Apple vs Samsung are into legal war and
hopefully its coming to an end, once again Apple is the winner at the end. After 50 hours of testimony, Samsung was found
guilty of infringing two patents No. 5,946,647 and No. 6,847,959, while not
guilty on the remaining three No. 7,761,414, No. 8,046,721, and No. 8,074,172.
As a result, Samsung was ruled to award Apple $119,625,000, although that is
down from the $2 billion Apple had requested. Apple, meanwhile, was ordered to
pay Samsung $158,400 for one of the two patents Samsung alleged infringement. The second patent infringement trial follows
the August 2012 verdict when a jury awarded Apple over $1 billion in damages
against Samsung. U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh would later reduce the
financial damages to $929.8 million. Apple and Samsung are likely to appeal on the
jury's verdict. Why such
high monetary compensation reduced to $119,625,000? US Patent Code §284 allows a trial court, in
its discretion, to enhance damages for infringement up to 3X as punishment for
willful infringement In many jurisdictions, the plaintiff in an IP
infringement matter (e.g. patent, trade mark, copyright or design) has a choice
when pursuing financial compensation. The
first option is damages, which is an estimate of the amount lost by the
rights-holder as a result of the infringing activity. The second option is an account of profits, which is an estimate of
the amount of additional profit the infringer made as a result of their
infringement. The plaintiff must select one or other of these options before a
court will determine any monetary award.
The main factors influencing the choice of
compensation method are which one the plaintiff thinks will provide the greater
award, and/or whether one can be calculated with greater accuracy or certainty
than the other. The calculation of an account of profits is typically
non-trivial, because not all of the profit made by the infringer is necessarily
due to the infringing activity. Had the
infringer chosen to use the best non-infringing alternative, it may have made
fewer sales, but its sales would not necessarily have dropped to zero. In the particular case, Apple would chosen the
damages to calculate around $40 monetary compensation for each infringing mobile bringing onto the
market, where the Court decided the monetary compensation around 6% of Apple’s
claim. Orders for monetary compensation are decided by
judges, who are generally experienced in such calculations, or are able to
obtain additional advice and/or expert evidence to assist in determining the
appropriate award. Pham
& Associates