U.S Jury after nearly five days of deliberations has decided that Samsung should pay $539 million to Apple over patent retrial. This ruling comes seven years after the start of a global patent battle. Apple had filed for patent battle back in 2011 on Samsung mobiles and tablets for bluntly copying its products.
Although Samsung was found liable in a 2012 trial, a disagreement over the amount to be paid bought the current trail to picture where arguments ended on May 18. To remind you, Samsung had previously paid $399 million over patent infringement, but the company requested to re-examine the decisions made in the patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. However, the jury has been deliberating the case since last week.
Samsung had already paid Apple $548M for infringing company’s smartphone patents including $399 million for products that infringed the design patents plus more for infringing a utility patent. Though it paid, it appealed the same in Supreme court who ruled in December 2016 that Samsung did not have to pay $399 million of that amount to Apple. While the case is again sent back to lower courts to figure out which specific patents should be considered along with the final penalty figure.
Apple has argued that it is entitled to $1 billion in profits Samsung made from selling infringing phones. Samsung claimed that it is liable to pay just $28 million only for the damages. Now that damages decided on this, it looks like jury has cut about half of what it had wanted.
In a statement Samsung said:
Today’s decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages. We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers.
Apple in a statement said:
It always been about more than money. We believe deeply in the value of design, and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers.