How many of you remember the big Apple v Samsung case that started in 2012? Yeah, Apple still hasn’t gotten their money, over 3 years later. The first trial saw Apple awarded $1.049 billion in damages. But since then there has been a second trial along with countless other countersuits. Now the amount is down to $548 million, and after Samsung failed to petition the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to get an en banc hearing, to see if Apple could enforce damage payments, Samsung has now announced that they are making arrangements to pay for the $548 million in damages to Apple. This comes in a joint statement from both companies. Samsung is now waiting to receive the original invoice from Apple. The company says that if it arrives before the weekend, they will make the payment by December 14th. Samsung didn’t mention when the payment would be made if the invoice isn’t made before the weekend.
What’s interesting here is that in the statement it indicates that Apple may not hold on to these funds forever. Basically, what this means is that even though Samsung is finally making their payment to Apple, they aren’t looking to give up and will demand a refund if the situation between these two companies change in the future.
“Samsung continues to reserve all rights to obtain reimbursement from Apple and/or payment by Apple of all amounts required to be paid as taxes.”
So here we are 3 years after that original verdict was made, and Samsung is just now paying Apple what they owe in damages. But this doesn’t mean that this thing is over, not by a long shot. You haven’t heard the last of Apple v Samsung, and it may soon become Samsung v Apple in the near future.
Even after this entire lawsuit played out, Apple still relies on Samsung for a number of parts for their iPads and iPhones. Including processors, displays, storage, RAM and much more. So as much as Apple wanted to get this $548 million out of Samsung, they are still paying them to make parts for their mobile devices. Even though they’ve switched over some of these parts to Sharp and LG.