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Samsung

Apple keeps its billion as US judge says Samsung 'didn't mean to copy'

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

January 30, 2013 | 3 min read

Apple hasn't been able to increase its damages award against Samsung in Califoirnia - but at least its $1 billion verdict against Samsung has been left intact.

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Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose yesterday declined to increase the award after she found Samsung’s patent infringement wasn’t wilful.

The ruling was one of many post-trial decisions issued by Koh denying both companies’ bids for a new trial. The jury’s finding in August that Samsung infringed six mobile-device patents was "largely untouched" said Bloomberg. .

“The court will not speculate as to how, precisely, the jury calculated its damages award,” Koh wrote in her ruling. It is “reasonable to assume” that the award is “intended to compensate Apple for losses stemming from all of the violations the jury found.”

Jurors decided Aug. 24 at the end of a trial that Samsung should pay the $1.05 billion for infringing the six Apple patents. Apple, which lost its bid to block U.S. sales on 26 of the Galaxy maker’s devices, failed to establish that consumer demand for Samsung products was driven by technology it stole, Koh ruled earlier.

Koh rejected Apple’s argument that jurors erred by finding that how a product looks - the iPad and iPad 2 - wasn’t protectable.

The judge also denied Samsung’s request for a new trial. Samsung spokesman Adam Yates declined to comment on any of Koh’s rulings.

Samsung and Apple, together make half the smartphones sold worldwide. Each has each scored victories in their patent disputes fought over four continents since Apple accused Samsung ,Asia’s biggest electronics maker , of “slavishly copying” its devices.

The global mobile-device market has been estimated at a staggering $346 billion this year.

The patent disputes began when Samsung's Galaxy smartphones appeared n 2010. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in Octobe 2011, contacted Samsung over his concerns that the Galaxy phones copied the iPhone.

He later vowed “thermonuclear war” to prove that phones running on Google’s Android operating system copied the iPhone. Samsung devices use Android.

The iPhone maker has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to review two appeals seeking to block sales of Samsung products that Apple says violate its patents.

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