Apple will be receiving a sum of $539 million from Samsung for breaching five patents with Andriod phones sold in 2010 and 2011, a jury has found in a legal fight that dates back seven years.
The unquestioned decision, the US District Court in San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley is just about halfway between what the two largest mobile phone makers had sought in a high profile case that reaches back to 2011.
The Scale of the damages payment $533,316,606, was for stealing three Apple design patents. The remaining $5,325,050 was for stealing two utility patents. Samsung already had been found to breach the patents, but this trial determined some of the damages.
The figure is a step back for Samsung, which had fought earlier damages findings. the trial had reconsidered $399 million of Samsung's earlier payments, so $539 million is a significantly larger sum.
The jury's rationale isn't clear, but the figure is high enough to help cement the importance of design patents in the tech industry. Even though they only describe cosmetic elements of a product, they clearly can have a lot of value. That's good news for designers in Silicon Valley, where Apple products like the iPhone and MacBook have helped elevate design's role in product success. But it could also concentrate power in the hands of the bigger businesses that have the resources to obtain and defend patents.
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