Jurors Credit This Key Witness in Apple Victory Over Samsung

Another chapter closed yesterday in the series of Apple vs. Samsung patent infringement trials in favour of the Cupertino company: The federal jury restored most of the amount cut from last year’s $1.05 billion verdict, as it awarded $290 million in damages to the iPhone maker.

As it turns out, Apple used the same tactics as last year, with one tiny change that heavily contributed to its victory yesterday: a new damages expert who replaced a witness who had died. Speaking with Bloomberg, the jury’s forewoman Colleen Allen, a former U.S. military medic who served a tour in Afghanistan credited the new expert, Julie L. Davis, a Chicago-based public accountant, for providing clear evidence that they could use to decide the damages sum.

Another juror, Barry Goldman-Hall, said that Davis’s testimony served decisive evidence presented at the trial.

“For most of us it was Julie Davis,” he said in an interview. “She offered us a lot of information” to determine how much of the $178 million and what royalties should be awarded to Apple, he said. Samsung attempted, and failed, to block Goldman-Hall from being seated on the panel after he disclosed during jury selection that his cousin’s employment with Samsung ended “under bad circumstances.”

Earlier in March, Judge Lucy Koh cut $450 million from the original $1.05 billion verdict awarded to Apple, as Samsung was found to infringe upon the company’s patents and scheduled a damages retrial. Apple fought to restore $380 million of the amount cut, while Samsung said the jury should award only $52 million.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the $290 million damages award is the fifth-largest sum awarded in the US this year and the largest jury award in a patent case for 2013.