Samsung drags Apple back to court for a retrial over $400 million patent damages

The patent battle between Apple and Samsung over who owns the concept of smartphones with spherical corners (among other things) is back for an additional trial. The lawsuit was initially settled in 2012, with a courtroom ordering Samsung to pay Apple more than $1 billion in damages. This figure was whittled down through the years by Samsung’s legal professionals (it at present stands at $400 million) but a current profitable attraction from the South Korean electronics big means the figure will now be reassessed at trial as soon as once more.

The judgement was made yesterday by Decide Lucy Koh of america District Courtroom for the Northern District of California, with the ruling spotted and shared by patent lawyer Florian Mueller. Apple and Samsung now have till October 25th to suggest a date for the retrial, although Mueller suggests there is a 30 % probability that the two corporations will settle out-of-court as an alternative. Though there’s nonetheless a lot of money on the table, each side have proved their willingness to go to the mats on this situation (an essential sign to send out to future would-be litigators). Additionally they have greater fish to fry — specifically an upcoming authorized battle with Qualcomm, by which Apple and Samsung will probably be preventing on the identical aspect.

Presuming the retrial goes ahead, the question beneath debate would be the actual mechanics used to calculate damages on this kind of case. Samsung’s smartphones have infringed on Apple’s design patents, that a lot is settled, however should the damages it pays be based mostly on the complete revenue it constructed from its handsets, or a proportion of that profit? In any case, says Samsung, even when it copied sure features of Apple’s smartphones, these have been solely ever a half of the attraction of its own products. The Supreme Courtroom already ruled that a judgement based mostly on complete income was unfair; now each side should argue it out once more.



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