“In his opening comments of the patent damages retrial, Samsung’s attorney Bill Price told the jury a very different story about his client’s patent infringement, admitting guilt and acknowledging the price would be high,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider.
“According to trial live blog by Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury News, Apple’s attorney Harold McElhinny opened with remarks today outlining the significance of five patents Samsung was found guilty of infringing in the landmark trial last fall,” Dilger reports. “McElhinny’s opening remarks added, ‘this trial about a single question: what damages must Samsung pay Apple for violating its intellectual property rights. Samsung sold 10.7 million infringing products. Samsung, the company that broke the law, took in $3.5 billion. You will decide how much of that $3.5 billion will be returned to Apple.’ Apple is seeking $113 million in lost profits for 360,000 iPhones the company believes it could have sold without competing against its own work, another $231 million in improper profits collected by Samsung on its own sales, and $34 million in patent royalties for the intellectual property Samsung infringed, a total of $379 million.”
Dilger reports, “Representing Samsung, attorney Bill Price countered in his own opening remarks, ‘Apple is simply asking for much more money than it’s entitled to.’ During the trial and long afterward, Samsung’s representatives contended in public comments to the media that the case revolved mainly around Apple claiming to own ’rounded corners.’ However, in the retrial hearing Samsung’s case shifted its tack dramatically. ‘This is a case not where we’re disputing that the 13 phones contain some elements of Apple’s property,’ Price admitted, adding, ‘that doesn’t mean Apple gets to come in here and ask for a windfall …for more than it is entitled.’ Mintz paraphrased the conclusion of Price’s opening comments, writing: ‘What are the correct damages under the law? If you do that without bias, you come back with a ‘huge sum of money,’ but that sum is $52 million, not $379 million.'”
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