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The result is in! It’s taken four weeks of legal tussles in the court room, and two and a half days of deliberation (involving sifting through hundreds of pages of documents), but the jury has found Samsung guilty of copying the iPhone and iPad, and awarded Apple over $1bn.
The jury also rejected every one of Samsung’s patent claims, and found the Korean company had breached US antitrust law by trying to keep its wireless patents as a monopoly. So what does this mean for the world of tech?
Apple originally asked for $2.75bn in damages. While the jury didn’t agree on all counts, the verdict was only in Apple’s favour. Samsung will have to pay Apple damages of $1,049,393,540. It won’t receive a penny in return, as every one of its counter-accusations were quashed. The Korean company was seeking $421m.
Here’s the full list of Samsung products that the jury found infringed Apple’s patents. It includes the Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Ace.
And you can go through the full 20 page verdict here.
So what happens next? Judge Lucy Koh has scheduled a preliminary hearing on injunctions for 20 September. Depending on the outcome, it could mean some of the offending Samsung devices are banned from sale, in the US at least. Apple will have to file its requests by Monday, Samsung will have two weeks to respond, and then both companies will sit down on 20 September. I’m guessing it won’t be over tea and cakes.
This hearing was scheduled more than three weeks away to give Samsung “maximum time”, according to Koh. Expect Apple to go all-out, asking for as many products as possible to be banned. And based on the outcome of the trial, it could well succeed.
The jury returned the verdict quicker than expected — one Apple lawyer came into the court in his civvies, he was so unprepared. Should it have all gone Apple’s way? Should Samsung devices be banned? Or is the whole trial misguided? Let me know what you reckon in the comments, or on Facebook.
