samsung that could be Worth More than $360 Million when this is all Over
The verdict is in and Samsung was found guilty of infringing three out of the five patents in this latest round of the Apple-Samsung patent war. While the jury charged Samsung to pay Apple $120 million in damages, the actual award may be considerably more before this is all over and we'll explain why in our report.
The Jury Makes it Clear to the Judge that they Viewed Samsung's Infringement as "Wilful"
So why could the award in this case end up being much higher than $120 million? For these two reasons:
Number one: After less than a week of deliberations, the jury on Friday found that Samsung "wilfully" copied Apple's patents. If the judge considers the jury's specific finding of Samsung "wilfully" copying Apple's patent, she can triple the award to $360 million by law. That doesn't mean that the Honorable Judge Lucy Koh will act on this but it's certainly a possibility.
Number two: Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh asked the jury to reconsider its verdict on one Samsung phone that infringed on the auto-complete patent, because it awarded no damages to Apple in that instance. The jury will reconvene Monday. It's unknown at this time how much the jury could award Apple on this count.
So the headline of Apple only being awarded $120 may only be a temporary one. As you'll note below, Apple is emphasizing this very point in their statements to the press because they will argue for the tripling of the award as the jury made a conscience decision to add "wilful" to their verdict. Wilful is a point that Apple's team hammered home in this case repeatedly. So it's not a fluke that the jury added this to the verdict for the judge to adhere to.
Yesterday an Apple spokeswoman stated that Friday's ruling reinforced its belief that Samsung "willfully stole our ideas and copied our products." She added the company will fight to defend "the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone."
Apple also stated that they were "grateful to the jury and the court for their service. Today's ruling reinforces what courts around the world have already found: that Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products. We are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers."
It's interesting to note that the neither the mainstream or Android press are acknowledging this point of law regarding the jury's verdict that considered Samsung's patent infringement of being "willful." They're all pushing the $120 million dollar mark in their bylines to make it sound worse than it may end up being. When the Apple press says something positive about the case it's supposedly because we're a "fanboy." When the mainstream ignores facts we can't call them fanboys but we can certainly call them irresponsible.
Samsung Guilty of Infringing Apple's Slide to Unlock, Data Tapping and Auto-Complete Patents
In yesterday's verdict Samsung was found guilty of infringing three out of the five patents in this current case. The jury found that some Samsung devices, including the Galaxy Nexus and the Stratosphere, were found to have infringed Apple patents for "data tapping," the feature that dials a phone number included in an email.
Some of Samsung's products were also found to infringe Apple's "slide to unlock" patent, which covers the way customers move their finger across a screen to gain access to a device.
The jury also awarded damages based on Samsung's infringement of Apple's "auto-complete" patent, which offers suggestions to customers about how to change or complete a word as they are typing on a keyboard.
However, it should be noted that the jury rejected Apple's claim on the patent that it reportedly counted as the most valuable of the group, one that enables updating of applications while other features of the phone are in use.
The jury also found Apple had infringed on one of the Korean company's own patents. Samsung, which asserted a $6 million damages claim, was awarded $158,400 or about 2.6% of what they were seeking. It should also be noted that the patent was purchased by Samsung in 2011/2012 from Hitatchi. Hitatchi used it to protect their own camera functionality while Samsung bought it as a weapon to use against Apple.
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