Samsung says release damages it competitively; federal judge says "too bad", sides with local firm, Apple
While Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) and Apple, Inc. (AAPL) are still preparing to square off for a second major patent infringement case, both companies are also actively engrossed in battling over damages in the first case, which saw Apple found innocent of infringement and Samsung guilty of $1.05B USD in willful infringement.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Lucy Koh gave Samsung a bit of a boost in December when she rejected Apple's request to ban sales of 26 Samsung "Galaxy" products, writing that Apple failed to prove that Samsung's infringement drove the demand for Samsung products.
But she's still in the process of finalizing how much Samsung should have to pay Apple.
And this week she dealt Samsung a blow, denying a request by Samsung to seal the results of a Dec. 10 request she made to Samsung. Judge Koh had asked Samsung last month to reveal unit sales of certain products over certain time periods. It is unknown what models precisely were requested, but they likely included the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II smartphones -- centerpieces of Apple's first infringement case against Samsung.
Samsung had pleaded with Judge Koh to keep those details out of the public eye, arguing that it would damage it from a competitive perspective. Judge Koh had little sympathy for the South Korean electronics company, though, siding with local firm Apple, who argued the information should be made public regardless of the damage to its rival.
Apple is pushing Judge Koh to triple the damages to over $3B USD, which can be done in certain cases if the infringement was deemed "willful". Samsung, meanwhile, is urging Judge Koh to trim the settlement, pointing out that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has filed preliminary invalidation rulings regarding two of the key Apple utility patents involved in the case.
Thus at this point damages could go in any direction. For now all that is clear is that we'll soon be learning some new information on Samsung sales and that for now no Samsung products are banned.
Source: Bloomberg
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