The bitter battle between Apple and Samsung over smartphone patents that had seemed decided by a $1.05bn (£698m) award in the US courts last August is not quite over yet.
Judge Lucy Koh late on Friday knocked $450m off the $1.05bn award, and ordered a new jury trial to decide how much – if any – damages Samsung should pay for infringements by 14 handsets and tablets from the original case.
Her decision does not overrule the jury's decision in the original trial; the new jury will only decide the size of damages to be paid over 14 other products that were found to infringe Apple's patents on design or use, or both. That is almost certain to up the damages from the new level Koh suggested – though it's unclear whether it would raise it to the same level as before, or more, or less.
Apple will also be entitled to interest on the total damages at the US Treasury bill rate (of just 0.16%) for the period between the verdict and the final judgement, and supplemental damages based on sales of infringing Samsung devices since the verdict. Samsung says only three of the devices from the trial are still on sale.
In the original trial, the jury decided that some Samsung products had copied the appearance of Apple's iPhone 3GS, and also infringed a "rubber-banding" patent when trying to scroll past the top of an onscreen list, and the "tap to zoom" function to enlarge text on screen with a double tap of the finger. Though some – including Samsung – complained that the decision was hasty, reached after just three days' deliberation, and contentious, Koh declined to overturn it.
Koh made the order following demands from both Apple and Samsung for, respectively, higher and lower damages.
Source: The Guardian
