Jury orders Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion
By Gerry Shih | Reuters – 5 mins ago
SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Friday handedApple Inc. a sweeping victory in its legal war
with Samsung, ruling that the Korean company had copied critical features of the hugely popular iPhone and
iPad and awarding the U.S. company $1.051 billion in damages.
The verdict could lead to an outright ban on sales of key Samsung products and will likely solidify Apple's
dominance of the exploding mobile computing market.
A number of companies that sell smartphones based on Google's Android operating system may now face
further legal challenges from Apple, a company that is already among the largest and most profitable in
business history.
The jury deliberated for less than three days before delivering the verdict on seven Apple patent claims and
five Samsung patent claims -- suggesting that the nine-person panel had little difficulty in concluding that
Samsung had copied the iPhone and the iPad.
Billions of dollars in future sales hang in the balance.
Apple's charges that Samsung copied its designs and features are widely viewed as an attack on Google Inc
and its Android software, which drives Samsung's devices and has become the most-used mobile software.
Apple and Samsung, two companies that sell more than half the world's smartphones and tablets, have
locked legal horns in several countries this year.
Earlier on Friday, a South Korean court found that both companies shared blame, ordering Samsung to stop
selling 10 products including its Galaxy S II phone and banning Apple from selling four different products, 'including its iPhone 4.
But the trial on Apple's home turf -- the world's largest and most influential technology market -- is considered
the most important.
The fight began last year when Apple sued Samsung in multiple countries, accusing the South Korean
company of slavishly copying the iPhone and iPad. Samsung countersued. Apple had sought more than
$2.5 billion in damages from Samsung, which has disputed that figure.
The companies are rivals, but also have a $5 billion-plus supply relationship. Apple is Samsung's biggest
customer for microprocessors and other parts central to Apple's devices.
The U.S. jury spent most of August in a packed federal courtroom in San Jose -- just miles from Apple's
headquarters in Cupertino -- listening to testimony, examining evidence and watching lawyers from both
sides joust about seven Apple patents, five Samsung patents, and damage claims.
Jurors received 100 pages of legal instructions from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on August 21 prior to
hearing the closing arguments from attorneys.
Lawyers from both tech giants used their 25 hours each of trial time to present internal emails, draw
testimony from designers and experts, and put on product demonstrations and mockups to convince the jury.
At times, their questions drew testimony that offered glimpses behind the corporate facade, such as the
margins on the iPhone and Samsung's sales figures in the United States.
From the beginning, Apple's tactic was to present what it thought was chronological evidence of Samsung
copying its phone.
Juxtaposing pictures of phones from both companies and internal Samsung emails that specifically analyzed
the features of the iPhone, Apple's attorneys accused Samsung of taking shortcuts after realizing it could not
keep up.
Samsung's attorneys, on the other hand, maintained Apple had no sole right to geometric designs such as
rectangles with rounded corners. They called Apple's damage claim "ridiculous" and urged the jury to
consider that a verdict in favor of Apple could stifle competition and reduce choices for consumers.
The California trial has produced its share of drama and heated moments. Lawyers routinely bickered over
legal matters in the jury's absence, filed rafts of paperwork to thwart each other's courtroom strategy, and
sometimes even resorted to public relations tactics to make their views known.
(Additional reporting by Dan Levine, Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan; Editing by Bernard Orr, Jonathan
Weber, Leslie Gevirtz, Gary Hill)
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