May 5, 2014

Despite Victory, Jury Verdict Fell Far Short of the $2B the Cupertino Company Had Hoped For

It’s impossible to say if the patent war between Apple and Samsung is finally over, but the iPhone maker has won the latest round — sort of.

A U.S. jury has ruled in favor of the Cupertino company, ordering Samsung to shell out $119.6 million for violating two patents.

It is not a complete victory for Apple, however, because the sum awarded by the jury is less than 10 percent of the $2 billion the company actually asked for.

Apple accused Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus as well as other devices of violating four of its patents. The court proceedings examined software and user interface patent breaches, including the rights to the search technology integrated in the iPhone Siri voice feature.

One expert told Reuters that the amount the iPhone maker was handed by the jury “probably doesn’t surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case.”

“Apple launched this litigation campaign years ago with aspirations of slowing the meteoric rise of Android phone manufacturers,” Brian Love, assistant professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, told Reuters. “It has so far failed to do so, and this case won’t get it any closer.”

Despite the small reward, Apple said the ruling proved that “Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products.”

Apple is also seeking an injunction against 23 Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S III. It is up to U.S. federal district court judge Lucy Koh if that will go ahead.

Koh has already denied several requests by Apple to implement a permanent U.S. sales ban on the devices found to breach Apple’s patents, saying the firm “has not established that it is entitled to the permanent injunction it seeks.”

Experts told Reuters it is not likely Koh will alter that stance.

“An injunction is extremely unlikely,” Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School, told Reuters. “The Federal Circuit sets a high bar.”

Koh, who sits on the bench in Northern California, had already awarded Apple a small victory in a partial summary judgment in January. She ruled the firm’s Android Smartphones breach Apple’s patent for an autocomplete feature that suggests words based on what the user is typing. Koh also invalidated Samsung’s patent for multi-media synchronization.

The ruling means one of Apple’s five patent complaints had been decided in the iPhone maker’s favor, leaving four to be decided at trial, while Samsung was also down to four patent complaints, after a fifth was shot down by Koh.

Samsung, which asked for $6 million in damages was awarded only $158,400.

Apple and Samsung are not the only companies to hold a stake in the outcome of the patent fracas, however.

Google, maker of the Android operating system on which Samsung’s handsets operate, also played a role in the drama.

During the trial, Samsung said some of the features Apple has claimed to own were, in fact, created by Google. A number of Google executives testified on the South Korean firm’s behalf.

Apple argued that Google’s decision to reimburse some of Samsung’s costs means the jurors should not be swayed by the Google factor when it comes to Samsung’s liability.

The much smaller than expected damage award also caused Apple’s lawyers to insist that the jurors made a technical mistake in their calculations.

Koh has ordered the jurors to return today to resolve the issue. Even if Apple is handed more money, it is not expected to amount to more than a few hundred thousand.

Jennifer Cowan is the Managing Editor for SiteProNews.