Samsung To Pay Apple Inc $548 Million In Damges For Patent Infringement


Samsung will likely be ordered to pay Apple over $500 million dollars after Samsung was denied its most recent appeal in a five-year long court dispute over patent infringement. Apple claims that Samsung created phones that looked very similar to the Apple iPhone and the court apparently agrees. This payment will be one of many, as this is not the first time that Samsung was accused of hijacking Apple’s phone designs.

In 2011, Apple sued Samsung for copying the iPhone and after a year of litigation, the court ruled in favor of Apple. Samsung was then ordered to pay over $1 billion in damages, according to the Wall Street Journal. Samsung agreed to pay half of the damages, which would be disbursed in monthly payments over the years. Samsung continues to pay on the original award and now is being sued for an additional $400 million. Despite the court, which has continuously ruled in Apple’s favor, Samsung holds tight to their claim that their products are one hundred percent original.

“While we’ve agreed to pay Apple, we remain confident that our products do not infringe on Apple’s design patents, and we will continue to take all appropriate measures within the legal system to protect our products and our intellectual property.”

Apple is specifically referring to it’s patent for a white iPhone, and although the company does not own the right to the color white, Samsung’s patents are completely void of the rights to produce white-colored phones. According to the official court document, Samsung only obtained a patent for a design of black-colored phones, which motivated the court to rule against them.

Image via T3 Magazine/Getty Images
[Photo by T3 Magazine/Getty Images]
Image via Apple Bookazine/Getty Images
[Photo by Apple Bookazine/Getty Images]
When the court ruled in 2012 with the help of a nine-member jury, the lawyers on each had yet to review the 20 page verdict and it was believed that Samsung had not only the opportunity to appeal but also to be reimbursed. The same year the amount of damages was decreased for Samsung but the court decision to pay Apple was still not overturned. Now Samsung is speaking quite openly about reimbursement expectation.

Reportedly, Samsung’s decision to proceed with asking for reimbursement depends on future rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. With one government entity holding the responsibility of providing the patent documents of Apple for litigation and the other with the responsibility to rule on the legitimacy of Apple’s claims against Samsung; any mistakes about patent infringement rest on the two government parties. Therefore, the reimbursement that Samsung is looking for will likely come from them instead of Apple.

Despite the fact that Apple is not likely to owe Samsung any money in the event that the South Korean company is granted a reimbursement, the U.S. tech giant has stated that it “disputes Samsung’s asserted rights to reimbursement.” Samsung, on the other hand, has stated in the official court document that reimbursement is expected if the verdict is at any time reversed.

“Samsung further reserves all rights to reclaim or obtain reimbursement of any judgment amounts paid by Samsung to any entity in the event the partial judgment is reversed, modified, vacated or set aside on appeal or otherwise, including as a result of any proceedings before the USPTO addressing the patents at issue or as a result of any petition for writ of certiorari filed with the Supreme Court.”

Apple, Inc. stands by its claims that Samsung has copied the iPhone and has declined to make a statement on the pending court date to decide whether or not Samsung owes Apple additional millions for patent infringement. Since no settlement was reached, Samsung has given Apple the opportunity to issue them an invoice by Friday in order to receive their damages payment by Dec 14.

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