Judge clears Samsung of wilful Apple infringement
Smartphone-maker Samsung did not wilfully infringe five of Apple’s patents subject to a US court ruling last year, according to post-trial motions delivered on Tuesday.
Judge Lucy Koh disagreed with a jury which, in August 2012, said Samsung’s infringement of Apple’s software patents was wilful. Had she backed the jury’s decision, Koh would have paved the way for Apple to potentially triple the $1.05 billion in damages it won in the trial.
The jury's finding of infringement and the existing fine from the trial still stand.
Koh was ruling on one of several post-trial motions that the companies filed last year. She delivered verdicts on two of these motions in December – denying Apple a permanent injunction and Samsung a new trial – but has still to rule on Samsung’s request to reduce the damages it owes.
In August the jury ruled on subjective wilful infringement, but patentees must also provide evidence of objective infringement, which only a judge can rule on. Patentees must clearly and convincingly show that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions infringed a valid patent.
On Tuesday, Koh said Samsung did not act wilfully, mainly because it was reasonable for the company to rely on invalidity defences. When the infringement is deemed wilful, the damages can be increased by up to three times.
Ron Cass, president of Cass & Associates in Virginia, said it was unsurprising that the judge refused to triple Apple’s damages because the case involves many overlapping patents that have similar claims.
He added: “Putting aside the technical stuff, the jury awarded highly-inflated damages in August. It was unlikely that the judge would increase this large amount of money.”
Had Judge Koh tripled Apple’s damages, the effect on Samsung’s finances would have been minimal, and the company would definitely have appealed against the order, said Cass.
In the motions on Tuesday, Koh also invalidated two claims in one of the patents Samsung had asserted against Apple in the trial last year.
Cass said this ruling was surprising because the jury had not found the patent to infringe any of Apple’s IP. “The impact of that decision in this case is zero. But on other disputes, between the parties or Samsung and others, it could be important,” he said.
“The judge may have expected many of the issues in this case to be appealed against, and decided to short-circuit some of them coming back to the court.”
The US case in is just one of several disputes the tech companies are fighting across the globe. Samsung has also claimed victory, with judges rebuffing Apple’s claims over patent infringement.
