It appears that Apple’s duel with Samsung in court may backfire bit time. A Dutch court ordered Apple to pay Samsung damages over their patent beef, more exactly a patent violation in the Netherlands. Apple and Samsung have been suing each other for more than a year now and in many countries, not just the USA or Netherlands or Australia.
The US company accused Samsung of copying the iPad and iPhone design and the Korean giant counter sued them, also claiming that Apple infringes its patents. A Hague-based court ruled that Apple violated a Samsung patent used in some of the Apple handsets and tablets, when it comes to Internet connectivity. Damages will be based on the numbers of iPhone and iPad sales in the Netherlands. This breach applies to devices such as the iPhone 3G, the 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 2 and iPad 1.
The sales figures taken into account to calculate the penalty are the ones since August 4, 2010, when the court decided that Apple started violating Samsung’s patent. A Samsung spokeswoman said that she didn’t know if the ruling had international follow-ups, or the amount of money Samsung could ask for. Apple didn’t comment on that and meanwhile you should know that the Dutch court dismissed 3 other patent infringements by Samsung.
