Samsung will actually pay Apple the $548 million it owes for infringement
Courts ruled that Samsung copied Apple, and now it's time to pay up
The iPhone’s influence on Samsung’s smartphones over the past several years has been… well, obvious to say the least. And courts agreed, awarding Apple sizable sums of money, which Samsung continued to appeal. But it’s finally ending.
Both companies issued a joint legal brief today stating that Samsung will finally pay the revised judgment from an infringement suit that was first ruled on in 2012. Samsung will pay the sum of US$548,176,477 (about £363 million) to Apple, which is trimmed down dramatically from an initial US$1.05 billion (about £700 million) damages verdict.
Samsung says it will pay its tab to Apple by 14 December, and Apple has agreed to withdraw its latest court motion by 16 December. Both sides were in mediation talks for a settlement, but it appears that Samsung would rather just pay the latest verdict and get this process over with.
The statement has a couple of odd asterisks, however. Samsung has declined to pay an additional judgment of US$1.8 million (about £1.2 million) for Apple’s legal costs, plus it claims to have the right to take back money in the future should future judgments change the award. As the legal statement notes, "Apple disputes Samsung’s asserted rights to reimbursement."
So we might not be totally done with these back-and-forth legal challenges. Here’s hoping, however. Apple and Samsung said they’d stop suing each other in summer of 2014, but noted that current American suits would continue on. With Microsoft and Google also recently deciding to end various legal battles, here’s hoping for a kinder, gentler tech market in the years ahead.
[Source: The Verge]
Andrew Hayward
Freelance Writer 
