Samsung to pursue further reduction in damages

Samsung Electronics said it will seek a further review of patent damages awarded to Apple even after a reduction of about 45 percent of the original $1.05 billion award.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, on March 1 cut the damages award after finding the jury did not follow her instructions.

“We are pleased that the court decided to strike $450,514,650 from the jury’s award,” Samsung spokesman Nam Ki-yung said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

“Samsung intends to seek further review of the remaining award.”

Samsung and Apple have each scored victories in patent disputes in four continents since the iPad maker accused Asia’s biggest electronics producer in April 2011 of “slavishly copying” its devices.

The companies continue to battle over patents as they seek dominance of a mobile-device market estimated by researcher Yankee Group at $346 billion in 2012, even as Apple remains one of Samsung’s biggest customers.

Samsung currently is the largest smartphone seller in the global market as it accounts for more than 30 percent.

Koh, who previously rejected Apple’s bid to ban U.S. sales of 26 Samsung devices, also denied the iPhone maker’s request to increase the jury award.

The judge said the amount owed by the Galaxy maker was heavily disputed, and the jury wasn’t bound to accept either side’s estimate of damages. The jury’s award for 14 other products stands at $598.9 million, she said. Apple did not comment on the ruling.

Koh ordered a new trial on damages for some Samsung products and advised the companies to consider appealing her ruling before the trial begins.

A witness for Apple whose testimony the jury relied on “presented a theory that the court had ruled legally impermissible,” Koh said in her ruling. The judge said despite her explicit instruction that the theory couldn’t be used, “the amount of the award made plain that the jury had applied the impermissible theory anyway.”

Bloomberg