SAN JOSE – The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, recently issued a court order to dismiss Apple Inc.’s lawsuit claiming Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. copied Apple’s patented designs, ending the 7-year-old case.
The parties had notified the court that they settled the lawsuit out of court. The terms and amount of the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement marks the end of the litigation between the two tech companies that began in 2011 when Apple filed the complaint against Samsung stating Samsung “slavishly” copied Apples’ “innovative technology.”
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh’s June 27 order dismissed Apple’s motions for supplemental damages and prejudgment and post-judgment interest with prejudice. The order dismissed Samsung’s motion for “Entry of Judgment of Invalidity on Apple’s claim for infringement of the ’915 patent or in the alternative for relief from judgment” and denied as moot Samsung’s “motion for judgment as a matter of law, new trial, and/or remittitur.”
Apple filed a complaint against Samsung in April 2011 claiming 16 counts of patent infringement including trade dress infringement, design infringement and trademark infringement. Apple sought an injunction to enjoin Samsung from using any of the patented designs, treble, compensatory, punitive and actual damages, restitution relief and court costs and fees.
Apple’s original lawsuit alleged that Samsung purposely marketed its products to look like Apple products “for consumers who wanted a product with the distinctive Apple look, but who did not want to pay for the real product.” Apple claimed Samsung copied Apple’s “innovative technology, distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design, in violation of Apple’s valuable intellectual property rights."
Samsung was found liable for infringement in 2012 and awarded over $1 billion by the jury, but in 2015 the amount was lowered to $400 million in the Federal Court of Appeals. A jury awarded Apple $539 million in March, and Samsung appealed the award to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California at San Jose in June.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, Case Number 11-cv-01846-LHK