As part of the ongoing legal saga with Apple, Samsung’s lawyers have filed a request with Judge Lucy Koh requesting a retrial of November’s case, which Samsung says Apple only won because it totally race baited the jury to get sympathy.
Two juries have already slammed Samsung with astronomical fines during its patent trials with Apple in the U.S., but the South Korean handset maker says it’s not ready to stop the fight yet and is asking for Judge Koh to award them with a judgment as matter of law in its favor, or a massive adjustment of the damages Apple was rewarded.
Here’s Samsungs’ explanation why the court should let them off the hook for the $379 million in fees Apple was just awarded :
“Samsung respectfully requests a new trial based on Apple’s repeated references to Samsung’s revenues from all infringing products, as opposed to those found to infringe upon Apple’s design patents, and blatant appeals to racial, ethnic and national prejudice. Throughout the trial, Apple portrayed Samsung as a foreign threat to the local and national economy… Apple’s cynical appeal to racial, ethnic and national sentiment has no place in our system of justice and warrants a new trial.”
Samsung busted its the ridiculous racial bias argument against Apple in the original trial too. At worst it could be said that Apple appealed to patriotism when the company explained to jurors how domestic TV manufacturers went out of business because they couldn’t protect their intellectual property against foreign copy-cats TVs (like Samsung) who flood the market with cheaper devices.
Apple has filed its own motion asking the court to hold the $379 million figure as the only result a jury could have reasonably come up with.
Foss Patents’ Florian Mueller notes that its extremely unlike that Judge Koh will be persuaded by Samsung’s race baiting argument. Samsung may have only brought it up to preserve its record on the appeal, but it certainly looks like these two are still going to be fighting for a couple more years as Mueller suggests its not unimaginable that Samsung might try to take its appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.
Source: Foss Patents
