Samsung Owes Apple $1.1M in Court Costs

SAN JOSE (CN) - A federal judge awarded Apple $1.1 million in costs for its patent fight with Samsung, on top of the $120 million already granted to Apple.

Apple prevailed on three claims of patent infringement: one on summary judgment and two at trial. The jury awarded Apple $119.6 million in damages in May 2014.

The jury also determined that Apple infringed on one Samsung patents, and awarded Samsung $158,400 in damages: 0.13 percent of Apple's recovery.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh entered final judgment in November and ordered Samsung to pay royalties for continuing infringements of three Apple patents.

Apple sought $1.14 million in costs, but a clerk disallowed $465,000, leaving Apple with just over $659,000.

Samsung sought costs of $609,000, but the clerk reduced it to $399,000.

Both parties sought review, but Koh granted only Apple's request, as there can be only one prevailing party.

"Apple prevailed on significantly more issues than Samsung: infringement of three Apple patents, plus invalidity of one Samsung patent. Samsung's voluntary dismissal of infringement of three claims from three Samsung patents after the pretrial conference, but before trial, also counts in Apple's favor, as the dismissal was not pursuant to court-ordered case narrowing," Koh wrote in her Aug. 20 ruling.

Samsung prevailed on only one of its claims at trial, to which it had allotted about 5 percent of its trial time. Because it was not the prevailing party, Samsung is not entitled to recover any costs, Koh said.

She denied Samsung's request that review of Apple's costs be deferred pending resolution of Samsung's appeal to the Federal Circuit.

"The instant litigation has been before this court since February 2012. Recognizing that the prevailing party has an interest in the prompt payment of its taxable costs and in light of the need to finally bring the litigation before this court to an end, the court finds that there is no basis to defer a decision on the bill of costs," Koh wrote.

On review, Koh found that Apple is entitled to nearly all of its requested $1.138 million in costs. She reduced it by $13,000 for printed or electronically recorded transcripts, and another $15,000 for copies of materials provided to the court.

Apple's final award of costs was $1,110,639.

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