“A U.S. jury on Thursday awarded Apple Inc $290.45 million, or 76% of Apple’s requested amount, in a damages retrial against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the latest battle in global patent litigation between the two mobile giants,” Reuters reports.
Apple had requested $379.8 million, while Samsung argued that it should have to pay only $52.7 million. In August of 2012, a nine-person jury sided with Apple on its claims patent infringement against Samsung. At that time, the jury awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages. Subsequently, Judge Lucy Koh in March ordered a new trial to recalculate some of the damages in the case, striking $450.5 million off the original judgment against Samsung.
The judgement is expected to be appealed by Samsung. yet another U.S. Apple v. Samsung patent trial is scheduled to begin in March 2014to deal with more recent devices, including Samsung’s Galaxy S3 phone and Note 2 phablet.
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung is a despicable outfit. Do not buy Samsung-branded products.
Up yours sam scum!!!
Very, very disappointed in this as it is far, far too low. It will have zero effect on Samscum.
The remaining approximately $600 million in damages was left intact by Judge Koh, and Samsung will have to pay a total of $890 million.
It’s this much plus another $600 million from the previous trial, meaning a total of $890 million, and only on a small set of patents and a small set of products. The suing and damages will continue. That, according to the Times.
Timothy, Jinx!
All things considered, the $290M award not too bad.
It is terrible, and terribly low.
Gee, 1$ for every infringing phone. Crime seems to pay.
You forget that this is just one part of the award. Another $900mm awarded by the original jury still stands.
It was 600 Million – not 900.
$1 per device is about what you would expect in royalties if you had signed a FRAND agreement.
But the problem is, the patents that SameDung/Scum violated are NOT FRAND patents. They were Apple’s proprietary IP. $1 per infringing phone isn’t even a slap on the wrist.
Like WhoKnows observed, seems that crime does pay
It is purely a disgrace. Samsung got away with murder and got a $50 dollar fine for murder.
FRAND does not apply to “design” patents. FRAND applies to SEP’s.
SEP: Company “A” decides to include its patent in a Standard (e.g. 803.xx) in agreement with the Standard setting Body (e.g. IEEE).
The Stanadard setting body (eg. IEEE) allows company ‘A’ to licence the patent on a FRAND basis co company ‘B’, “C’, ‘D’…..etc..
Company ‘A’ is not allowed to patent at ‘any’ rate for the “advantage” of being part of “the standard”.
Apples “design” patents are NOT part of any Standard. These patents are free to licences at “whatever rate” Apple wants to licence. There is no FRAND for these patents.
If sometime down the road Apple wants its patent to be part of a Standard, then and only then, will Apple will have to come to an agreement with the Standards body to licence their patent on a FRAND basis.
Not all of the patents Apple is asserting in this suit are design patents – the pinch-to-zoom patent is a utility patent. But you are right that none of the patents Apple is asserting against Samsung are SEP (Standard Essential Patents), and so FRAND (Fair Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory) requirements do not apply to them.
Patents are the right to stop someone else from using your invention. Many patent-holders use that to make people pay them royalties. However, many other companies (like Apple!) would prefer to use them to maintain a competitive advantage by actually NOT allowing anyone else to practice that patent. Any kind of damages trial that assumes otherwise undermines a major point of the patent system. In theory, damages for infringement should be an attempt to discover how much the patent-holder would have (honestly) been willing to accept if the infringer had offered to pay. In Apple’s case, that is probably a VERY high amount, since they really didn’t want anyone else to be able to use it at all.
Now, all that being said, I think the vast majority of patents issued today are bullshit, including those held by Apple. The patent terms are also way too long for fast-moving fields like software and electronics. The whole thing is a giant mess, and most of the “easy fixes” cause more problems than they solve. I took a bunch of classes on this at law school (I am an attorney, but not yours *grin*), and fixing this is tricky. But, there are definitely improvements that can be made. Good luck on that, though, since some of it requires Congressional work, and both parties are heavily influenced by powerful corporations that want to maintain the status quo and screw the public.
Also, in a fair world, the damages should be tripled for willful Infringement for commercial gain.
It’s unfortunate that after admitting in a court of law under oath that they infringed upon Apple”s patents, the jury does not see fit to award the full amount being sought out by Apple. Maybe another court will make up the difference overseas.
Well above the $52 million that Samsung wanted though and closer to the $380 million Apple asked for.
So what does that make the total fine, almost 900 million?
