Apple squared off against Samsung Electronics at a damages retrial on Wednesday, as the iPhone maker once again tries to secure a legal victory against its biggest mobile rival.<\/p>\n
Apple attorney Harold McElhinny told jurors in a San Jose, California federal court that Samsung should pay $379.8 million for violating five patents on the iPhone. Samsung attorney William Price, meanwhile, said Samsung should only have to pay about $52.7 million.<\/p>\n
Apple and Samsung are engaged in global litigation over each other’s intellectual property. Last year, Apple was awarded over $1 billion after it convinced a jury that Samsung copied various iPhone features – like using your fingers to pinch and zoom on the screen – along with design touches like the phone’s flat, black glass screen.<\/p>\n
Last year’s verdict was a high point in Apple’s legal war on Google’s Android operating system, which Samsung uses on its phones. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose then rejected Apple’s request for a permanent ban on the sale of some Samsung products in the lucrative U.S. market. Apple has appealed that decision.<\/p>\n
Then, in March, Koh ruled that the previous jury had made some errors in its calculations, impacting about $400 million of the verdict. She ordered a retrial of that portion of the original award.<\/p>\n
In court on Wednesday, McElhinny said Samsung had sold about 10.7 million phones that infringe Apple’s patents, generating $3.5 billion in revenue. Apple was entitled to be made “whole,” he said in an opening statement.<\/p>\n
Just a minute into his presentation, McElhinny invoked Apple’s iconic founder, Steve Jobs, with a video of Jobs unveiling the iPhone back in 2007. McElhinny asked the six-woman, two-man jury to remember when the iPhone’s signature features were brand new, and the business risk Apple had taken to develop the product.<\/p>\n
“If Apple had invested all that time and money and product had not worked, it would have been a major blow,” McElhinny said.<\/p>\n
However, Samsung attorney William Price said $52 million is “not a trivial amount” for Samsung to pay. While Samsung violated some Apple patents, Price said, those ideas were not new. Apple should not be rewarded with a windfall damages award based on the 13 Samsung products at issue during trial.<\/p>\n
“Apple is simply asking for much more money than it’s entitled to,” Price said.<\/p>\n
The jury includes a pharmacist, a medical researcher at Stanford and a licensed therapist. The trial is expected to last about a week, with jury deliberations to follow.<\/p>\n
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