Two major developments this week in separate, high profile Apple lawsuits. It's like going back in time to tell the court "my bad." Step into our DeLorean today and we'll travel back in time to revisit some courtroom drama that is back in the news again.
Remember that $1 billion the jury awarded Apple last summer in the blockbuster lawsuit against Samsung? Well, according to Wired the federal judge in that case, Judge Lucy Koh, decided that the jury was a bit out of line when they came up with that number; in a ruling issued last week, Judge Koh announced she is reducing the award by 43 percent.
Apparently, after reviewing the way the jury arrived at the $1 billion mark, Judge Koh realized that they used a method explicitly prohibited to them. Whoops.
"Though the Court gave a curative instruction, explicitly telling the jury that it was not allowed to apply that theory," Judge Koh stated in the ruling, "the amount of the award made plain that the jury had applied the impermissible theory anyway."
Only $600,000,000 now? Winning!
Judge Koh did not overturn any part of the verdict that determined Samsung did in fact infringe on Apple intellectual property; this ruling specifically changed the amount Samsung has to pay Cupertino. Though a Samsung representative stated they were pleased with the reduced award amount, it remains hard claim any sort of victory when you're still on the hook for nearly $600 million.
While we're tripping down memory lane, remember that high-profile investor lawsuit against Apple, the one that reeked of being nothing but yet another public relations stunt by the investor? Turns out that's probably exactly what it was, because the lawsuit has been withdrawn.
According to USA Today, hedge fund manager David Einhorn has dropped his company's lawsuit against Apple, pretty much as soon as he was able to leverage the court to make Cupertino postpone a key investor vote. Apple was scheduled to hold a shareholder vote last week, but then U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan granted Einhorn an injunction blocking the vote.
Yeah, that's right...I said SILLY.
This was basically all Einhorn wanted, to block the vote; once accomplished, he cancelled the entire lawsuit, despite launching it just a few weeks before with all the choreographed media coverage of a pop star announcing a new world tour. It seems now that the significance of Einhorn's lawsuit carries pretty much the same gravitas as a pop star world tour, too.
Perhaps Tim Cook was spot-on from the beginning when he characterized this particular legal drama as nothing more than a "silly slideshow."
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