Samsung Ordered To Pay Apple $548 Million USD, Appeal Junked

Samsung and Apple, which have been embroiled in a series of lawsuits and counter-lawsuits in the past few years, have each lost and won cases regarding the patent suits they’ve filed against each other. In a recent development, Samsung won its appeal against one of Apple’s cases, and instead of paying Apple $1 Billion USD for the lawsuit, they were ordered to just pay $548 Million USD.

However, Samsung seems to be stalling paying Apple, with The Register commenting, “just pay them [sic].”

After the California court decided that Samsung should pay Apple $548 Million USD in damages, Samsung went up to Washington DC, to a 12-judge panel, appealing for the case to be tossed out of court. The Register notes that Silicon Valley giants, including Facebook, Google, and even eBay, had tried to lobby on Samsung’s behalf for this case.

All the clout behind the case couldn’t strong-arm the DC court to junk the whole Apple case, however, and the DC Federal appeals court stood by the California district court’s decision, firm on agreeing that Samsung should just pay Apple $548 Million USD. The next move may be an appeal in the US Supreme Court, but The Register also notes that the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the South Korean tech giant is highly unlikely, with a Federal court deciding against their appeal.

In this series of long drawn out legal battles, the consumers only benefit in the form of increased innovation and drive for unique functionality for either tech company’s products. The bottom line is that these issues may only affect them negatively if the companies choose to jack up the products’ prices to absorb the financial blow of these legal battles.

At the end of the day, had Samsung chosen not to rip off some of Apple’s design aspects, and chosen to innovate, in the first place, they wouldn’t have a $548 Million USD bill.

By contrast, Samsung won its first patent lawsuit against Apple in April 2014.