The South Korean phone maker has been involved in yet another patent saga where the violation required the tech firm to pay $15.7 million USD for infringing the patents of Rembrandt Wireless Technologies. The decision was made by the Harrison County federal jury. It took the jury only 60 minutes to reach their verdict, which was issued on Feb. 13.
The trial commenced for five days, and focused on two Rembrandt patents.
- U.S. Patent Nos. 8,023,580
- U.S. Patent Nos. 8,457,228
Apart from receiving a nice payday amount of $15.7 million USD, Rembrandt will also be receiving royalty payments on all Samsung Bluetooth sales for the life of the patents. Rembrandt, which is based in Pennsylvania and has an area of expertise in designing and manufacturing Bluetooth modules, has had some practice concerning legal proceedings. The last time the tech firm went to court was back in 2013, where it sued both BlackBerry and Samsung for patent infringement concerning Bluetooth "enhanced data rate" inventions.
While BlackBerry had settled with the company before appearing for trial, Samsung infringed the patent by incorporating the technology in its Galaxy S lineup of smartphones. Samsung, apart from suffering a 60 percent operating profit loss that took place in Q4 2014, has had its market share slump from 28.8 percent to 19.8 percent in a period of just 12 months. In addition, the company's financial losses have also stemmed from settling its legal arguments with firms such as Microsoft and Apple.
In comparison, the $15.7 million USD paid to Rembrandt is nothing compared to what the company paid Apple back in 2012; a prodigious amount of $1.05 billion USD. With all that has been going against Samsung's will, the leading Android phone maker will be looking to end its loss with the release of the Galaxy S6, which is expected to be released on March 1, 2015.
