Litigation Details for Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (N.D. Cal. 2012)

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (N.D. Cal. 2012)

Docket		Date Filed	2012-02-08
Court	District Court, N.D. California	Date Terminated	2018-04-10
Cause	35:271 Patent Infringement	Assigned To	Lucy Haeran Koh
Jury Demand	Both	Referred To	Nathanael M. Cousins
Patents	11,020,343; 8,945,005; 9,399,021
Link to Docket	External link to docket

Details for Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (N.D. Cal. 2012)

Date Filed	Document No.	Description	Snippet	Link To Document
2012-02-08				External link to document

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., 5:12-cv-00630: Litigation Summary and Patent Analysis

Last updated: August 8, 2026

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 5:12-cv-00630-LHK, was a major Northern District of California patent case involving smartphone and tablet user-interface technology. Apple filed the action in February 2012, alleging that Samsung infringed several Apple patents through Galaxy smartphones and tablets. A 2014 jury awarded Apple $119.6 million and awarded Samsung $158,400 on a counterclaim. The Federal Circuit later narrowed aspects of the verdict and remanded the case for further proceedings. Apple and Samsung settled their remaining U.S. patent disputes in June 2018, ending the case without a public license or royalty schedule. [1]-[4]

What was Apple v. Samsung 5:12-cv-00630 about?

The case concerned alleged infringement of Apple patents covering mobile-device interface functions, including data detection, unlocking gestures, word recommendations, and search functionality. Apple accused Samsung Galaxy products running versions of Android of copying or implementing those functions.

The litigation was separate from Apple's earlier California case against Samsung, No. 5:11-cv-01846, which produced the widely reported 2012 verdict involving design patents and trade dress. The 5:12-cv-00630 action involved later-generation products and a different set of asserted patents.

Item	Detail
Court	U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Case number	5:12-cv-00630-LHK
Judge	Lucy H. Koh
Plaintiff	Apple Inc.
Defendant	Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., with affiliated Samsung entities
Complaint filed	February 8, 2012
Jury trial	2014
Apple jury award	$119.6 million
Samsung jury award	$158,400
Federal Circuit decision	2015
Final resolution	U.S. settlement and dismissal in 2018

What patents did Apple assert against Samsung?

Apple's principal asserted patents covered software and user-interface functionality rather than the overall physical design of the accused devices.

Apple patent portfolio in the case

Patent	General subject matter	Litigation significance
U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647	Detecting structures in data and performing actions, commonly associated with “data tapping” or quick links	One of Apple's principal liability theories
U.S. Patent No. 8,046,721	Unlocking a device through a gesture performed on an unlock image	Asserted against Samsung's lock-screen functionality
U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172	Word recommendations and related graphical-user-interface functions	Covered predictive text and word-recommendation behavior
U.S. Patent No. 8,086,604	Search and information retrieval functions, including unified search concepts	Asserted as a software-interface patent
U.S. Patent No. 8,051,915	User-interface and data-retrieval technology	Part of Apple's broader asserted patent group, although not all asserted claims produced liability findings

The case involved claim construction, infringement, validity, damages, and patent-specific defenses. The jury did not accept every Apple theory. The Federal Circuit later modified the legal effect of several findings, demonstrating that the initial $119.6 million verdict was not the final measure of Samsung's exposure.

Which Samsung products were accused of infringement?

Apple accused Samsung smartphones and tablets sold during the relevant damages period. The accused products included Galaxy S-series smartphones, Galaxy Note products, and Galaxy tablets.

The product list evolved during the litigation as Apple sought to add newer devices. The dispute therefore covered a product family rather than one device model. Relevant accused products included versions of the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Nexus, and Galaxy Tab lines, among others identified in the pleadings and trial materials.

The commercial issue was whether Samsung's Android implementations used Apple-patented interface functions. The case did not turn on whether the Galaxy devices copied Apple's entire operating system or hardware design.

What did the 2014 jury decide?

The jury returned a mixed verdict.

Apple received $119.6 million in damages for infringement findings involving a subset of its asserted patents and accused Samsung products. Samsung received $158,400 on a patent counterclaim against Apple. The award was substantially below Apple's approximately $2.2 billion damages request. [2]

The verdict showed that:

1. The jury accepted infringement for certain Apple interface patents.
2. The jury rejected or did not find liability on all asserted patents and products.
3. Samsung's counterclaim produced only a nominal recovery.
4. The damages award reflected product-specific findings, not a blanket royalty for the entire Galaxy portfolio.

Apple sought post-trial relief, including an injunction against Samsung products. The district court declined to impose a broad permanent injunction, reasoning that Apple had not shown the required causal connection between the patented features and consumer demand for the accused products. [3]

What did the Federal Circuit decide?

The Federal Circuit reviewed the judgment in Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., 786 F.3d 983 (Fed. Cir. 2015). The decision addressed infringement, validity, damages, and Apple's request for injunctive relief. [4]

The appellate court did not simply affirm the entire jury result. It held that certain patent findings could not stand as entered and remanded aspects of the case to the district court. The decision limited Apple's ability to convert the jury verdict into a broad product injunction.

