Apple awarded royalties after Samsung infringement

Apple will be entitled to royalties from Samsung following a US court’s ruling that the South Korean company infringed patents belonging to its Californian rival.

In a decision issued at the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday, (November 25), Judge Lucy Koh said Apple should be entitled to post-judgment royalties on any future sales of Samsung models that were found to infringe three patents.

The patents include US numbers 5,946,647 and 8,046,721, which cover the ‘slide-to-unlock’ feature as well as a system for adding menus to items including phone numbers and email addresses.

Samsung was also found to have infringed Apple's US patent 8,074,172, directed to predictive text input.

Following that trial, which was finalised in May this year, Apple was awarded $119 million in damages.

The most recent judgment does not include an exact royalty amount but said it related to ten Samsung products.

But, according to Florian Mueller who runs the  FossPatents blog, the royalty payments to Apple are not guaranteed.

“The court has not determined that Apple is actually entitled to royalties on Samsung's future US sales—just potentially,” he wrote.

Specifically, Mueller said, the ruling relates to products adjudicated during the original trial. Apple would have to prove Samsung continued to sell offending devices since the judgment.

Samsung had not commented at the time of writing but, according to reports, it has appealed against the judgment.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.