Judge Voids Nearly Half of Apple's $1 Billion Judgment Against Samsung, Calls for New Trial to Settle Revised Damages

FOSS Patents reports that judge Lucy Koh has struck nearly half of the $1 billion in damages awarded to Apple in its patent lawsuit against Samsung last August, calling for a new trial to set revised damage amounts for the affected portions of the judgment.

The $450 million amount [struck from the damage award] corresponds to 14 Samsung products, with respect to which a new damages trial must be held because the court cannot make the adjustments it deems necessary for legal reasons: the jury set only one damages figure per product, but half a dozen different intellectual property rights were found infringed, resulting in a lack of clarity as to what portion of a per-product damages figure is attributable to a given intellectual property right.

Judge Koh agreed with Samsung's lawyers that the jury had erred in some of its damage calculations for the 14 affected Samsung products, meaning that a new trial must be held to determine what the damages should be for those devices.

FOSS Patents notes that Apple remains entitled to nearly $600 million in damages from the original judgement, as well as whatever a new jury decides the damages should be for the 14 devices included in the retrial, and interest. Apple is also seeking supplemental damages that have yet to be determined.

The new trial covering the 14 Samsung devices will likely not be heard until appeals of the original ruling have played out, meaning that is likely to be some time before any revised damages are decided.