As we reported earlier this week, the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement case is undergoing a retrial. The case is about Samsung infringing on three design and two utility patents owned by Apple. The retrial is not about whether Samsung is guilty of infringement or not, but what the damages should be. Samsung is hoping to pay a smaller amount as damages while Apple is arguing against it.
Samsung wants to pay only $28 million
The Korean tech giant is relying on the recent Supreme Court ruling which said that damages from design patents could be based on the value of the infringed components instead of the total profit from the device. Accordingly, Samsung is urging the jury to limit the damages to $28 million, while Apple is demanding $1 billion in damages for infringing its patents.
By selling millions of phones which infringed on three of Apple’s design patents, Samsung reportedly made $3.3 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profit. This is the rationale behind Apple demanding $1 billion in damages from Samsung. The Korean company, on the other hand, believes that damages should be calculated only on the value of the infringed parts and not on the entire profits earned from those devices.
In the original trial in 2012, Samsung was ordered to pay $1.05 billion as damages to Apple by the Jury. After a series of legal battles, Samsung finally paid $548 million to Apple in damages, out of which $399 million is under examination in the 2018 retrial. The case went all the way to Supreme Court before coming back to the same lower court for a retrial.
