Apple demands further $22 million from Samsung
Apple is demanding Samsung pay a further $22 million in legal bills following a high-profile, multi-million dollar damages ruling.
California-based Apple is seeking $15.7 million in attorney fees and a further $6.2 million to cover its expenses in the wake of its patent infringement re-trial against Samsung.
The figure, if approved, would be a partial reimbursement for the $60 million dollars Apple spent on legal fees during the case.
Samsung would have to meet the cost as well as the $930 million that a jury ruled it owed Apple following last month’s trial at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
District Judge Lucy Koh had previously awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages at the initial trial in August last year but vacated $450m after ruling it had not been calculated adequately.
Koh said the only way to accurately determine the correct amount of damages payable would be through a re-trial by jury.
The re-assessed portion of damages, which amounted to $290 million, covered 14 Samsung products, including the Galaxy Tab, Nexus S 4G and Galaxy Prevail.
Under US law, to be awarded fees, Apple needs to demonstrate by “clear and convincing evidence” that the case is exceptional, said Michael Oblon, partner at Perkins Coie in Washington, DC.
Oblon added that Apple’s $60 million in invoices “might have been the highest ever for any patent litigation” and that, although capping the demands to $20 million was more closely aligned with other cases it was still a “staggeringly high” amount.
“Typically, design patent litigation is far less complex than patent litigation concerning method or system patents. Given the enormity of Samsung’s sales and the damages that were at issue in the case, it is understandable that Apple’s lawyers would use a large team and leave no stone unturned.
“Nonetheless, the judge will consider the fact that design patent cases are not usually very expensive to litigate, and in this case, the design patents at issue were very especially straightforward,” said Oblon.
South Korean-based Samsung had attempted to stay the case during the jury’s deliberations after it was revealed the US Patent and Trademark Office had questioned the validity of one of the six patents Apple had asserted against it.
The patent, number 7,844,915, also known as "pinch to zoom," is currently valid but the USPTO said there remained questions over its claims, which Apple will be required to answer in order to prove its validity.
“The court will review the invoices from Apple’s lawyers and, keeping in mind the complexity of the case, [Koh] will compare the lawyers’ billing rates and number of hours expended with patent litigation survey data,” Oblon added.
A January 30 hearing has been scheduled to examine the requests.
