Apple’s $1.05bn compensation from Samsung cut in half, following a US court order Friday.
Federal Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California issued the order slashing a grand total of $450,514,650 ($450.5m) off the $1.05 billion fine previously imposed by a jury in August 2012.
Samsung was ordered to pay the amount following a nine panel jury found it wilfully infringed six out of seven of Apple’s technology patents (including multi-touch gesture and icons) and copying the trade dress of the iPhone for use on various Galaxy Tabs and smartphones.
Judge Koh ordered a new damages trial to determine the amount the Korean giant now owes Apple for the patent infringements. In post trial motions Cupertino made a request for supplemental damages for five additional devices, while Samsung demanded a new trial.
Samsung’s lawyers reverse-engineered the jury’s approach to the damages it awarded Apple for the patent infringements “but only to a degree of granularity that enabled the court to identify some legal errors on the part of the jury,” notes Florian Mueller, Foss Patents.
There will be a new jury sitting on the trial from the one which passed down the $1.1 bn damages awarded last year, who will now need to figure out how much damages Samsung should pay on 14 devices found to infringe upon a number of Apple patents.
There was some controversy about the nine panel US jury after the ruling against Samsung last year.
“The $450 million amount corresponds to 14 Samsung products, with respect to which a new damages trial must be held because the court cannot make the adjustments it deems necessary for legal reasons,” notes Foss Patents.
The 14 Samsung devices to be the subject of the new trial include: Samsung Galaxy Prevail, Gem, Indulge, Infuse 4G, Galaxy SII AT&T, Galaxy Tab, Nexus S 4G, many of which are not sold here.
The jury set one damages figure per product, but several different intellectual property rights were found infringed leading to confusion about how much Samsung should be fined.
However, the Galaxy Tab maker still has to cough up $598.9 million to its tech rival, and Apple is still entitled to supplemental damages based on the sales of Samsung devices that infringed Cupertino’s patents during the period between the verdict and the final judgement, notes Foss Patents.
But patents guru Mueller believes “it’s unlikely that it [Apple] will physically receive any money before the final resolution of this dispute,” which could be quite a while by the looks of things.
This dispute has been going on since December 2010 and Apple V Samsung case is also currently being heard, once again, before the Australian Federal Court and is scheduled to continue until June 13, and in courts throughout Europe.
The move could result in a lower or higher fine for Samsung by the jury in August, which could potentially be good news for Samsung.
At the time Samsung said the ruling and the $1.1 bn fine was “absolutely the worst scenario for us,”