The appellate analysis was important for three reasons.

The patent claims had to be evaluated individually

The Federal Circuit treated the asserted patents separately. A finding that Samsung infringed one Apple patent did not establish liability for every accused product or every other Apple patent.

Injunction standards were demanding

Apple had to demonstrate more than valid patent rights and past infringement. It had to establish entitlement to equitable relief, including irreparable harm and a causal relationship between the patented features and demand for Samsung products.

Damages were product-specific

The case did not support a damages theory based automatically on the full value of a smartphone. The relevant economic analysis had to account for the patented functions, the accused products, and the scope of proven infringement.

What was the final litigation status?

Apple and Samsung settled their remaining patent disputes in the United States in June 2018. The settlement ended the outstanding litigation between the companies in U.S. courts, including the remaining proceedings associated with this case. The parties did not disclose the settlement amount, royalty terms, cross-license scope, or allocation of consideration among cases. [5]

The settlement means that:

• No ongoing public damages trial remained in this case.
• No public injunction against Samsung products resulted from the case.
• The settlement did not establish a continuing public royalty rate.
• The case is no longer an active source of product-launch risk between Apple and Samsung.
• The settlement terms cannot be used to infer a generally applicable value for Apple's interface patents.

Did the case involve a Paragraph IV challenge?

No. This was not an Abbreviated New Drug Application dispute under the Hatch-Waxman Act.

Paragraph IV litigation concerns generic drug applicants challenging Orange Book-listed pharmaceutical patents. Apple v. Samsung was a technology patent case involving smartphones, tablets, software, and user interfaces. It had no ANDA, New Drug Application, FDA exclusivity, Orange Book listing, generic-drug launch date, or pharmaceutical patent-term-restoration issue.

Did the case involve biosimilar risk or FDA regulation?

No. Biosimilar risk was not relevant. The accused products were consumer electronics, not biologics or pharmaceutical products. The FDA had no regulatory role in the patent dispute, and there were no biologic exclusivity, interchangeable biosimilar, formulation, dosage-form, or manufacturing-process issues.

What patent litigation affected the case?

The case was part of a larger global patent campaign between Apple and Samsung.

Related proceedings included:

• Apple's earlier U.S. case against Samsung, No. 5:11-cv-01846.
• Appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
• Patent litigation in Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other jurisdictions.
• Samsung counterclaims involving telecommunications and mobile-device technology.
• The U.S. Supreme Court's later review of design-patent damages in the separate earlier case, Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., 580 U.S. 53 (2016).

The separate Supreme Court design-damages decision should not be treated as a direct holding on the software patents at issue in 5:12-cv-00630. It affected the broader Apple-Samsung litigation environment but did not create a new liability finding in this case. [6]

What was the commercial exposure for Samsung?

The confirmed jury damages were $119.6 million, before the effect of appellate modification, post-trial proceedings, interest, and settlement. That amount was material in litigation terms but small relative to Samsung's consolidated smartphone revenue.

The larger commercial risk was injunctive relief. An injunction covering widely sold Galaxy products could have required:

• Software redesigns;
• Removal or modification of interface functions;
• Firmware updates;
• Product-specific workarounds;
• Design-around engineering;
• Potential delays for new device launches.

The district court's refusal to issue a broad injunction reduced the immediate operational risk. The appellate proceedings also made clear that Apple would need to prove a close link between the patented feature and consumer demand before obtaining product-level relief.

How strong was Apple's patent estate in this case?

Apple's estate had meaningful litigation leverage but mixed enforcement strength.

Strengths

Apple's strongest position came from patents directed to visible, commercially deployed interface functions. Such patents can create practical redesign costs when they cover features integrated into a mobile operating system.

The case also involved issued patents with substantial litigation history and a defendant with a product portfolio large enough to generate significant damages exposure.

Limitations

The claims were vulnerable to:

• Prior-art challenges;
• Noninfringement arguments based on implementation differences;
• Claim-construction disputes;
• Product-by-product damages limitations;
• The requirement to prove entitlement to injunctive relief.

The reduced relationship between the asserted functions and overall device demand weakened Apple's effort to obtain a broad sales injunction. The Federal Circuit's review also confirmed that a large patent portfolio does not guarantee complete affirmance of a jury verdict.

What formulation, method-of-use, and manufacturing patents were involved?

No pharmaceutical formulation or method-of-use patents were involved.

The closest technical equivalents were software implementation and user-interface patents. Apple's claims addressed how devices detected data, unlocked screens, generated word recommendations, and conducted searches. Samsung's defenses focused on whether its software practiced the claimed limitations and whether the claims were valid over prior art.

Manufacturing-process barriers were peripheral. The dispute did not center on semiconductor fabrication, display manufacturing, or a supply-chain license. The principal design-around issue was software modification.

