Apple Wants $1B From Samsung Over iPhone Design Patent Infringement

Apple and Samsung have been at each other’s throats over legal issues regarding patent infringements. Now, the Cupertino firm is demanding that the South Korean giant pay up $1 billion for using its iPhone design patents. If Samsung pays up, this could set a precedent that would affect how companies can be sued for patent infringements in the future.

Samsung had already been found to infringe on this particular patent lawsuit, CNET reports, so now both companies are arguing on the matter of how much should be paid for what. Apple’s legal team is arguing that, while the three patent violations that the South Korean company might have been cosmetic in nature, they are a huge reason for why the iPhone sells so well.

This is the justification that Apple is providing for why it’s now asking Samsung to cough up $1 billion. In a counterargument, the Galaxy smartphone manufacturer’s lawyers argue that the Cupertino firm is only entitled to the specific parts that were actually in violation of the patents. As such, Apple is only entitled to payments that are made up of the worth of those individual components.

At this point, everything hinges on what the court decides. If the decision is in favor of Apple, Samsung will have no choice but to pay a hefty price for violating its patents. If Samsung comes out on top, it will still need to pay Apple but not at as big of a cost.

The South Korean giant’s legal team is confident that the iPhone maker doesn’t deserve to receive all of the profits made with the sales of the Samsung phone that infringed on the patents, ZDNet reports. this would need to involve Apple owning the patents to everything that made up the device instead of just the cosmetic designs and it certainly did not.