Samsung will get another chance to reduce the amount of money it owes to Apple for copying the look of the iPhone.
The original verdict is not in question: Samsung is guilty of violating Apple’s design patents in a case that dates back to April 2011. What’s at stake is the jury award, which was initially $1.05 billion and, through a series of appeals, whittled down to $399 million.
Samsung challenged the $399 million in an appeal that was eventually heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2016. The court agreed with Samsung’s position that it should not be forced to forfeit all the profits from the infringing devices because their design is just one aspect. The Supreme Court said the lower courts had improperly calculated the fine and sent the case back to those courts for further deliberation.
The new decision comes from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif. — the same judge who oversaw the initial case. Koh agrees that the instructions given the jury in 2012 inaccurately informed them on how the damages should be calculated.
Apple had hoped to prevent the retrial over the damages from moving forward. Samsung said it was looking forward to the new trial.
