Apple, Samsung spar over $320 million in damages

SAN JOSE — A jury of eight Wednesday heard Apple and Samsung attorneys interrogate experts Wednesday on the final monetary reward owed by Samsung for selling infringing devices.

To start the second trial of the century, Apple counsel Harold McElhinny asked the jury:

“Where were you January 9th, 2007?”

Apple is asking for a grand total of $379,776,091 based on lost profits, profits of phones infringing Apple’s design patents, and a reasonable royalty rate.

Samsung counters that they owe only they only owe $52,763,411, and that Apple is blowing up the value of its phones and patented features to increase the damages payment.

The court watched a recording of the 2007 MacWorld keynote in which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced a new Apple mobile device to raucous applause. McElhinny identified 13 Samsung smartphones, each of which infringed on at least one of five patents as a jury decided last year.

Apple explained the five patents were so important to the market’s demands that Samsung — following the iPhone announcement — deliberately chose to copy the features to steal market share.

Apple claims Samsung would not admit any wrongdoing during this trial, but Samsung’s internal documentation would prove otherwise.

To support the value of the patents, Apple, as they did last year, brought to the stand Dr. Ravin Balakrishnan and Dr. Karan Singh, University of Toronto Professors of Computer Science, to talk about the touch screen problems Apple’s patents solved.

Apple also called John Hauser, an MIT Professor in marketing, to explain his study on consumer demand of the patented features and the extra price consumers would pay if a smartphone contained or did not contain the features.

In his opening statement Samsung attorney Bill Price noted:

“Apple is simply asking for much more money than it is entitled.”

According to Samsung, Apple has not lost any profits due to consumers choosing Samsung over Apple. Samsung points to an internal Apple study about Android users that suggests three-fourths of consumers buying Android-based systems do not even consider purchasing an Apple mobile device.

By Samsung’s logic, a reasonable royalty rate needs to consider alternative designs not infringing Apple’s patents such as ones discussed last year Samsung presented to invalidate Apple’s intellectual property.

Though last year’s jury did not strike down the patents based on examples like the Diamond Touch and Tablecloth systems, Samsung pressed Apple’s experts to admit they were valid alternatives to Apple’s patented methods.

Thursday Samsung will continue its cross examination of Apple expert John Hauser. Samsung contends Hauser valued patented features but ignored the entire set of features a smartphone would contain.

Additionally, Samsung had been repeatedly denied the opportunity to argue that certain applications on the phones in question did not violate Apple’s patents.

Judge Koh has warned Samsung not to push the issue, especially since the court does not want to retry the infringement questions the jury settled last year.