A jury of seven men and two women has just read the Apple v. Samsung verdict to a packed courtroom—and it was all bad news for Samsung. The Korean electronics giant has been found to infringe all of Apple's utility patents and all but one of the four design patents asserted, and was ordered to pay $1.05 billion in damages to Apple.
That's less than the $2.75 billion Apple asked for, but still a huge sum. If it holds up on appeal, it will stand as the largest patent verdict of all time. More importantly, it gives Apple a huge leg-up in the corporate patent wars, and immeasurably strengthens the company's negotiating position with regard to the Android phones it is struggling against.
Since Samsung's patent infringement was found to be willful in many cases, the $1.05 billion damages figure could go up. Patent law allows for up to triple damages in cases where infringement is found to be willful, although judges rarely grant that much in additional damages.
Samsung has been the number one seller of smartphones in the U.S. in the past few years, and this verdict will surely alter the balance of power. Apple's ultimate target is Google, which created the Android operating system that runs on Samsung smartphones. Steve Jobs thought Android was a rip-off of Apple products, and vowed to declare "thermonuclear war" on the competing OS, according to his biography.
Now, the world will get a chance to see just what the results of Jobs' promised nuclear attack will be. There's a danger that Samsung products could be kicked off the market following this verdict. However, that decision will have to be made in the coming weeks by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who oversaw the case. Koh has scheduled a hearing on that issue for Sept. 20.
During closing arguments, Apple portrayed Samsung as a enthusiastic copycat that took a shortcut to profits, engaging in a three-month copying spree that piggybacked on the years of hard work Apple witnesses said it took to create the iPhone. Samsung, meanwhile, denied those copying allegations, and accused Apple of being a courtroom bully that refused to compete in the marketplace.
Apple's three utility patents, all found infringed, cover features like double-tapping to zoom and the "bounce back" technology that snaps images back into place. The company's four design patents cover elements like the contours and shape of the iPhone.
The jury also rejected Samsung's arguments that the patents were invalid. Samsung escaped an infringement finding on only one of Apple's patents, a design patent asserted only against two Samsung tablets.
Samsung's counterattack against Apple, using six of its own patents, went nowhere. The jury found that Samsung's patents weren't infringed, and Samsung won't get any of the $422 million it was asking for.
The jury of seven men and two women returned the verdict faster than expected, after just two and a half days of deliberations in the San Jose federal courthouse. The jury was given access to one of each of the accused phones, which could be turned on and used, but did not have Internet access. At the end of the day, they had to fill out a complex 20-page jury verdict form [PDF] that includes hundreds of individual patent and trademark accusations against each company. Closing arguments took place late Tuesday.
The case, which began with opening arguments on July 31, has been an unusually tense one, with US District Judge Lucy Koh often sniping at lawyers on both sides.
The verdict was originally reported as $1.051 billion, but there were "inconsistencies" in the jury form, and the jury spent about an hour working those out. That lowered the final damages amount by $2.4 million, for reported total of $1,049,343,540.
Below is a copy of the verdict form, which the jury used to make its ruling.
The verdict follows closely after a South Korean court decided that both companies infringed each others' patents, a ruling seen to favor Samsung. However, the US battle is the centerpiece of the worldwide legal battle between the two smartphone companies, and is by far the most significant.
In addition to patent and trade dress claims, Apple also made antitrust and breach-of-contract claims, saying that Samsung was using its industry-standard patents in an illegal way. Those claims failed, but were a tiny part of Apple's case.
This win also strengthens Apple's hand in a newer lawsuit [PDF] filed against Samsung in the same court. That lawsuit, scheduled to go to trial in 2014, accuses a newer generation of phones of infringing Apple patents and trademarks. Apple's position is that Samsung has continued to make illegal copies of its product, releasing no less than 17 phones in the last part of 2011 that infringe Apple patents, including various Galaxy II models, the Galaxy Nexus, the Stratosphere, and others.
An Apple spokeswoman made this statement on the verdict:
"The mountain of evidence presented during the trail showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than even we knew. The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right."
In an e-mailed comment, a Samsung spokesperson said the verdict was a loss for consumers, and promised the fight isn't over:
"Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies... This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple’s claims.”
Following the verdict, the jury chose not to speak to the throng of media outside the court building. Court staff escorted the nine jurors out of the building through a back exit.
reader comments
920