SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — It's a billion-dollar intellectual property question that has yet to be answered: Will a $1.05 billion damage award against Samsung Electronics Inc. remain intact? After losing a major copyright case to Apple Inc. over smartphone technology, Samsung asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to reduce the award by as much as $600 million. But Koh was mostly silent on the request in a series of orders issued late Tuesday. The only mention came in a footnote to her order denying Samsung's request for a new trial. The company's argument for the decrease will be addressed in a separate order to be issued later, she said. The four orders issued throughout the night dealt with Apple's claims that Samsung infringed some of its technology. Koh largely upheld the jury's finding in favor of Apple — with one distinct exception. She disagreed with the jury's conclusion that Samsung's patent infringements were willful, a finding that stalled Apple's bid for a tripling of the damages. She otherwise ruled that the jury got the verdict right and denied both companies' demands for a new trial. Some legal experts and analysts predicted Koh might trim a few million dollars here or $10 million there while leaving the bulk of the award undisturbed. "It seems pretty clear that Judge Koh largely supported the jury verdict and isn't planning to second-guess the validity and infringement issues," Stanford University law professor Mark Lemley said. "It also seems clear she thinks $1.05 billion is plenty of money." He said the damage award could get trimmed a bit in the final order but added that he would be surprised if Koh ordered a new trial or cut the figure dramatically. Others, however, said Koh's order overturning the jury decision of "willful" infringement suggested she could be ready to depart significantly from its damage award. Jurors previously filled out a verdict form listing each of the 26 Samsung products found to be infringing Apple technology. Next to each item, the jurors scribbled a dollar figure representing the amount of damages they thought Apple deserved. Samsung argues that many of the calculations were erroneous. Continued... |