Apple Feels it 'Deserves' $2 Billion From Samsung

Apr 02, 2014 05:34 PM EDT | Matt Mercuro

An Apple attorney said to jurors yesterday, April 1, the company feels it deserves approximately $2 billion from Samsung for copying its iPhone device, according to Reuters.

A Samsung lawyer meanwhile said Apple is just mad that it's no longer the leader in the smartphone market.

The two companies made their way to court this week for opening statements in their patent dispute.

Previously, jurors awarded the iPhone maker approximately $930 million after a 2012 trial in San Jose, California, but Apple wasn't able to convince U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to issue a permanent injunction against the sale of all Samsung smartphones, according to Reuters.

A sales ban would have been a huge win for Apple, as Samsung earned $7.7 billion in the quarter that ended this past December.

Samsung's mobile division generated an operating profit of 5.47 trillion won, or $5.1 billion, according to Reuters.

The trial deals with a bunch of Apple patents, which cover signature iPhone features like search technology and slide to unlock.

Apple wants to ban sales of a number of Samsung phones like the popular Galaxy S III.

Apple attorney Harold McElhinny said to an eight-member jury that Samsung had sold over 37 million phones and tablets that infringe its patents. They feel that they deserve an average royalty of $33 per phone, according to Reuters

"They will try to tell you that our inventions were and are trivial," McElhinny said, according to Reuters. "And that they are not valuable."

McElhinny added that in 2010, Samsung couldn't compete with Apple, so they decided to use Apple technology.

"It copied many many features," he said.

Samsung attorney John Quinn said features Apple is claiming to own were actually developed by Google however.

"We will prove to you that, yes, Apple is a great company but they don't own everything," Quinn said, according to Reuters. "They don't own the only way to search on phones."

Likewise, Samsung claims Apple violated two of its own patents, and is looking to ban iPhone 5 sales.

"What this case is really about is Apple trying to limit consumer choice and to gain an unfair advantage over its one main competitor, Google's Android," Quinn said.

The trial is expected to last until early May.

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