Apple first sued Samsung over patent infringement back in 2011. The devices over which it was sued are no longer on sale and yet the case has dragged on since then but lawsuits and countersuits being filed by both companies. The case was decided in Apple’s favor in 2012 and it was awarded $1.05 billion in damages. Samsung disputed the amount and now the fight is over the amount that’s due to the Cupertino company. The retrial of this patent violation has begun and Apple has demanded $1 billion in damages from its rival.
Samsung isn’t refuting the claim that it infringed on Apple’s patents but instead of the latter’s demand for $1 billion in damages, it’s asking for a much smaller penalty of $28 million.
Apple’s lawyer Bill Lee has said that Samsung made a profit of around $1 billion by violating the company’s design patents which Samsung is of the view that it should only be made to pay the amount it made by violating the specific patents and not the entire profits of the devices through which these patents were infringed.
That figure, according to Samsung, comes to $28 million. Samsung’s lawyer John Quinn said in court that Apple is seeking profits on the entire phone and that the company’s patents are “narrow,” reiterating that the award should be limited to the specific components of those devices that were found to infringe on Apple’s patents.
This case will continue for months to come and the tech industry will certainly be watching closely to see what the court rules in this case that’s going to set a big precedent for an industry where patent violation cases are a dime a dozen.
Filed in . Read more about Apple, Lawsuits and Samsung. Source: bloomberg