Apple, Samsung Head Back to Court for Damages Retrial

On Nov. 12, Apple (AAPL) and Samsung will resume their legal wrangling over patents in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose, in a retrial of the damages awarded in the first trial.

You may recall that Apple won the first time around, last August, landing $1.05 billion in damages. What you may not remember is that Judge Lucy Koh bought Samsung’s subsequent appeal that the jury had botched its job to correctly figure out the appropriate damages, vacated some $400 million of the award, and, in March, ordered a new trial to get it right.

The damages hearing isn’t to be confused with a second litigation between the warring companies on a new slew of patent violations, slated to begin March 31, 2014. That trial includes Samsung’s wildly popular Galaxy S3 but not the newer Galaxy S4.

The questions at hand for this jury is not what happens to the remaining $600 million—that’s under a separate appeal—but will the original $400 million award stand, will the damages amount increase or be reduced?

According to a blog entry at Foss Patents, Apple already has won a pre-trial skirmish over the verdict form the jury will have to fill out in awarding damages to either party. In the first trial, the form was hopelessly complicated, but in the retrial Apple’s proposal for a simple form involving a summary of the case and the verdict appears to have won Judge Koh’s approval.

In a nutshell, Apple wanted the verdict form to include a total amount and an itemization per product, while Samsung asked for a more complicated matrix with a breakdown of the types of damages, including lost profits for each product.

“The jury will learn about different types of patent damages and the parties will present different theories. But the verdict form won't reveal the methodology behind a given per-product award,” wrote Florian Mueller. “Samsung has been unsuccessful so far with its attempts to muddy the water for the new jury.”