Appeals Court Ruling Forces Jury to Work Overtime in Apple-Samsung

While both Apple and Samsung have used up the 25 hours they were allotted to make their case, the judge overseeing their patent trial is giving each side an additional hour to address the impact of an appeals court ruling handed down on Friday.

The 95-page ruling was in a separate Apple case involving Motorola, but deals with some of the same patents at issue in the Samsung case. In particular, the court upheld another judge’s construction on the claim of one patent that differs from how the Samsung jury was to evaluate that patent.

This particular Apple patent — one of five that Samsung is accused of infringing — deals with the automatic detection of certain data. The ‘647 “quick links” patent requires the use of an analyzer server. The Apple-Samsung jury had not been given a particular definition of that term, while Judge Richard Posner in the Motorola case had defined it as “a server routine separate from a client that receives data having structures from the client.” Apple had disagreed with that definition, but the federal appeals court sided with the district court judge.

According to reporters in the courtroom, Judge Lucy Koh indicated during an afternoon hearing Friday that each side will be given time to recall various experts in the case to deal with the implications of that changed definition.

The change could delay each side’s two-hour closing arguments, which had been planned for Monday.

Apple is seeking more than $2 billion in damages, while Samsung says that figure is a “gross exaggeration” and is looking for only a few million dollars on its counterclaim.

Update, 4:56 p.m. PT: Closings will have to be shifted to Tuesday, though the jury may get its final jury instructions on Monday, meaning there should be some time on Tuesday to begin deliberations.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.