post Tuesday May 6, 2014
After months of trial , the U.S. judges estimated the definitive compensation Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has to pay to Apple Inc. at $119.6 million. Samsung was accused by Apple for infringing three patents of the American company. Samsung obviously denied all wrongdoing, but now the judges have come to a conclusion.
It is not the first battle that Samsung has lost against Apple. [1] At first, Apple wanted to raise the penalty. Their attorneys claimed that the jurors made a technical mistake in determining the amount of money Samsung had to pay. Thus, on Monday the jury was ordered back to court to resolve the issue.
Some jurors were in favor of raising the compensation Samsung has to pay to Apple, but eventually agreed with the consensus. Some of them also think that avoiding court is the best way to solve problems and dealing with problems is much simpler that way.
The war between Samsung and Apple is worldwide. [2] Judges awarded about $930 million to Apple in 2012. [3] Apple also wanted to block the sale of Samsung phones permanently in the U.S. then, but they failed to convince U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in the end. In 2014, Apple is still seeking to ban sales of several Samsung phones. It is unlikely that they will win the case though, according to legal experts.
However, the jury also found Apple guilty of infringing patents of the Korean company. Samsung claimed $6 million and was awarded $158,400.
Google was also involved in the trial between the two tech giants, because the phones of Samsung run on the mobile operating system developed by Google: Android. Even though Google was not a defendant during the trial, they did get blamed by Samsung. The Korean company claimed that some features on their phones were actually invented by Google and thus they called several executives to testify on Samsung’s behalf.
However, the mentioning of Google by Samsung did not really make adifference on the outcome of the trial, said jury foreman and International Business Machines Corp executive Tom Dunham.
Source: Reuters
Image courtesy of David Castillo / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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[1] http://www.iprplaza.com/news/2013/10/15/samsung-loses-latest-round-in-smartphone-battle
[2] http://www.iprplaza.com/newsitem6385/samsung-seeks-dutch-ban-on-iphone-and-ipad
[3] http://www.iprplaza.com/newsitem9254/apple-seeks-samsung-sales-ban-in-us-and-$707-million-more-damages
