Apple Wants Another $707 Million From Samsung

angry tapir writes "A California jury may have awarded Apple more than US$1 billion in damages in late August when it triumphed over Samsung in a hard-fought case over smartphone and tablet patents, but the iPhone maker is coming back for more: late last week it asked for additional damages of $707 million. The request includes an enhanced award of $535 million for willful violation of Apple's designs and patents, as well as about $172 million in supplemental damages based on the fact that the original damages were calculated on Samsung's sales through June 30."

Comments

Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I share your sentiment. Apple is increasingly becoming a downright scary company, Perhaps *all* their staff should watch those "think different" ads again. The company seems to be almost aiming for a Big Brother badge these days.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Drakonblayde]

Sorry to all the Apple fanboys out there, but it becomes increasingly hard to feel any sympathies for Apple. Seems that Apple's fame is slowly declining...

Right, because a stock price that's still over $700/share and 2 million pre orders for the iPhone 5 in 24 hours is clearly an indication of declining fame. Most people don't know about or care about this litigation. They just know Apple makes stuff they like. I don't like alot of the things Apple does as a company, but I like the products they make. I don't like the products that their competitors make, they don't fulfill my needs. So what am I going to do, refuse to buy Apple out of some sense of moral outrage? Sorry, not going to make myself less productive as a show of support for some other big mega-corp? Samsung is not some innocent bystander getting picked on by the big kid on the block. There's sin enough to go around for *all* players invovled in the smartphone market, so the moral reprehension is pretty much a wash for me. So in the end it boils down to who has the product I prefer to use. Those are the people who get my money.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[Anonymous Coward]

This recent behavior by Apple is no different than they've always acted. They've always been scary, they just haven't had the resources to be particularly dangerous until recently.

Re:Hard to like Apple any longer

[GReaToaK_2000]

It took this long for people to realize that Apple has never been nothing more than a cut-throat Capitalist company?

Really? Steve Jobs was NEVER a Saint nor was he ever nothing more than Bill Gates (in his Microsoft days) with a "cool veneer".
I'm sorry to all you Apple distortion field loving fanboys and girls out there but Steve was ALWAYS a vicious business man.
The difference between Jobs and Gates (besides the obvious) is that Gates changed over time and became an amazing philanthropist. Even in Jobs’s dying days he was still cut throat, admirable if you’re a business person but that’s it.

I’m tired of the rhetoric. Apple is just another company that since it’s driving force (Steve) is gone has been reduced to pissing matches with patents.

I hope Samsung wins.

bad looser

[Anonymous Coward]

If a company has to make profit by law-suits there is something fundamentally wrong with it.

I am but a small cog

[Anonymous Coward]

But hope that my action of replacing my broken 2007 MacBook Pro (yes, the Nvidia chip and out of warranty) with a PC will help send a message to Apple.

No more Apple devices in my home.

Obligatory Ice-T

[srussia]

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

The game being IP.

Re:Obligatory Ice-T

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn't we hate the players? The players spend millions upon millions lobbying to change the rules of the game in their favor, often at the expensive of innovation.

I know it's fun to mindlessly spout clíchés, but they're not always true.

Not so funny anymore

[Damouze]

How about the millions of damages for the idea of a tablet computer, posthumously, to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke?

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[Nerdfest]

This is what happens when you give into a terrorist's demands. You get more demands, closely followed by more terrorists. Blame it on the patent system all you want, it existed for a long time without companies behaving like Apple.

If I were a shareholder

[darkat]

If I were a shareholder I would be quite worried about the (cr)Apple strategy. IMHO this is a clear signal of lack of innovative ideas. Innovation cannot be a continuos flow and they are reaching their limits. I doubt that the iphone 5 will be a planetary success because of the lack of real innovation in it. It's a sad black thing with infamous rounded corners. It's not appealing neither aestethically nor tecnologically. The competitors do at least the same and also much better. They appear on the descending path.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[jbolden]

Samsung in 2011 did $42b in sales and $4.7b in profits. They aren't going to be strapped for cash. On the other hand an award that large would destroy the profitability of their Android strategy. It would turn infringement from a money maker to a money loser.

Swiss

[bloodhawk]

If they win maybe they can use the proceeds to pay the swiss railway. by the sounds of it apple believes in harsh penalty for wilful violation. Swiss Rail will be very happy to hear apple feels this way.

Try to keep up ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

Bullshit. I am not saying that the Patent dispute is valid. What I am saying is that Apple makes hardware and software and sells it. It is not correct to say that defending their patents is how they make their money. What you are thinking of is a patent troll. You cannot expect any company to ignore patent violations, and you cannot fault any company for refusing to ignore them. Unless that company is a patent troll, any claim that they make their money through patent lawsuits is ridiculous. Apple makes their money by designing and selling computer systems.

Re:Try to keep up ...

[shentino]

Apple is a patent troll because the patents they are beating over Samsung's head are bullshit and never should have been issued in the first place. Yet the court grants the USPTO a wide berth of "deference" when the USPTO is already rubber stamping things expecting the courts to clean up THEIR mess.

It's a chicken and egg situation where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

It's a racket.

And Apple is in on it.

That makes them a patent troll.

Worse yet, you can't get a reexam at the USPTO without shitting your position up in court if you get sued later. According to the law, if you botch a reexam you cannot use prior art as a defense in court.

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[drinkypoo]

Blame it on the patent system all you want, it existed for a long time without companies behaving like Apple.

Bull. Infringement actions like this are typical there is nothing unusual here at all legally.

Uh, not bull, that's what he said. There's nothing unusual here at all, legally. That's the problem..

Re:Squeezed for cash?

[PopeRatzo]

In this story alone we have posts claiming settlement money is needed to keep Apple afloat and Apple are terrorists.

That's just silly. Everyone knows that Apple's just trying to make sure they don't have to compete.

Competition is a pesky thing when you're on top. It's sort of the consumer electronics equivalent of the 1927 Yankees having the entire Philadelphia Athletics team killed on the way to the ball-park.

I mean, you're already 19 games ahead, but a little insurance is always good. And ultimately, it's not about winning, it's about humiliating the competition and making sure you win forever without having to try so hard.

It makes me understand why not everyone is comfortable having a businessman as president.