In an interesting twist to the ongoing saga between Apple and Samsung, Judge Lucy Koh cut the damage award to Apple by over four hundred million dollars, reducing total recovery from 1.05 billion to 599 million. As a quick background, Apple sued Samsung for patent infringement over numerous tablet and cell phone designs in the Northern District of California. The jury found for Apple and awarded the company over 1 billion dollars in damages. After the trial, Apple moved for additur, supplemental damages, and prejudgment interest; while Samsung moved to reduce the total damage award because the jury used an impermissible theory to calculate damages.
After denying Apple’s attempts to increase the total damage amount, the court considered Samsung’s argument that damages were based on impermissible theories. Perhaps most strikingly, the jury calculated damages for several asserted patents by apportioning Samsung’s profits from the infringing products, instead of Apple’s lost profits. This, despite limiting instructions specifically prohibiting the jury from calculating damages based on the profits of the infringer. Ultimately, the court agreed with Samsung, and reduced the award accordingly.
One of the themes that pervades the entire Apple-Samsung trial is the problem of using juries in complex patent trials. In Markman v. Westview Instruments, the Supreme Court established that claim construction was a question of law for courts, in part because claim construction required special training and education. The increase in patent litigation over the past few decades, however, has shown that problems with juries in patent trials extend well beyond claim construction. The calculation of damage awards illustrates the problems of jury trials in patent cases. The accepted methods of calculating damages, such as reasonable royalty and lost profits, often depend on a clear understanding of both technology and economics. In Apple v. Samsung, the court could easily infer that the damage award was based on Samsung’s profits; other cases often leave courts and commentators scratching their heads at how juries arrived at damage awards. As technology and law develops, it will be interesting to see how courts grapple with the traditional provinces of judge and jury in patent litigation.