Samsung pays Apple $548 million in damages after losing patent infringement lawsuit

Samsung and Apple have been seeing each other in the court room for several years now, due to a patent infringement lawsuit that the latter one made against Samsung, resulting to a long lasting legal dispute with countless plot twists and turn arounds.

Now, Samsung has agreed to pay Apple $548 million in damages, a move that follows the rejection last month, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit of a full bench hearing, in order to review the damages conflicted in the patent dispute, in the light of new information about one of Apple’s patents.

According to a joint case management statement in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division that was filed on Thursday, Samsung has guaranteed to pay all debts within 10 days after the iPhone maker sends the respective invoice.

However, at the same time, the Korean tech giant has also claimed the right of reimbursement in case any new findings come to light, including results of proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office addresses the patents at hand. And, of course, Apple has disputed that right as well.

Furthermore, just for the record, in the spring of 2011, Cupertino initiated litigating against Samsung in patent infringement suits, while Apple and Motorola Mobility were already engaged in a patent war on several fronts.

Apple’s multinational litigation over technology patents quickly gained reputation across the mobile industry and was dubbed as “smartphone patent wars“.

By August 2011, Apple and Samsung were litigating 19 ongoing cases in nine countries; by October the legal disputes expanded to ten regions and, when July 2012 came, the two companies were still embroiled in more than 50 lawsuits around the globe.

Currently, there are still several open disputes between the two smartphone makers and since this is not the first time that Samsung is paying damages to Apple after losing patent infringement lawsuit, we guess it won’t be the last one either.

Staff writer at Technology News Extra.

1 comment

Jon Jergensen says:

First off… this writer was doing fine until the end. Where they claim Samsung has already paid Apple any settlements on this patent war, that so far neither is really winning because neither has received any money except as guarantee of ability to pay if they won. So to this date neither has actually received any settlement payments.

However…. to this date only one of Apple’s patents under litigation with Samsung remains valid. Apple has contested them all, but as yet to receive any validation from USPTO’s appeals process. However the main patent that is worth the most was completely invalidated and USPTO’s decision stated that the design patent by which Apple claims Samsung to be a copyist of should never have been granted in the first place. As Apple’s court submitted prior art were never submitted at the time of application or any time before their lawsuit against Samsung began.

So basically the Patent is Canceled and this is why the entire industry is supporting Samsung in applying to the Supreme Court to decide this case and throw it back for retrial. Without that key patent being valid and only one valid patent out of both suits in progress, there is no way for Apple to claim to be harmed. Thus…. as you read this and consider Apple’s protest against basically keeping the right to regain the sum they are paying Apple at this date, only proves Apple is worried about this. Otherwise they should have no objections if they knew that their patents would ever prove valid!

If with the industry’s support across the board (and we’re talking about this setting a precedent for invalid patent claims to receive unjust awards, when the patents should never have been granted in the first place. Companies can then sue for patents without technical proof of validity and be unjustly rewarded for doing so!

This would set a dangerous precedent and we the people would be made to suffer for it with higher priced products and paying the court system legal costs with our taxes! This would not be just a Apple vs Samsung tragedy. It would mean that if I have a patent that is granted even when it has no technical merits, I can go out and sue somebody or a company and be unjustly compensated for it. Without there being any legal recourse for the losing litigant, after them paying me. Never in past litigation has the litigator ever been paid prior to allowing the process to run it’s full course through the USPTO and court appeals. It’s not only dangerous and bad for Samsung, but for Apple too!

Now they stand the chance of an embarrassing reversal on invalidity of their patents and them being canceled. But more than this they will be forced to paid any moneys they have received back to Samsung!

It is clear therefore, that this is basically just a temporary feather in their cap to satisfy share holders and their fans. But in the end…. it’s going to be more of an embarrassment than anything else. Even more so than having to publicly apologize to Samsung in UK Court for accusing Samsung of being a copyist in the first place!!!

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