The latest patent infringement legal tussle between Apple and Samsung did not just produce a magic number. The damage amount the iPhone and iPad maker demands is not an imaginary fruit that fell hard on Samsung's head.
On Tuesday, Apple explained in plain English to the court why it has asked for $2.19 billion in damages from Samsung. Chris Vellturo, the company's trusted damages expert from MIT who also runs consultancy firm Quantitative Economic Solutions, explained to the jury that the patent infringement of Samsung caused significant damages to Apple.
Vellturo pointed out that the math behind the amount demanded by Apple came from the 37 million units of smartphones and tablets sold by Samsung between August 2011 and December 2013. Vellturo, who has also participated in other cases against Samsung, justified how the timing of the infringement by the maker of Galaxy phones and tablets affected the demand for Apple products.
"It's a particularly significant period for Samsung to have been infringing. It's a very large market and Samsung has made a lot of sales into that market. That had a dramatic effect on Apple, and the compensation is therefore substantial," said Vellturo.
He related to the court that his company spent as many as 5,000 hours analyzing documents and researching for the case. Vellturo disclosed that he is paid $700 an hour by Apple and has so far earned more than half a million dollars for the current case, working roughly 800 hours himself. The damages expert dissected how infringing on the patents of Apple allowed Samsung to improve features of its products and make them easier to use.
Vellturo will still be cross-examined by the legal team of Samsung.
Apple also presented the studies conducted by another expert, marketing professor John Hauser from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.
Hauser's conjoint surveys involved around 1,000 owners of Samsung smartphone and tablets. Dissecting the features needed, his team figured out the possible additional fees to get additional features such as contextual links ($69), word auto-correct ($102), slide-to-unlock feature ($32) and universal search ($33).
The numbers presented by Hauser in court were amounts consumers are willing to pay to get those features, so they cannot be added automatically to the price tag of the devices. Of course, Samsung lawyers were critical of Hauser's conclusions. Hauser has also been part of previous Apple patent cases.
Samsung described Apple's claims as "gross exaggeration." The company is expected to demand $7 million for infringement violations committed by Apple against it.
The current legal tug-of-war between the two companies could have been avoided if they both agreed during a mediation in February participated in by their respective chief executives and in-house legal teams.
With Apple hitting Samsung on the head with a $2.2 billion damages claim, the technology world is waiting to learn if Samsung has the so called equal and opposite reaction that can turn things favorable for its business.
