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Apple's $1B Patent Award From Samsung Gets Cut By $450M

Posted by Soulskill on from the snip-snip dept.

New submitter charlesj68 writes with news that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has cut Apple's $1.05 billion patent infringement award from Samsung down by $450.5 million. She also said Samsung deserves a new trial over claims related to some of its smartphones. "Koh rejected Apple’s request to enhance the jury’s award, saying the amount Samsung owed was heavily disputed and the jury wasn’t bound to accept either side’s damages estimate. 'It is not the proper role of the court to second-guess the jury’s factual determination as to the proper amount of compensation,' Koh said in her ruling. Apple is entitled to additional damages for sales of infringing products that weren’t considered by the jury, Koh ruled, saying she intends to calculate the amount beginning on Aug. 25, the day after the jury reached its verdict. As the case has been appealed, Koh said she would delay considering evidence of actual post-verdict sales and pre-judgment interest until the appeals are completed."

11 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Re:luton to w2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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  2. Too little, too late by hyades1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's been pretty obvious from the start that Koh was in the tank for Apple. I suspect at this point, she's worried about what the appeals court might have to say about her conduct, especially if they can't find grounds to overturn her verdict.

    --
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    1. Re:Too little, too late by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 2

      I look forward to compelling evidence of your charges against judge Koh. In the future, you may want to include that with the charge.

    2. Re:Too little, too late by icebike · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's been pretty obvious from the start that Koh was in the tank for Apple. I suspect at this point, she's worried about what the appeals court might have to say about her conduct, especially if they can't find grounds to overturn her verdict.

      I suspect that Koh pretty much handed Samsung grounds for appeal when she ruled the Court has identified an impermissible legal theory on which the jury based its award, and cannot reasonably calculate the amount of excess while effectuating the intent of the jury. Groklaw saw this coming from day one.

      Further Groklaw noted months ago that

      The jury appears to have awarded damages for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE infringing — $219,694 worth — but didn't find that it had actually infringed anything

      .

      And of course there was Lucy Koh shooting off her mouth about the Galaxy 10 being in obvious infringement (even imposed an injunction, since lifted), when in fact it was found not to infringe by the jury. Ooops, how embarrassing.

      Koh is probably going to get overturned entirely on this trial. It hasn't even gotten to the appeal stage yet.

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  3. Ummm... by notknown86 · · Score: 2

    So Judge Koh said 'It is not the proper role of the court to second-guess the jury’s factual determination as to the proper amount of compensation,'.

    And then proceeded... to second-guess the jury’s factual determination as to the proper amount of compensation by $450,000,000?

    Am I missing something here? I would prefer to not RTFA if at all possible..

    1. Re:Ummm... by DragonWriter · · Score: 3, Informative

      Am I missing something here?

      Yes, you are missing that she didn't second guess the jury's factual determination, she "identified an impermissible legal theory on which the jury based its award".

      There is a difference between matters of law and matters of fact (in a jury trial in the US, the former is the purview of the judge and the latter that of the jury, generally.)

    2. Re:Ummm... by oxdas · · Score: 2

      The jury had some problems with a few phones. In one case, they ordered the phone had not infringed and then later ordered compensation for the phone. In another instance, the breakdown of compensation didn't equal the total compensation awarded (bad math on the part of the jury) and the judge doesn't know which amount they meant. There are probably more, but those are the first two I can remember.

      So, the judge order new trials on all the phones she couldn't figure out what the jury meant or they clearly used "impermissible legal theory" in determining damages.

    3. Re:Ummm... by arbiter1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sad thing about this case, its a Shorter list of what jury did right then what they completely screwed up on

  4. Re:You couldn't make this stuff up by rmdingler · · Score: 2

    Correct. This is not your typical frivolous or meritorious personal injury lawsuit where the plaintiff doesn't pay the barrister unless they win. The only thing better than 11,000 billable hours at the Cadillac Corporate Rate for the first trial? Why, the sequel.

    --
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    Ernest Hemingway

  5. Re:Argument against IP laws by arbiter1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One the biggest issues in this case was use of a double standard. The jury ruled that cause prior art couldn't run on iOS device it wasn't valid prior art. But if you use same logic the iOS patents wouldn't run on Andriod hence no infringement, but they ruled that part didn't matter and found Samsung did infringe. Its what i like to call the Political standard, commonly employed by Obama.

  6. Re:Big Deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    About an hour.

    Annual expenditure is $3.8 trillion.