The San Jose Mercury is reporting that as part of a retrial in the infamous Samsung v. Apple lawsuit in California, a jury has awarded Apple a revised damages figure of $290 million after Judge Koh found the original jury made errors in its calculations, resulting in the vacating of $450 million of the original $1 billion-plus verdict. With the new figure, the total is still sky-high at just a hair under $900 million.

The new jury used (presumably) the correct theories to calculate this new award, and the result, while lower than the initial figure of $450 million, is a decided win for Apple. Apple's demand during the retrial was for $380 million, whereas Samsung insisted it should only be responsible for $52 million based on the finding of infringement which it was required to accept as valid for the purpose of this retrial.

This particular case has been mired in controversy from day one, with juror issues, willful infringement claims, and loss after loss for Samsung in court. While the Korean electronics giant attempted the rather common strategy of countersuing Apple for infringement of its own patents, those arguments failed to hold any water at trial, and Samsung was awarded precisely $0 by the jury. The entire struggle is now stretching into over a year of legal proceedings, and I wouldn't count on them winding down any time soon. Samsung and Apple both still have appeals to file at the circuit court level, and that process could take anywhere from another 6 months to a year or more, depending on the complexity of the issues raised and whether or not any are remanded back to the trial court.

That's to say nothing of Apple v. Samsung "round 2," which is scheduled to hit Lucy Koh's docket in March 2014.

San Jose Mercury News