First U.S. lawsuit
In two separate lawsuits filed with the Northern California District Court in 2011,[18][19] Apple accused Samsung of infringing on three utility patents and four design patents. Samsung filed a counterclaim accusing Apple of infringing on four of its own patents.[20] At the heart of the dispute was one design patent regarding the shape of a smartphone,[21][22] with the infringement accusation from Apple consisting of a one-sentence claim about the ornamental design of an electronic device, accompanied by nine figures depicting a thin rectangular cuboid with rounded corners.[23][24]
In August 2012, the jury returned a verdict largely favorable to Apple,[25] finding that Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple's trade dress related to the iPhone. The jury awarded Apple $1.049 billion in damages, and rejected Samsung's counterclaim.[26] The jury found that Samsung infringed Apple's utility patents on the iPhone's "bounce-back effect", "on-screen navigation", and "tap to zoom" functions; and design patents that cover iPhone features such as the home button, rounded corners and tapered edges, and on-screen icons.[27] A design patent covering the ornamental design of the iPad was one of the few patents the jury concluded Samsung had not infringed.[28][29] Several months later, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tentatively invalidated Apple's patent on bounce-back and pinch-zoom functionality, possibly contradicting the jury's decision at the trial.[30]
The District Court ruling aroused significant controversy among patent law experts and observers of the telecommunications industry. The jury's decision was described as being "Apple-friendly" by Wired and a possible reason for the increased costs—because of licensing fees to Apple—that subsequently affected Android smartphone users.[31] Questions were also raised about the validity of lay juries in the U.S. patent system, because the qualifications of the jury members were deemed inadequate for a complex patent case.[32] Jury foreman Velvin Hogan generated additional controversy when he stated to interviewers that he was an electrical engineer and patent holder, and used his expertise to help the other jurors reach a verdict.[33][34] This raised questions about whether the jurors made their decision based solely on the law, rather than on personal interests.[35][36]
Hogan also stated to interviewers that the jury intended the damages awarded to Apple to be sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable.[37] This contradicts traditional jury instructions that "the damages award should put the patent holder in approximately the financial position it would have been in had the infringement not occurred" and "it is meant to compensate the patent holder and not to punish an infringer."[35] Other questions were raised about the jury's quick decision; the jury was given more than 700 questions, including some on highly technical matters, but reached its verdict and awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages after less than three days of deliberations.[38] Critics claimed that the nine jurors did not have sufficient time to read the jury instructions.[39][40] A juror stated in an interview with CNET that the jury had decided after just the first day of deliberations that Samsung was in the wrong.[36]
Based on the verdict, Apple filed a request to stop all sales of Samsung products cited in violation of the US patents, including the Infuse 4G and the Droid Charge.[41][42] This motion was denied by Judge Lucy H. Koh because Apple's claims of irreparable harm had little merit.[43][44][45] Koh also decided that the jury had over-calculated the damages to Apple in its initial assessment and ordered a retrial.[42]
Before the second trial could commence, Apple appealed Koh's refusal to accept the motion to stop sales of infringing Samsung products. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted Apple's argument and ordered Koh to issue the requested preliminary injunction.[46] The injunction took effect in June 2012, preventing Samsung from making, using, selling, or esporing the Galaxy Nexus and any of its other products that used the disputed patents into the United States.[47] This injunction was lifted after Samsung prevailed at an appeal proceeding four months later.[48][49]
In September 2012, Samsung requested a new trial at the District Court, arguing that the August verdict was not supported by evidence or testimony, and that the judge imposed limits on testimony time and the number of witnesses, all of which prevented Samsung from receiving a fair trial. The company also claimed that the jury verdict was unreasonable. Simultaneously, Apple filed a motion requesting another $707 million in damages.[50] This matter was readdressed by the District Court in November 2013, with the damages owed by Samsung ultimately being reduced to $290 million.[51][52] In yet another hearing on the appropriate damages amount, the District Court adjusted the amount again in May 2018, awarding Apple $539 million.[53]
Meanwhile, in October 2012 Samsung appealed its loss in the first trial to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has jurisdiction over patent disputes. Samsung requested that Apple's District Court victory be thrown out, with a claim that Hogan, as the foreman of the jury, had not disclosed that he had been sued by his former employer Seagate Technology Inc., which had a strategic relationship with Samsung, despite having been asked during jury selection if he had been involved in lawsuits on the present topic.[54][55] Samsung also made a claim of jury misconduct, based on Hogan's previous comments to the media on how he used his expertise at the jury trial.[56] Finally, Samsung claimed that the recent decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the validity of some of Apple's patents merited a recalculation of damages owed by Samsung.[50]
In May 2015, the Federal Circuit affirmed parts of the jury's verdict at the District Court, but vacated a percentage of the dollar amount pertaining to trade dress infringement and dilution.[57] This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In December 2016, the Supreme Court decided 8–0 to reverse the decision from the first trial based on the patent law standards that had been considered by the District Court jury. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Federal Circuit court to define the appropriate legal standard to define the "article of manufacture" because it is not the smartphone itself, but could be just the case and screen to which the design patents relate.[11] This matter eventually became moot when Apple and Samsung agreed to an undisclosed settlement in June 2018.[58][59]
Second U.S. lawsuit
While the first lawsuit was in progress at the Northern California District Court, in 2012 Apple filed a second lawsuit at the same court seeking $2 billion in damages from Samsung for infringing on another set of Apple design patents for various components of its iPhone, iPod, and Macbook Pro lines. Samsung countersued for $6 million, claiming that Apple had infringed on one of its patents.[60] This trial commenced in March 2014.[61] Judge Koh referred to the new lawsuit as "one action in a worldwide constellation of litigation between the two companies."[60]
In May 2014, another jury awarded Apple $119.6 million for this patent infringement claim. The Guardian called this victory "pyrrhic" and noted that Apple requested more than ten times this amount may have spent more money litigating its various claims against Samsung than what it was ultimately awarded.[62] The jury also found in favor of Samsung in its counterclaim, but only awarded that company $158,400, also significantly less than what had been requested. Judge Koh also denied a request from Apple to ban the sale of Samsung products that included the infringed patents.
