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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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New Evidence Barred in Apple-Samsung Spat

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) - A federal court judge ruled Samsung can't introduce additional evidence in its ongoing damages retrial with Apple, calling Samsung's motion "too little, too late."

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said Samsung's attempt to introduce new evidence would unfairly prejudice Apple, run contrary to agreed-upon court management and further burden court resources.

Koh's latest ruling marks the 3,430th document filed in the tech giants' brutal, nearly five-year patent fight. Apple first sued Samsung in April 2011, claiming the South Korean company infringed its utility and design patents and trade dress.

A jury awarded Apple $1 billion in damages in 2012, finding Samsung had violated Apple's patents to produce its line of Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Koh halved that award the following year, faulting the jury for not following her instructions in the 22-page, 700-question verdict form, and ordered a retrial on related damages.

The second jury awarded Apple $290 million. The Federal Circuit ruled in May 2015 that the trade dress claims, which relate to how the visual appearance of a product signifies a specific product to consumers, were not subject to intellectual property rights protections and upheld the remainder of the verdict.

Yet another retrial, this time on the vacated trade dress claims, landed the case back in Koh's courtroom - this time involving just five of the original 26 products. Samsung filed a motion asking Koh to consider new evidence that it says undercuts Apple's claims of lost profitability due to the infringement.

Specifically, Samsung claims two separate email chains sent between Apple marketing executive Phil Schiller and Apple's advertising agency demonstrates that Apple's assertion they lost profits and royalties are spurious. The company also argued that two presentations by Apple from 2013 similarly undermine arguments of profit loss.

Samsung also asked Koh for permission to include expert testimony about the time it took Samsung to implement a workaround of Apple's patents.

In her 12-page ruling, Koh acknowledged the email chains are relevant to the case, but said the 11th-hour introduction and the short time frame in which Apple can respond ahead of trial warrant a denial of the motion.

Furthermore, Samsung has often used Koh's previous refusals to add to the evidentiary pile against Apple, Koh said.

"The motion is flatly inconsistent with Samsung's previous efforts to benefit from the court's evidentiary cut-off at Apple's expense," she wrote. "Samsung has been an enthusiastic proponent for exclusion of evidence based on the court's rules prohibiting new evidence throughout this case."

Neither side returned phone calls and emails requesting comment Wednesday afternoon.

Follow @@MatthewCRenda
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