Jury says Samsung, Apple both infringed patents
SAN JOSE, Calif. - A California jury awarded Apple $119.46 million, far less than it demanded, in a patent battle with Samsung over alleged copying of smartphone features, and the jury made the victory even smaller by finding that Apple illegally used one of Samsung's patents.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - A California jury awarded Apple $119.46 million, far less than it demanded, in a patent battle with Samsung over alleged copying of smartphone features, and the jury made the victory even smaller by finding that Apple illegally used one of Samsung's patents.
The verdict was a far cry from the $2.2 billion Apple sought and the $930 million it won in a separate 2012 trial making similar patent infringement claims against older Samsung products, most of which are no longer for sale in the United States.
The jury found that Apple had infringed one of Samsung's patents in creating the iPhone 4 and 5. Jurors awarded Samsung $158,400, trimming that amount from the original $119.62 million verdict. Samsung had sought $6 million.
"Though this verdict is large by normal standards, it is hard to view this outcome as much of a victory for Apple," said Brian Love, a Santa Clara University law professor. "This amount is less than 10 percent of the amount Apple requested and probably doesn't surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case."
Unlike the first trial in San Jose federal court in 2012, Samsung lawyers made Google a central focus of their defense. Google makes the Android software that Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers use as their operating systems. Samsung argued that Google was Apple's real target.
More than 70 percent of smartphones run on Android, a mobile operating system that Google Inc. has given out for free to Samsung and other phone makers
Both companies will now try to urge the judge to remove the others products from store shelves in the United States. Love and other experts say that neither company is expected to succeed with those demands.
"So far Apple has been unsuccessful at doing so and, without a sales ban, this case is unlikely to move the needle on the larger battle between Apple and Android," Love said.
The verdict marked the latest intellectual property battle between the world's top two smartphone makers. Apple and Samsung have sued each other around the world.
Apple and Samsung are locked in a bitter struggle for dominance of the $330 billion worldwide smartphone market.