The Judge that was overseeing the Apple v Samsung trial, Judge Lucy Koh, has just delivered a serious low-blow to Apple. She has just cut the damages that Samsung owes Apple down to $598,908,892 from $1.049 billion that was awarded back in the August verdict. Judge Lucy Koh stated” the Court identified an impermissible legal theory on which the jury based its award,” and because of that Apple’s award was cut in half.
Judge Koh is also ordering that a new trial take place to determine new damages for the amount she cut. Which is roughly $450,514,650, if my math is correct. She also encouraged both sides to go through the appeals process with this order before proceeding to a new trial.
After the trial completed, both Apple and Samsung had filed different post-trial motions. Apple was requesting more damages, while Samsung requested a reduction in damages or a new trial altogether. Judge Koh agreed that Apple was indeed owed some additional damages for sales of infringing devices from Samsung that occured after the end of the trial. Due to the number of outstanding issues she said that this issue should wait until appeals in the case have been met and completed.
The amount that Samsung owes Apple was reduced greatly, she did not say that the jury was incorrect in assessing whether Samsung was infringing upon Apple’s intellectual property. At this time, those decisions still stand.
So it looks like the Apple v Samsung trial is far from being over, still. Especially with all the appeals and post-trial stuff going on before the second trial begins. Then it’ll be like starting all over again. While Samsung was wrong for infringing Apple’s patents, no matter how dumb those patents may sound, I wish these patent trials would just go away. Maybe Apple and Samsung can settle like HTC and Apple did in late-2012.
Source: Damages Order