Apple and Samsung are always looking over their backs following the high competition they encounter from their ideal gadgets. This week Samsung launched a tablet that looks exactly like an iPad. This is a sign that, court battles between the two tech companies will never end.
On Tuesday U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh set a retrial for March or April of 2016 in which a jury will pass a ruling on the amount of patent infringement damages Samsung owes Apple. The new trial will mark the third one in the patent court battle that was supposed to end in August of 2012 when a jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion after they discovered that Samsung had breached key Apple patents with five Samsung devices.
The two companies battle each other not just in the tech market but also in the courtroom. Samsung and Apple have used a lot of their resources suing each other over patent violations. Apple’s suits are aimed at Google’s Android operating system that has dominated the market making iOS suffocate in the dark.
After the first jury trial in 2012, Judge Koh in March of 2013 said.”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.”CNET reports that the judge sliced $450.5million off the original $1.06billion judgement. In November 2013, a jury ruled that Samsung must pay Apple more than $290 million in additional damages for patent infringement, slightly less than the $380 million Apple had requested.
Later on, Samsung appealed the decision and in May, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the violations concerning design patents but struck down certain damages related to trade dress. Trade dress is a legal term referring to the way a product is packaged or presented. The new trial set for next year will call on a jury to once again deliberate over the amount of damages.
The judge will limit the 2016 trial to seven days and give each company only six hours to present their evidence.
“The instant retrial on damages will be the parties’ fourth jury trial before this court, third jury trial in the instant case, and second damages retrial in the instant case,” Koh wrote in Tuesday’s order. “The court will not permit the parties to expand the scope of the damages retrial and will not allow the parties to rely on new sales data, new products, new methodologies or new theories.”
Samsung wants the 2012 verdict overturned, they appealed to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals but the court rejected the request. Now, Samsung may take the case all the way to Supreme court.
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