Jury to re-assess $450 million Apple damages

A new jury trial will re-examine $450 million of the $1.05 billion damages Samsung was fined last year for infringing six of Apple’s design and utility patents.

Judge Lucy Koh said on Friday that some damages resulting from the trial are heavily disputed, as the jury used “impermissible legal theories” when calculating them.

The jury awarded damages for each product infringed but Samsung breached six patents in total, making it hard to quantify what proportion of each per-product damage corresponds to any of the six patents.

The $450 million damages to be re-assessed cover 14 Samsung products, including the Galaxy Tab and Nexus S 4G. The damages for the remaining 14 other products, totalling nearly $600 million, still stand.

Koh, who was ruling on post-trial motions from last August’s dispute, did not name a date for the new trial but said the parties should first appeal against the ruling (if they want) before a trial takes place.

The judge has already settled other post-trial motions, including denying Apple a permanent injunction against Samsung’s infringing products and rejecting Apple’s claims that Samsung’s infringement was wilful (a decision that could have tripled the damages).

Apple has appealed against the injunction denial and is expected to appeal against the wilful infringement rejection.