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Six years ago and in just three days, in a strangely fast move for the generally slow mechanisms of American justice, Samsung was found guilty of copying the design of Apple's iPhone terminals in its high-end. And now the US Federal Court has made public the result of that verdict. The South Korean company will have to pay Apple the amount of 533,316,606 dollars (455,717,690 at the exchange rate) for infringing its patents in the design of its own terminals.
A fine that ends 6 years of litigation
Apple demanded, for its part, a billion dollars, in the end keeping the amount at approximately half. In addition, and as an additional penalty, Samsung will also have to pay $ 5.3 million to those of Cupertino for having violated, specifically two patents of its design. In total, the Korean firm will have to give Apple a total amount of approximately 538 million dollars, almost 460 million euros at the exchange.
The resolution of the sentence puts an end to a dispute that has overshadowed the relationship between these two companies for 6 years. A relationship that, to this day, is maintained as Samsung manufactures and sells the OLED screens that carry its iPhone to Apple. This agreement, which brings Samsung huge profits every year, may nevertheless be on the tightrope, since Apple affirms that for the manufacture of its next iPhone X Plus it will have another panel manufacturer, specifically the LG brand.
If this litigation has lasted almost six years it is because in January 2017 the case was officially reopened by the United States Court of Appeals. Among the designs that Samsung has copied from the iPhone are the rectangular front with rounded edges and grid icons.. To design the first Samsung Galaxy S they copied these elements from the iPhone 3gs, keeping them in later models. At the time, the amount Samsung had to pay Apple for infringing on its patents was not entirely clear. There were two forms of compensation. One for the total sales of the Samsung Galaxy S line or, simply, for the individual components that it had imitated in its terminals. In the end, the verdict has opted for the first of the possibilities, something with which Apple is quite satisfied.