Did Apple and Samsung enter a patent license or settlement agreement?

The parties entered a confidential settlement in 2018 covering their remaining U.S. litigation. Publicly available information does not disclose whether the settlement included a cross-license, payment, covenants not to sue, field limitations, or patent exhaustion provisions.

The settlement should be distinguished from a publicly reported bilateral portfolio license with disclosed royalty rates. It resolved litigation but did not provide a public benchmark for the value of any single Apple patent.

What generic-entry risks existed for Samsung?

There was no generic-entry risk in the pharmaceutical sense. The relevant product-entry risk was competitive and technological.

Before settlement, Samsung faced several possible outcomes:

Scenario	Potential effect
Apple wins liability only	Monetary damages and possible redesign obligations
Apple obtains an injunction	Product withdrawal, software changes, or launch delays
Samsung prevails on validity	Elimination of patent-based restrictions
Samsung designs around claims	Continued sales with modified interface functions
Settlement	Elimination of case-specific injunction and damages uncertainty

The final settlement eliminated the immediate case-specific launch risk. It did not prevent future patent disputes involving later Apple or Samsung technologies.

How did this case compare with Apple v. Samsung 5:11-cv-01846?

Issue	5:12-cv-00630	5:11-cv-01846
Primary technology	Mobile software and user interfaces	Design patents, utility patents, and trade dress
Major jury date	2014	2012
Initial Apple award	$119.6 million	More than $1 billion initially, later reduced through appeals and retrials
Damages theory	Patented interface functions and accused products	Included design-patent and trade-dress theories
Supreme Court relevance	Limited direct effect	Central to design-patent damages review
Final relationship	Resolved in 2018 U.S. settlement	Also covered by the broader settlement

The two cases are often combined in media coverage, but their patent claims, damages theories, and appellate histories were different.

What is the current legal and commercial significance?

The case is closed. Its continuing value is analytical rather than operational.

For patent owners, the case illustrates the difficulty of obtaining a broad injunction for smartphone software patents when the patented feature is one component of a multifunctional product. For accused-device companies, it shows the importance of product-by-product infringement analysis, claim construction, prior-art defenses, and design-around planning.

For licensing and investment analysis, the $119.6 million verdict should not be treated as a standalone valuation of Apple's user-interface portfolio. The amount was reduced or otherwise affected by appellate review, and the final settlement terms were confidential. The case is better viewed as evidence of litigation leverage and redesign risk than as a transparent royalty benchmark.

Key Takeaways

• Apple filed 5:12-cv-00630 against Samsung in February 2012 in the Northern District of California.
• The case involved Apple software and user-interface patents, including U.S. Patent Nos. 5,946,647, 8,046,721, 8,074,172, and 8,086,604.
• A 2014 jury awarded Apple $119.6 million and Samsung $158,400.
• The verdict was mixed and did not establish infringement across all asserted patents or products.
• The Federal Circuit modified and remanded aspects of the district court judgment.
• Apple did not obtain a broad permanent injunction against Samsung's Galaxy products.
• Apple and Samsung settled their remaining U.S. disputes in June 2018 under confidential terms.
• Paragraph IV, Orange Book, biosimilar, FDA, formulation, and pharmaceutical exclusivity issues were not involved.
• The case's principal commercial risk was software redesign and potential product injunctions, not generic entry.
• The litigation provides limited value as a royalty benchmark because the final settlement terms were undisclosed.

FAQs

Did Apple win or lose Apple v. Samsung 5:12-cv-00630?

Apple won a substantial 2014 jury verdict, but the result was mixed and later modified through appellate review. The parties ultimately settled before the remaining issues produced a fully litigated final monetary outcome.

How much did Samsung pay Apple in the 5:12-cv-00630 case?

The jury awarded Apple $119.6 million, but the final settlement amount was confidential. Public records do not establish that the settlement payment equaled the jury award.

Was Samsung banned from selling Galaxy phones because of this case?

No broad product ban resulted from this case. The district court denied Apple's request for a broad permanent injunction, and the case later ended in settlement.

Which Apple patent covered the iPhone slide-to-unlock feature?

U.S. Patent No. 8,046,721 was associated with Apple's unlocking-gesture technology in this litigation. The patent's legal treatment must be analyzed separately from Apple's other interface patents and from patents asserted in the earlier Apple-Samsung case.

Is Apple v. Samsung 5:12-cv-00630 still active?

No. The remaining U.S. litigation between Apple and Samsung was settled in 2018, and the case no longer presents active litigation exposure.

References

1. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. (2012). Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 5:12-cv-00630-LHK.

2. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. (2014). Jury verdict form, Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 5:12-cv-00630-LHK.

3. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. (2014). Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., post-trial orders, No. 5:12-cv-00630-LHK.

4. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. (2015). Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., 786 F.3d 983.

5. Apple Inc. & Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (2018). Settlement and dismissal filings in U.S. patent litigation.

6. Supreme Court of the United States. (2016). Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., 580 U.S. 53.