A jury ordered Samsung to pay $119.6 million to Apple on Friday, which is far less than Apple had sought and marking a big loss for the iPhone maker in the latest round of their globe-spanning mobile patent litigation, according to the Associated Press.
During the month-long trial in a San Jose, California, federal court, Apple accused Samsung of violating patents on smartphone features including universal search, while Samsung denied wrongdoing, the AP reported. On Friday, the jury found the South Korean smartphone maker had infringed two Apple patents.
Apple and Samsung have been litigating around the world for three years, according to the AP. Jurors awarded the iPhone maker about $930 million after a 2012 trial in San Jose, but Apple failed to persuade U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to issue a permanent injunction against the sale of Samsung phones in the United States.
Some industry observers see the ongoing legal dispute as an attempt by Apple to curtail the rapid growth of phones based on Google Inc's rival Android software, the AP reported. Samsung was by far the largest adopter of the operating platform.
The current case involves five Apple patents that were not in the 2012 trial and that cover iPhone features such as slide-to-unlock and search technology, according to the AP. Apple is seeking to ban sales of several Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S III, and sought just over $2 billion in damages.
It will now be up to Judge Koh to decide whether a sales ban is warranted, though legal experts deem that unlikely, the AP reported.
"Though this verdict is large by normal standards, it is hard to view this outcome as much of a victory for Apple," Santa Clara University law professor Brian Love said, according to the AP. "This amount is less than 10 percent of the amount Apple requested and probably doesn't surpass by too much the amount Apple spent litigating this case."
