A federal court jury on Friday awarded $119,625,000 to Apple in a patent litigation victory over Samsung. The same jury awarded Samsung $158,400. Despite the lopsided nature of the awards, the decision is less than a crushing blow against Apple's Android competitors.
Politico quoted Santa Clara University law professor Brian Love as saying, “Though this verdict is large by normal standards, it is hard to view this outcome as much of a victory for Apple. This amount is less than 10% of the amount Apple requested and probably doesn’t surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Love added, “Apple launched this litigation campaign years ago with aspirations of slowing the meteoric rise of Android phone manufacturers. It has so far failed to do so, and this case won't get it any closer.”
Joel Rosenblatt at Bloomberg summarizes the patents that Samsung was found to have infringed. One related to making a call by tapping a phone number within an email or webpage, and another related to automatic spelling corrections.
Rosenblatt quotes Michael Risch, a professor at Villanova University’s law school, as saying, “Apple obviously overshot here. The most important outcome of the case is the message that small, user interface component patents are not justifying gigantic damage awards.”
Daisuke Wakabayashi in the Journal reports that both Apple and Samsung have been losing market share as they clash in courtrooms, with their combined share of worldwide shipments having fallen to 47% in the first quarter from more than 55% two years ago, according to Strategy Analytics research.
See the complete jury verdict here.
