Apple received a decisive victory against Samsung, saying that the Korean tech giant infringed all but one of the seven patents at issue in the case. While they ruled that all seven of Apple’s patents were valid they also ruled Apple didn’t violate any of the five patents Samsung asserted in the case.
The end result is $1.05 billion in damages. While this is not the $2.5 billion Apple asked for, it provides ammunition for more legal attacks on mobile device rivals.
“This is a huge, crushing win for Apple,” said Brian Love, assistant professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.
The jury found that five of the seven Apple patents were willfully infringed by Samsung, meaning that Judge Lucy Koh has the discretion to triple Apple’s damages award. “The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than even we knew,” said Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton. “We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy.”
This decision could mean its more difficult for competitors to copy the market leader and that Apple could have an easier time defending its positions. It could also lead to decreased competition and hirer prices.
Many believe that appeals for this case will be taken all the way to the Supreme Court. Others see the case as an example of how U.S. intellectual property law should be reformed and question whether juries should be ruling on these matters at all.
“Software patents are clogging the system at every possible point,” says Christal Sheppard, an assistant professor of law at the University of Nebraska College of Law. “This could be the bellwether case that goes to the Supreme Court to decide what invention in the 21st century really means for software.”
Source: Wall Street Journal
