Apple and Samsung will meet in court again today

By

Samsung
"Phil? Phil Connors?"
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple and Samsung are heading back to court again today for the latest chapter in their never-ending legal battle.

Seven years after Apple first sued Samsung for copying the iPhone, this is the third retrial over the same five patents being contested in the suit. And we don’t expect it to be the last retrial, either!

“It is remarkable that this case is still going on,” Mark Lemley, a law professor at Stanford University, told the Financial Times. “The parties have already spent more on lawyers than can possibly be at stake in the remaining case.”

Apple was awarded $1.05 billion in damages from Samsung back in 2012. However, Judge Lucy Koh reduced this figure after finding errors in the calculations used to get there. In 2013, Apple was awarded $290 million, only for this to be appealed by Samsung to the Supreme Court. Jump forward to December 2016, and the Supreme Court agreed with Samsung’s argument that it was unfair to punish its entire profits based on one element of a design.

Now, the case has been “reset” to 2012, meaning that the jury must reconsider Apple and Samsung’s arguments as though it’s 2012 again. And we’re still no closer to this case being settled, or to be companies reaching an out-of-court settlement.

Unrelated to anything, here’s the trailer to the excellent Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day:

Source: FT

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