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The battle goes on. After years of spending millions (if not billions) of dollars and thousands of hours in court, Apple and Samsung are still waging the patent war. This time, the conflict is over software instead of hardware. Apple took Samsung to court in the U.S., again, with the trial ending last Friday. The jury found that, of the five patent infringement claims that Apple had, three of them were legitimate. At the same time, Samsung accused Apple of infringing on two of their software patents. The jury found in favor of Samsung on one of them.
According to a synopsis of the ruling by Re/code, the jury found that all of Samsung’s phones infringed on patent 647, the “quick-links” patent. Additionally, some of Samsungs products infringed on patent 721, the “slide-to-unlock” patent, while others did not. The jury also found that Samsung “willfully infringed” on a third, unnamed patent.
At the same time, the jury decided that, of the two patents Samsung was accusing Apple of infringing on, one was accepted, although not considered willful. The jur awarded Samsung $158,400 for that patent.
Originally, Apple sought $2.2 billion in damages against Samsung for the five patents in question. Samsung wanted $6 million. In the end, the jury calculated the damages to be $119.6 million for Apple and $158,400 for Samsung. A calculation error was noted on Friday and subsequently fixed Monday morning, but the final amount was the same.
“We are grateful to the jury and the court for their service,” Apple told Re/code. “Today’s ruling reinforces what courts around the world have already found: That Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products. We are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers.”
Samsung had the same positive spin on the outcome in a statement released Monday.
“We agree with the jury’s decision to reject Apple’s grossly exaggerated damages claim. Although we are disappointed by the finding of infringement, we are vindicated that for the second time in the U.S., Apple has been found to infringe Samsung’s patents. It is our long history of innovation and commitment to consumer choice, that has driven us to become the leader in the mobile industry today.”
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