Thursday Apple Rumors: Apple Demands $379M in Damages from Samsung

by Christopher Freeburn | November 14, 2013 12:47 pm

[1]Here are your Apple rumors[2] and AAPL news items for today:

Calculation: On Wednesday, Apple (AAPL[3]) returned to a U.S. District Court in California for the next round in its long-running patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung[4], AppleInsider notes. Last year, a jury found the South Korean electronics giant guilty of violating an Apple patent and awarded the iPad-maker a $1 billion judgement. The presiding judge later cut that award by $400 million and ordered a new trial to calculate additional damages due to Apple. Lead Apple attorney Harold McElhinny told jurors in his opening yesterday that Samsung had sold 10.7 million products that infringed on the patent and that Apple was seeking a total of $379 million in additional damages, including $113 million in profits on lost iPhones sales. He said that Samsung suffered a “crisis of design” after Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007 and said that in the new trial “our star witness is going to be Samsung,” referring to internal Samsung documents obtained by Apple. Not surprisingly, Samsung says that Apple’s demands are too high. However, Samsung’s lead lawyer conceded that 13 Samsung smartphones did contain “some elements of Apple’s property,” but said Apple had overestimated Samsung’s earnings on the devices and didn’t deserve a “windfall.”

Legal Fees: The California court battle between Apple and Samsung is just one part of a global legal campaign[5] Apple is waging against Google’s (GOOG[6]) Android operating system, Business Insider notes. In a new book about that struggle, Fred Vogelstein estimates that Apple is spending $200 million a year on global anti-Android litigation. Vogelstein’s book, Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, notes that Apple has 300 lawyers and four law firms completely engaged in the lawsuits against Android. While $200 million might seem like a big legal bill, it isn’t much for a company that has $150 billion in cash. Vogelstein notes, however, that Apple isn’t getting much bang for its buck. The lawsuits haven’t slowed Samsung’s smartphone sales, nor have they dented the market dominance of Android over iOS.

Investment: Apple will spend $10.5 billion on new equipment during fiscal 2014 in order to bolster its supply chain[7], Bloomberg reports. The iPhone-maker released its capital expenditure forecast for the current fiscal year, showing heavy spending on milling machines and lasers that make the aluminum casings for its MacBook line, new equipment to polish the plastic backs of the iPhone 5c and technology to test its mobile devices. Non-retail capital expenditures in 2014 are expected to jump 61% over fiscal 2013. Apple is also attempting to move some production back to the U.S. It recently acquired a manufacturing plant in Arizona, which is expected to product sapphire components for its mobile devices.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors[8] stories.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/11/thursday-apple-rumors-apple-demands-379m-damages-samsung/

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