Telecom Lead America: US District Court Judge Lucy Koh on Friday decided to strike $450.51 million from the jury’s $1 billion award to Apple in the Samsung patent case.
Koh, ordering a new trial to recalculate damages for 14 Samsung products including some Galaxy products, said jurors had not properly followed her instruction in calculating some of the damages.
In September 2012, the US jury found that the Korean company had copied critical features of iPhone and iPad and awarded Apple $1.049 billion in damages.
Though industry analysts predicted that the verdict could lead to an outright ban on sales of key Samsung products.
In December, Koh refused to order a sales ban on the products the jury found infringed Apple’s patents since Apple failed to prove the purloined technology is what drove consumers to buy a Samsung product instead of an Apple iPhone or iPad.
Against analysts’ expectations, the verdict in September did not impact Samsung’s market share. In fact, in January 2013, Samsung said its sold over 100 million Galaxy S devices in 2 years and 7 months after the first model launched in May 2010.
According to US District Court Judge, mistakes were in determining when Apple had first notified Samsung about the alleged violations of patents for its iPhone and iPad.
Samsung spokeswoman Lauren Restuccia said: “We are pleased that the court decided to strike $450,514,650 from the jury’s award. Samsung intends to seek further review as to the remaining award.
Apple declined to comment on the Koh’s ruling.
The Friday’s ruling reduced Samsung Electronics’ bill to just under $599 million. The tab will probably increase after the appeals of both companies are resolved.
Apple is seeking more damages, while Samsung is looking for complete dismissal of the case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Washington, DC-based court that handles all patent appeals.
According to IDC, Samsung is leading the smartphone and mobile phone market in Q4 2012. Samsung’s market share in smartphone business in 2012 was 30.4 percent against Apple’s 19.4 percent. Samsung will continue to rely on Android as its primary operating system.
editor@telecomlead.com
