After long weeks of debates, questioning, sci fi proof, name calling and various testimonies, the Apple versus Samsung lawsuit has reached an end, with the verdict being in favour of Apple. Samsung will have to pay up $1.05 billion to Apple in damages, after the jury decided that Samsung did copy the creator of the iPhone and iPad.
The total sum that needs to be paid is in fact $1,049,343,540 in damages, less than the $2.5 billion requested by Apple, but still a big victory. The jury filed out a 20 page verdict form, that includes 33 multi part questions about the infringement by Samsung through over 20 handsets and tablets. Samsung was found infringing on software and hardware design patents and “trade dress”, design aspects that are non essential to the functioning of a device.
As far as design patents go, we’ve got Samsung guilty of infringing on the design of the iPhone back and front, the copying of the iOS app icon design and the iPad design. To quote from the documents, Samsung is supposed to have copied the “clean front, edge to edge glass, thin bezel, thin outer border and rounded corners”. The Galaxy Tab devices were strangely not found as infringing, but Samsung will still have to pay, a weird decision that’s still under investigation.
As far as the Samsung versus Apple lawsuit goes, Samsung’s case was rejected, seeing that Apple didn’t violate any Samsung patents. While Apple couldn’t prove that Samsung’s patents were invalid, they still won’t have to pay them a cent. Biased ruling anyone?!
