Apple and Samsung are going back to court today in just one front of their global patent war.
San Jose, Calif. federal judge Lucy Koh will consider reversing – or adjusting – a $1.05 billion award for Apple after a jury found Samsung infringed a ton of its patents.
While that might sound like a lot of money, Apple's $1 billion damages award won't be the most important issue on the table in San Jose today, intellectual property analyst Florian Mueller told Business Insider.
Apple is asking Judge Koh to ban 26 of Samsung's products, including older versions of its smartphones and tablets, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The product ban issue will be huge, Mueller told BI, explaining that injunctions usually hurt competitors more than monetary damages because they impact how customers "experience" their products.
"It's much easier [for a judge] to order payments from these deep-pocketed companies than to shut down somebody's products," he said.
The product ban fight will be complicated by Apple's recent agreement to drop massive litigation with HTC and allow the competitor to license its patents, Mueller said.
Apple's deal with HTC will damage its argument that it suffers "irreparable harm" from Samsung's alleged infringement, and that the products need to be banned, according to Mueller.
"Apparently money will make you whole because you've just accepted that HTC will pay you for the use of the patents," he said.
Why can't Samsung just license patents from Apple? Well, the tech giants aren't getting along very well these days, so a settlement might be pretty far off.
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