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“Samsung Electronics Co. took a gamble when it appealed a finding it infringed Apple Inc.’s smartphone design patents, and a friendly subsequent ruling from the U.S.’s highest court made it seem like the bet would pay off,” Joel Rosenblatt reports for Bloomberg. “Instead, Apple won an additional $140 million.”
“Seven years after the start of a global patent battle, a jury in a lower court in San Jose, California, delivered a verdict Thursday heavily favoring Apple in a trial that could reshape how companies view the value of patents that protect the shape and design of products,” Rosenblatt reports. “Samsung had appealed the case, and won a 2016 Supreme Court ruling giving it a chance to pare back an earlier award. After that ruling, the basic question for the jury was: Should Samsung have to pay damages based on sales of smartphones in their entirety, or just their components that infringed the iPhone maker’s patents?”
“‘As the saying goes, be careful what you ask for,’ Neel Chatterjee, an intellectual property litigator in Silicon Valley, said of Samsung’s appeal. ‘The jury saw substantial value tied to the design elements of the iPhone, and actually awarded more than Apple previously won,’” Rosenblatt reports. “Now Samsung has to pay $539 million, an increase of $140 million. That makes it a ‘huge loss’ for Samsung, said Michael Risch, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law in Pennsylvania, “and shows the risk it took by continuing to fight.””
“While the verdict isn’t significant for either company’s bottom line, Apple has long maintained there’s a bigger principle at stake. After the 2012 jury sided with Apple, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the lawsuit was about values, and that the company “chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying” its work,” Rosenblatt reports. “Apple said in a statement after the verdict that the case “has always been about more than money.”
Read more in the full article here.
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