Apple vs Samsung – Erratum and update.

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Adjusting view for error regarding wilful infringement.

  • Yesterday’s note (see here) was incorrect in its statement that no finding of wilful infringement had been found against Samsung.
  • In fact, Samsung has been found to wilfully infringe the ‘721’ patent which claims rights over the slide to unlock feature on smartphones.
  • This means that Samsung was aware that this feature was patented and deliberately infringed the patent by copying the feature.
  • Therefore, RFM’s view that Apple’s post trial comments were without merit was incorrect and is withdrawn.
  • However, the relevance of this wilful infringement is to be questioned given how the jury calculated the damages associated with this particular infringement.
  • Wilful infringement is a serious infraction and is often punished by tripling the damages awarded.
  • Hence, I am assuming that this has been taken into account when calculating the damages awarded to Apple.
  • For the wilful infringement of the ‘721’ patent the jury awarded Apple $2.99m amounting to just 2.5% of the total award which in was already just 5.4% of what Apple had originally asked for.
  • This strongly suggests that:
    • The jury did not consider this patent to be of significant importance as without wilful infringement damages could have been as low as $1m.
    • The wilful infringement did not do Apple’s business any meaningful damage.
  • Hence, I suspect that this finding of wilful infringement will not affect Samsung in any material way although it could be used against the company in future lawsuits.
  • Hence, my view that this is nothing short of a pyrrhic victory for Apple and that the real winners are Google and the Android makers remains unchanged.
  • Furthermore, I still believe that this result will make Apple more willing to negotiate and that a deal could follow in reasonably sort order.

 

RICHARD WINDSOR

Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.

Blog Comments

I think it’s up to the judge to decide whether to triple the jury’s damage claims as part of the willful infringement, but I may be wrong. In any case, I hold the same opinion as you — this is a Pyrrhic victory, not worth the hassle, and if both companies don’t settle soon enough they will drag this on for years and in the end they’ll only exchange peanuts, if anything at all.

I believe it is in judge’s discretion. If my memory is accurate, Samsung was found to be a willfull infringer in the first trial for some or all patents in question, but the judge did not triple the damages.