Jury Finds Samsung Guilty of Infringing Apple Patents, Awards Apple $119.6 Million in Damages
The jury has reached a verdict in the second Apple vs. Samsung trial. The jury has reached a unanimous verdict that Samsung infringed on two of Apple’s patents, awarding Apple $119.6 million in damages.
After three days of long and careful consideration, the jury has found Samsung guilty of infringing on two of the five Apple’s patents. Thus the jury has ordered Samsung to pay Apple $119.6 million in damages, which is way less that $2.2b Apple was hoping for. Samsung had argued that it should pay only $38.4 million or $1.75 per device in damages.
The jury found all Samsung devices infringed on the ‘647 data syncing patent owned by Apple, while ‘721, slide-to-unlock patent was infringed on by some Samsung devices. Earlier in January, judge Koh had found Samsung infringed on Apple’s ‘172 autocomplete patent. No Samsung devices was found to infringe on ‘959, universal search, or on ‘414, background syncing patents of Apple.
On the other side, the jury ruled out that Apple’s Facetime has infringed on Samsung’s 449 patent related to video streaming, and has been ordered to pay $158,000 in damages to the Korean company. None of the Apple’s devices were found to have infringed on Samsung’s ’239 patent.
This second lawsuit started on March 31st. Google has apparently agreed to cover legal fees and pay potential damages as some of the patents are the features found in Android OS. Today’s verdict is unlikely to end the patent war between the two tech heavyweights. Both sides are expected to appeal the ruling.
Apple has issued the following statement after the ruling:
We are 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.
Macrumors reports that Samsung may have to pay more than $119.6 million as Apple lawyers have found an error in the calculation of damages. The Galaxy S2 which was found to infringe on Apple’s ’172 patent received no damages.
[via reCode]