I’m sure you have heard about the lawsuit that Apple brought against Samsung not too long ago, where a jury awarded Apple over one billion dollars after finding that 26 Samsung products had violated various Apple patents. Well, that case is still going on, since over $400 million of that award was found by the presiding judge to be miscalculated. A new jury was ordered to decide on a revised damages amount, and on Tuesday, attorneys for the two tech giants began selecting jurors.
One billion? 400 million? These are significant numbers in just about any scenario. But these figures pale somewhat in light of the overall value of the smartphone market, which represents over $300 billion. And a new trial between Apple and Samsung is scheduled for March of next year, putting even more of the $300 billion pie at stake for these two tech behemoths.
While Apple brought the most recent trial over what it claimed were patent infringements on devices that had left the market, next year’s will challenge patent issues related to Samsung devices currently on the market. This means that not only could Samsung be made to pay Apple many more millions, but also that Galaxy S4 in your pocket might have to be pulled from the market.
That’s right, part of Apple’s prayer for relief is that Samsung be barred from continuing to sell the devices that Apple believes are infringing upon their patents. While this would deal a huge blow to the most popular line of Android smartphones, I hardly see this sinking Samsung, as they currently lead the smartphone market over apple by a margin of almost 3:1 (81 million devices in the July-to-September quarter versus 34 million).
