On Wednesday, we learned that Apple had lowered its demands in the patent suit in an attempt to come to some kind of middle ground with Samsung, which still claims that it owes far less than what Apple is asking for. Mercury News reporter Howard Mintz liveblogged the trial at SiliconValley.com, and some interesting quotes arose from his reporting. After outlining the extent to which Samsung had infringed on Apple’s rights, attorney Harold McElhinny stated the following in his opening argument: “Our star witness is going to be Samsung.”
“They did their development around the iPhone,” continued McElhinny. “Now that it’s time to pay the piper, Samsung is going to call our inventions trivial. But… that is not what they were saying when they were facing their crisis of design. We are asking you render a verdict that makes Apple whole for the injury Samsung has caused.”
Samsung’s attorney Bill Price began his own opening argument with the claim that “Apple is simply asking for much more money than it’s entitled to.” Price does not argue that Samsung is innocent of infringing on Apple’s patents, but he believes that the company should only owe a fraction of the $379 million “windfall” Apple is demanding on top of what Samsung has already paid. Samsung says profits made from infringing upon Apple’s patents amount to $52 million, no more and no less, and that is what it is prepared to pay.
Whether or not Apple gets the full amount it’s demanding during this retrial, it doesn’t look like the prosecution’s “star witness” is going to give up any ground during the proceedings.
