Mike Snider, and Jon Swartz

USATODAY

Could the recent verdict in Apple's landmark patent lawsuit against Samsung Electronics lead to lessened legal hostilities between the two consumer electronics giants?

Don't hold your breath.

Neither side came out a complete winner in a federal jury's decision late Friday that Samsung infringed on two of the patents that Apple had sued over. It ruled that Samsung phones did not infringe on two others, and awarded Apple $119.6 million, a fraction of the $2.2 billion in damages it had sought.

That award includes the jury's damages for another patent, concerning autocorrect features that the presiding judge had previously ruled had been infringed upon by Samsung. After deliberating for nearly three full days, the jury of four women and four men also found Apple infringed one of Samsung's patents, and awarded the Korean company $158,400.

The two companies' previous legal face-off in this high-stakes legal battle over software features used in smartphones and devices resulted in Apple being awarded nearly $1 billion in damages two years ago. That case is under appeal and this one likely will, too.

"The Apple-Samsung case is a legal boxing match that may have a few more rounds to go yet," says Neil Mawston, executive director of the global wireless practice at research firm Strategy Analystics. He had anticipated a mixed outcome in the complex case.

For its part, Apple "clearly thought it would get more out of its patents," says University of Notre Dame law professor Mark McKenna, who specializes in intellectual property, trademark, patent and copyright law.

And Samsung "fared much better than they might have, if you think what they potentially were on the hook for," he says. "But it's hard to call anyone a winner who has to spend the kind of money they spent litigating a case and then get ordered to pay $120 million in damages."

What Samsung may have succeeded at is convincing, this jury at least, that "Apple's beef here really is with Google," McKenna says. "I think they really feel like they have advanced the ball a little bit there."

Apple did get a victory "in principle," says John Fletcher, senior analyst at SNL Kagan. "Love or hate them, the 2007 iPhone launch changed everything in wireless."

While he hopes that both companies would focus more on creating new innovative products, Fletcher doubts that the legal battles will end soon. "The grudge match will continue."

There's still a bit of work for the court to do Monday. The jurors must consider another issue and Judge Lucy Koh could adjust the damages. She must officially decide whether any Samsung or Apple products should be taken off the market -- an unlikely outcome, McKenna says.

The lower damages awarded in this case could dissuade future lawsuits. "It would be good for consumers, if what this does is take the some of the focus off the legal battles and put more of it on coming up with innovative products," McKenna said. "I hope that is what happens, but I wouldn't want to predict that."

And an upcoming Supreme Court decision about the validity of software patents could "change the landscape" in regards to patents, too, he said. That case, Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, he says, "could make litigating these patents less attractive for Apple, Samsung and everybody else."

That could lead to Increased competition in smartphones and devices, McKenna says, because "in order to get into the market you have got to have a massive portfolio of patents. Otherwise you are just threatened with being sued out of existence before you can even get started."