In the waning business hours on Friday afternoon, Apple filed a motion to receive $707 million more in damages in the U.S. case of patent infringement against Samsung.
While the patent war between these two mobile tech giants continues in nine other countries, Apple is looking to capitalize on the recent verdict in the U.S. trial that awarded the company $1.05 billion in damages from Samsung.
According to Apple, the latest injunction targets "any of the infringing products or any other product with a feature or features not more than colorably different from any of the infringing feature or features in any of the Infringing Products."
With the deadline for this trial at years end, Samsung has asked the courts to open a new trial for the latest charges, arguing that "The Court's constraints on trial time, witnesses and exhibits were unprecedented for a patent case of this complexity and magnitude, and prevented Samsung from presenting a full and fair case in response to Apple's many claims."
Courtroom Samsung swan song sung
A Samsung representative elaborated on the company's stance, saying, "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners."
During the early stages of the trial in August, Samsung contended that a number of Apple's patents for which the Korean company was being charged with violating were nothing more than rounded corners on rectangles, and that the designs were a natural evolution of technology that couldn't be patented.
Apparently, Apple feels differently. The new motion accounts for $400 million in design infringement, $135 million in utility patent infringement, $121 million in damages from sales of infringing devices not covered yet by the trial, and $50 million on prejudgment interest.
If the motion is granted, and the damages are suffered, Samsung will also have to pull current-model Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphones (among other allegedly infringing tech) off store shelves until they can be redesigned to be patent free.
With over 20 million current-model S3's out in the wild since the beginning of September, the phone may be the product of patent oversight but it won't be scarce for some time.
Via Reuters, Foss Patents, AllThingsD
