Jury didn't want to let Samsung off easy in Apple trial: foreman

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Jurors felt Samsung Electronics Co Ltd should pay significant damages in the landmark patent trial against Apple Inc, even though they viewed Apple's demands as too high, according to the foreman.

Apple won a sweeping victory against Samsung on Friday in a federal courtroom in San Jose, California.

A nine-member jury found the Korean company had infringed on several Apple features and design patents and awarded the iPhone maker $1.05 billion in damages, which could be tripled because the jury also decided the Korean firm had acted willfully.

Apple said it intends to seek sales bans against Samsung mobile products, which Samsung will oppose.

In an interview on Saturday, jury foreman Velvin Hogan, 67, said Apple's arguments about the need to protect innovation were persuasive in the jury room. He also said video testimony from senior Samsung executives made it "absolutely" clear to them that the infringement was purposeful.

"We didn't want to give carte blanche to a company, by any name, to infringe someone else's intellectual property," Hogan told Reuters a day after the verdict.

However, Hogan said Apple's damages demand of up to $2.75 billion were "extraordinarily high," partly because it was unclear whether Apple had enough component supply to sell more phones even if it had wanted to.

FIGURING DAMAGES