Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
BY SCOTT MALONE
ANCHOR CHRISTIAN BRYANT
Six months after a jury awarded Apple just over $1 billion in it’s monumental patent
infringement suit against Samsung, a U.S. district judge is cutting that amount almost
in half - because she believes the jury’s math was off.
Federal judge Lucy Koh slashed $450 million of that original settlement and ordered a
new trial because she felt the jury needed “to sort out how much Samsung should pay
for 13 devices where the jury’s math is in dispute.” She described how she came
to her conclusion:
“When a Court detects an error in the jury’s damages verdict the
Court has two choices: the Court may order a new trial on damages, or the Court may reduce
the award to a supportable amount.” (Via CNN)
But Koh did both Friday. She slashed the king-sized award almost in half, and says
Apple could get more than that - depending on what the court decides to add in interest
and damages from Samsung’s sales. (Video via Bloomberg)
As for the new trial:
Koh says it will determine how much - if any - of the more than $400 million up in the
air actually should be given back.
A writer for the Wall Street Journal calls this
move “a setback for Apple, which has locked horns with Samsung in courtrooms around the
world for nearly two years.”
The case stems from Apple’s claim that Samsung infringed
both its iPhone and iPad product patents. Apple says Samsung got its ideas for the Galaxy
smartphone and their tablet from those two devices. (Video via WJLA)
And the U.S.
isn’t the first front the two smartphone giants have waged war on. The BBC points out
the two have court cases in eight other countries as they battle for the smartphone market crown.
Koh
did not give a specific date for the retrial, but multiple outlets believe that it will
happen in late August — a year after the first trial opened.