Not exactly chump change, but not exactly going to hurt Samsung either.
Congratulations to Apple in their case, but, I still feel like this is a drop in the bucket considering how much Samsung has been able to profit from stealing Apple’s IP.
Some justice is better than no justice and this also sets the precedent for future legal action against the convicted and other potential cheaters.
Samsung should really be paying $20/handset – the entire usability of touchscreens was invented by apple. before apple touch-screens needed a stylus or HUGE, simple, single touch buttons. Multi-touch and heuristics made the touchscreen usable. samsung and android should be forced back to a stylus, or fork over $20/handset.
“android should be forced back to a stylus” along with their frackin keyboard
A terrific precedent!
This is what most iHaters are missing from their puny brains. LOL
Did I read that right? They are expected to appeal it? WTF? How many times does Apple have to prove Samsung stole Apple’s designs? By the time this all over, court costs and lawyer fees gotta be taking a huge chunk of that money..
Actually, that’s a good question. Isn’t Samsung on the hook for (at least some of) Apple’s legal fees throughout the trials and appeals processes?
I hope this teaches everyone a lesson. That Blackberry, Motorola and Nokia should have copied better.
The lesson is yet to be learned…Apple will be teaching it and feeding it for years to come and Samscum has no hope in the long run of ever being anything but a cheap, no match alternative to anything worthy.
There’s no etjics, innovation, quality or integrity in anything sanscum does, that can hold a candle to Apple and for that matter to any inventive company. Cheap zerconia is nothing but a trailer trash diamond.
This is a huge news story, but the newzzzz media will ignore it…guaranteed. Samsung has no OS and is dependent on google forever…they can’t make any product from scratch…and their watch shows their innovation ability. Their watch would not make an Apple R&D prototype to even test.
Tizen?
This should keep Tim Cook stocked in power-bars for a good while.
😉
Love it. Every iPhone you buy supports Samsung. So good. Go Sammy Go!
Samsung should move their headquarters to Australia. Since that is a nation descended from convicts, it would only make sense.
The USA received more British convicts than Australia…
… and all the puritans.
The latter were the most troublesome and their descendents continue to plague the USA.
Nah, our politicians continue to “Plague” our nation with the full support of their attorneys.
the ‘descendents’ are the reason God has not yet judged America, and that is about to change.
That’s way to harsh, I mean I’d consider sending a terroristic serial killing child molesting psychopath to death row, prison for life or even the Guantanamo bay detention bay but there is not crime on earth that warrants being sent Anustralia.
Going beyond the fine, which is great for Apple. The fact that Convicted Samsung lost is a big win for Apple and IP. Moving forward future upcoming cases will be an advantage for Apple!!!
like, “here is the feature found on these phones, and they do exactly what the earlier phones did, and they’ve already been convicted of copying, so all these other phones are going to be pulled off the shelves and destroyed…NOW!”
suit goes on to deliberation with no evidence needed, three weeks later android junkies get all bleary eyed jonsing for some crappy eye candy for free, and google gets scared shitless because of upstream “ramifictions” (like how I did that? being as google is basically the anus of the web, and are going to get it in the rear eventually for the iOS copy)
Haaaa. MDN. Like.
That makes $930 million less that Samsung has to pay trolls. Not a bad start.
Oh yeah, I bet the Paid Trolls are getting a pay cut. LOL
If it means they have to stop doing it, it’s worth it.
well, you can’t blame lucy, she did all that she could for the brothers.
I wish MDN would keep this at the top of the page for the rest of the day. So that we can bask in Victory for the justified win.
The Samsung ‘legal team’ (lol) know exactly how inept the US judicial system appears to be. Whilst Apple Inc. may be right and quite justified to pursue their arguments through the courts as much as they want the end result is … ‘peanuts’… Samsung and others have learnt how to ‘beat the system’ and set a precedent for other thieves to follow.
Only problem with the MDN take is that Apple is SameSong’s best customer. They even fab the Apple A series CPUs.
Thankfully, Apple’s investment in Samsung is progressively shrinking as Apple instead invests in superior companies with a superior future.
SamScum to pay more with 2014 Trial ….
And possible import bans as well as PatentGate and possible lying to the courts ….
“We have filed for over 200 patents for all of the inventions in the iPhone; AND WE INTEND TO PROTECT THEM”~~~~Steve Jobs, 2007
They thought he was bluffing when he said this…I bet they don’t now 🙂