Having awarded Apple nearly $10.5 billion is the August trial Judge Lucy Koh has now reduced the penalty to just $598 million after considering some of the technical aspects of the estimation of damages.
The judge has asked for a new trial to determine the fate of the balance $450,514,650.
The fine has been reduced for two reasons:
- The judge found that Samsung’s profits were used to determine the fee. This practice is valid only when design patents have been infringed and not in the case of utility patents.
- The time period for calculating the damages was also erroneous. The damages apply only once Apple has informed Samsung of the infringement.
After weighing in on the above factors the judge came to a conclusion of reducing the penalty to $598,908,892.
Samsung also requested judge Lucy Koh to recalculate damages by herself but the judge refused to do so but she encouraged them to go ahead with the appeals process before a re-trial.
Also as many as 14 different Samsung devices have been removed from the damages claim which means that Apple might face a further decrease in the award.
Apple will also receive additional damages from the sales of the infringing devices occurred post-trial although we feel that the amount will be nowhere as grand. After all the devices in question are last-generation devices which do not account for a significant amount of Samsung sales.
It is also interesting to note that while the judge chopped off the penalty she still holds the juries verdict of the fact that Samsung had infringed upon Apple’s intellectual property. Another chapter in the battle between Apple and Samsung.