ExtraTorrent | Court Ordered Samsung to Pay Apple Millions

[Atreides]

A Silicon Valley court has recently ordered Samsung Electronics to pay Apple $290 million. The South Korean giant was accused of copying iPhone and iPad features. However, Apple might be disappointed, because the previous jury awarded Jobs’ company $1.05 billion, after which US District Judge ordered the new trial and tossed out $450 million of the damages.

Samsung may appeal the latest verdict, but also has to focus on a 3rd trial in March in order to consider Apple’s claims that Samsung’s newest devices also copied the technology.

Apple keeps making attempts to convince everyone that it was the one who invented the smartphone, so now anyone producing similar devices must have copied the idea. Although this point of view was quite successful in American courts, it had disappearing results in foreign courts, because judges there refused to believe that Steve Jobs invented the rounded rectangle.

In the meantime, Samsung has had mixed results in its fight against accusations. The company tried initially to sue Apple for using technology which were part of agreed standards and earned the wrath of the European Union. The company argued that Apple was misconstruing the breadth of its patents to include things like the basic rectangle shape of smartphones.

In response, Apple blamed Samsung’s copying for the reason that iPhones are not in everyone’s hands anymore, claiming that Apple can never get back to where it should have been in 2010.

Given that the case was fought just 15 minutes away from Apple's Cupertino headquarters, a number of prospective jurors were dismissed because of having links to the company. Still, Apple attorneys keep trying to inflame patriotic passions by urging jurors to help protect American companies from its foreign rivals.

The South Korean company again demanded a halt to the trial after the American Patent and Trademark Office told Apple it was going to invalidate a patent protecting the “pinch-to-zoom†technology. Apparently, this was one of the things that the jury had to consider. Although that defense didn’t work, it can form the basis for another appeal.