Later this year, the US District Court for the Northern District of California is set to commence in a limited damages retrial for the first Apple v Samsung case, to determine damages with respect to the 13 of 28 accused products. This was ordered by Judge Lucy Koh on April 29th of this year. This trial is set for November 12th. But there is a caveat here. Samsung was allowed to bring another motion for a stay based on progress in its efforts to have the USPTO invalidate a few of the patents in this trial. With the asserted claim of the rubber-banding patent being confirmed last month, and other reexaminations being far behind, prospects for a stay are really not bright at all.
It’s come to light now that Apple has “claim vastly greater damages” as shown in the image above. Back in August of last year, the jury awarded Apple damages of $1.05 billion, which was later decreased. But that $1.05 billion was less than half of what Apple was asking for. Samsung decided to challenge the verdict on a variety of grounds. Apple also challenged the few aspects of the verdict that weren’t favorable to it. Judge Koh upheld almost all of the jury’s liability-related findings, which was really great for Apple.
In the November trial, Apple’s damages expert Terry Musika, which is a certified public accountant will not be there. Terry passed away last year. Which means Apple needed to appoint a new CPA, which is Julie Davis. Davis also had to present a new report. She can’t be reasonably required to testify based on someone else’s report. Koh did make it clear that her damages theories would have to be consistent with what the court allowed last year.
Samsung’s motion for relief is heavily-redacted. An exhibit that contained correspondence between counsel actually provides more useful information on Samsung’s objections to Davis’s new 393-page damages report, than the public redacted version of the motion itself:
“By way of example, and without limitation, Ms. Davis’s new report: (a) improperly changes the design around periods; (b) includes new per-product damages calculations, which Ms. Davis calls ‘incremental profits’; (c) includes 42 alternative damages calculations hinging on different assumptions; and (d) includes extensive commentary on new evidence and trial testimony.”
Apple has refused to withdraw Davis’s report and disagrees with Samsung that the case schedule can’t be kept due to a dispute over the report. There’s still over 4 months before the retrial. Not only did the jury award Apple far less than it asked for, but according to what Apple informed the court on the April 29th hearing, “In some places, Michael Wagner came up with numbers larger than the jury came up with.” Additionally, “If you look at the verdict here and you look at it in its aggregate, you look at it at least as certain products, the number the jury awarded was smaller than Wagner’s number.”
So the patent war continues between Sammy and Apple.