The Apple and Samsung patent wars have been fought in many courts with the latest battle witnessing the jury awarding $119 million to the company behind the iPhone. The figure will sound mighty huge to most people, though it’s actually pretty low considering that Apple was asking for $2 billion in damages from Samsung.
The market share of Samsung phones in the US only amounted to 26.1% as compared to Apple’s 41.8% share in October to December of 2013. So it is clear that the company got away lightly with the latest ruling. The Galaxy handset series is the biggest threat to the iPhone currently and what Apple really needed was a ban on sales of its rival’s products which supposedly infringe on its patents. And Cupertino also wanted to aim a blow at Google in spite of knowing that it could have little impact on the viral spread of Android.
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Skulking in the shadows of this patent battle between Apple and Samsung is Google which was accused of nicking some ideas on background synchronization and universal search from the aggrieved party. But Samsung’s smartphones were judged to not infringe upon these two patents; meaning Google got off the hook. Re/code opines that even if Samsung continues to pay Apple more than a billion dollars in damages over the next few years, it has profited much more than this by being the one to offer the strongest competition to the iOS handset maker.
Although Apple has been awarded $119 million over the patent infringement issues, Samsung can thank its lucky stars about the fact that it has not been penalized with permanent injunctions on its devices.