Three weeks after finally receiving $548,176,477 from Samsung over the South Korean company's infringement of Apple's design and technology patents dating back to a 2012 jury verdict, the iPhone maker has filed for another $178,659,870 in supplemental damages and $1,192,490 in interest payments.
The supplemental damages and interest come on top of the the original $548 million Samsung finally agreed to pay earlier this month.
The supplemental damages, compiled on Apple's behalf by CPA Julie Davis, relate to continued infringement by Samsung after the original jury verdict of willful infringement was first issued in August 2012, continuing through this spring, when Apple filed its motion for supplemental damages.
The figure is based on unit sales figures provided by Samsung of five infringing models (quite old Galaxy S II variants) that Samsung continued to sell after the verdict was reached over three years ago.
If Apple is awarded the full amount, it will bring Samsung's total payout for infringement to less than $750 million, far less than the profits it made over the past four years by studying Apple's designs and then documenting its process of "slavishly copying" them as closely as possible, despite being fully aware that those designs and technologies were ostensibly protected by patent law.
While failing to win its initial demands in a series of cases brought to U.S. courts, Apple has effectively crushed Samsung's infringement-based profiteering in the market place, delivering a series of high end products that customers have selected in preference to Samsung's, even when the latter offered major price discounts and free offers. While failing to win its initial demands in a series of cases brought to U.S. courts, Apple has effectively crushed Samsung's infringement-based profiteering in the market place
While Samsung has seen its phone and tablet profits implode over the past year, Apple reported September quarter profits of $11.1 billion, twice that of Samsung Mobile at peak-Galaxy and five times what it is now earning.
Over the last year, Apple's sales of iPhone 6 models have crushed every other flagship Android or Windows phone, allowing the company to gobble up 94 percent of all profits earned in the smartphone industry, despite having equal (or inferior) access to markets, carriers and distribution.
Samsung is now producing record numbers of low end phones, and is set to be among those most impacted by future predictions of slowing global demand for smartphones. Additionally, Apple has also cultivated a highly profitable iPad business and launched a new Apple Watch that has in its first year become far more successful than all of Samsung's various Gear watches sold over the past three years.
While Samsung and Apple remain each other's largest partners, with Samsung supplying vast numbers of components and providing large scale chip production for Apple, the company is expected to lose Apple's A10 chip production next year to TSMC. Apple is also appears to be continuing to explore alternative suppliers and vertical integration in ways that will devastate the steady business Samsung has relied upon for many years.