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Jury gives bulk of award to Apple over Samsung in patent trial

 
Published May 3, 2014

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California jury determined Friday that Samsung infringed Apple smartphone patents and awarded $120 million in damages. It also ruled that Apple infringed Samsung patents and awarded $158,000 in damages.

Apple had sought $2.2 billion after accusing Samsung Electronics of infringing five of its patents covering functions such as slide-to-lock, universal searching, quick linking, automatic word correction and background synching.

Samsung had sought $6 million after arguing Apple had infringed two of its smartphone patents related to camera use and video transmission.

The verdict marked the latest intellectual property battle between the world's top two smartphone makers. Apple and Samsung have sued each other in courts and trade offices around the world.

Two years ago, a separate jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $930 million after finding it had used Apple technology to create older-generation devices. Samsung is appealing that order.

Much of the testimony in the latest trial focused on Google. The search giant wasn't a party to the case, but Samsung argued in court that Google and its Android software were the real targets of Apple.

More than 70 percent of smartphones run on Android, a mobile operating system that Google has given out for free to Samsung and other phonemakers.

Google entered the smartphone market while its then-CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board. The move infuriated Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who considered Android to be a blatant ripoff of iPhone innovations.

After removing Schmidt from Apple's board, Jobs vowed that Apple would resort to "thermonuclear war" to destroy Android and its allies.