An eight-person jury was picked yesterday, and today the Apple v. Samsung damages re-trial swung into full steam, moving through opening statements and speeding through four witnesses.
Both CNET and Reuters had reports in from the courtroom today, indicating that Apple is hoping to win back $380 million in damages, while Samsung is arguing it should pay $53 million.
Either way, it will be an smaller total than the initial blockbuster $1.05 billion verdict that Apple won last summer. That would have been the largest patent verdict of all-time, if it had stood up on appeal. But US District Judge Lucy Koh slashed the award by $450 million, saying that the jury had calculated damages improperly for several phones found to infringe Apple patents and trade dress.
Around $600 million of the damages were approved by Koh, so those will stand on top of whatever comes out of this damages re-trial. And the whole shebang is, of course, headed for an appeal.
"If Apple had invested all that time and money and [the] product had not worked, it would have been a major blow," Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny said.
Some of the damage award is for "lost profits," which McElhinny said is only fair. Apple estimates it would have sold 360,000 more devices if Samsung hadn't infringed its patents. Samsung produced a total of 10.7 million "infringing phones," earning $3.5 billion in revenue, said McElhinny. "In a fair fight, that money should have gone to Apple," he said.
McElhinny continued: "The company that broke the law took in $3.5 billion. At the end of this case, you will decide how much of that $3.5 billion Samsung should rightfully return to Apple for the damage it has done to us."
"Apple is simply asking for much more money than it's entitled to," said Samsung's lawyer, William Price.
Customers didn't pick Samsung phones because they were similar to Apple phones—they picked them because they were different, he emphasized. Consumers valued the price point and screen size offered by Samsung phones, as well as the features of their Android software.
CNET reports that the Samsung products in question are: the Galaxy Prevail, Gem, Indulge, Infuse 4G, Galaxy SII AT&T, Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Tab, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, and Transform.
Apple witnesses who testified today included design expert Ravin Balakrishnan and University of Toronto computer scientist Karan Singh, both of whom testified in the original trial as well. The third witness was Apple VP Tony Blevins. Finally came MIT professor John Hauser, who testified that Apple products could have attracted $100 price premiums because of the features in the patents that Samsung infringed, such as bounce-back and double-tap-to-zoom interfaces.
Hauser will return to the stand tomorrow.
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