Apple gets $1 billion damages from South Korean electronics giant Samsung.
Apple’s continuing dispute with Samsung reached a resolution of sorts this weekend. The California jury took two and a half days to consider before finding Samsung guilty of copyright infringement, throwing out all of Samsung’s counter-claims and imposing $1 billion damages on the South Korean electronics giant. Apple will continue what Steve Jobs called a “thermonuclear war” strategy against Samsung by calling for injunctions against many of its competitor Samsung’s products. Samsung is expected to appeal the California court’s judgment.
A Samsung spokesman called the verdict “unfortunate.” He said that the “verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer.” It’s also a significant loss for Samsung, which sent its stock price tumbling by about 7.5% as of time of writing. That equates to about $12 billion, gone in the blink of a shareholder’s eye. Apple will follow up its victory with a call for an injunction against 17 Samsung smartphones and their variants; about 39 different handsets altogether. If this injunction succeeds it will be a further economic blow for Samsung, but perhaps not as bad a shock as might have been expected since the injunction list includes only a relatively small proportion of Samsung’s overall product list.
Source: Guardian
