Updated Nov. 21, 2013 7:26 p.m. ET
After 15 months of appeals and an eight-day retrial, a dispute between Apple Inc. AAPL +1.19% Apple Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq $521.14 +6.14 +1.19% Nov. 21, 2013 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 9.25M AFTER HOURS $522.00 +0.86 +0.17% Nov. 21, 2013 7:59 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 111,312 P/E Ratio 13.06 Market Cap $463.37 Billion Dividend Yield 2.34% Rev. per Employee $2,127,850 11/21/13 Apple Awarded $290 Million fro... 11/21/13 Jury Trims Apple's Patent Win ... 11/21/13 Samsung Ordered to Pay Apple A... More quote details and news » and Samsung Electronics Ltd. 005930.SE +0.69% Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. S. Korea: KRX KRW1450000 +10000 +0.69% Nov. 22, 2013 3:00 pm Volume : 169,351 P/E Ratio 7.42 Market Cap KRW239660.30 Billion Dividend Yield 0.07% Rev. per Employee N/A 11/21/13 Apple Awarded $290 Million fro... 11/21/13 Jury Trims Apple's Patent Win ... 11/21/13 Samsung Ordered to Pay Apple A... More quote details and news » over smartphone patents has come nearly full circle.
A federal jury in San Jose, Calif., Thursday ordered Samsung to pay Apple $290 million in damages for infringing on five Apple patents with 13 Samsung devices. The ruling came in a retrial of a portion of the original damage award.
Adding the $640 million from the original award that wasn't in dispute in the retrial, Samsung owes Apple $930 million. That isn't far from the original $1.05 billion damage award.
The $930 million total amounts to about 12% of Apple's most recent quarterly profits and about 14% of Samsung's latest income.
Thursday's ruling was a victory for Apple, which sought $380 million in the retrial; Samsung had said it should pay only $52 million.
"This case has always been about more than patents and money," an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement. "It has been about innovation and the hard work that goes into inventing products that people love." The statement said Apple is "grateful to the jury for showing Samsung that copying has a cost."
A Samsung spokesman said the company was disappointed by the ruling, which relied in part on an Apple patent that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said may not be valid. "While we move forward with our post-trial motions and appeals, we will continue to innovate with groundbreaking technologies and great products," he said.
The damages ruling is only one among many legal battles between the two companies, which split most of the profits of the smartphone industry. Samsung has countersued Apple, accusing it of infringing on Samsung patents. That trial is expected to start next year.
Even at the reduced level, the damage award in the case is among the biggest for a patent dispute, said Brian J. Love, an assistant professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law. He said the ruling will probably do little to stop the legal battle between the two companies with big war chests.
"These parties have shown no willingness to settle," Mr. Love said. Thursday's ruling is "a speed bump" on the way to an appeals court, he added.
While the two sides argued over the damages verdict, a U.S. federal appeals court on Monday said Apple could renew its pursuit of an injunction to ban 26 Samsung products.
Samsung no longer sells the products at issue in the case, but Apple says an injunction would be an important precedent in case of future infringements. Samsung has said the appeals court ruling is narrow in scope and it believes that an injunction will be avoided.
In the retrial, Apple argued that Samsung's patent infringements made it difficult for Apple to sell its products and weakened its brand in the eyes of consumers.
An Apple accounting expert said Samsung's infringing products hurt the company in three ways: by reducing profits that Apple otherwise would have earned, by increasing Samsung's profits, and by denying Apple royalties from licensing the patents.
Samsung's expert argued that the infringing patents only played a small role in consumers' decisions to buy the company's products. Other factors not covered by the patents such as bigger screen size, more powerful processors and the ability to use faster cellular networks played a larger role in purchasing decisions, he said.
Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com
via apple - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHTBTFC-3XSm12xoloZji6BA1LQ2Q&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304607104579212293317935038.html
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment