Wilan cross appeal - Samsung license exclusionWhile this does not answer the question of how much money Samsung actually paid to Wilan for the license, it does address what Wilan argues was a legal error by the district court to exclude the Samsung license. This is important because the Samsung license supports the USD$0.85/unit royalty rate from the original trial.
From the cross appeal brief:
The Samsung license was properly admitted. It bore on a salient difference between Wi-LAN’s prior negotiations and its hypothetical negotiation with Apple. The licenses Wi-LAN negotiated with Doro, Unnecto, and Vertu would not affect existing license rates. But Apple’s would: Samsung’s “adjust- ment right” would reduce payments from Samsung if Wi-LAN granted Apple— Samsung’s closest competitor—a cheaper license. Given that, Kennedy explained, it would not “make economic sense” to grant Apple a license below a certain amount, because Wi-LAN would lose more from Samsung than it would gain from Apple. That evidence about Wi-LAN’s “economic circumstances” was plainly relevant. Nor would the license inflate damages. While substantial, $ Royalty was less than Kennedy’s $145 million proposed royalty for Apple (at $0.85/unit), which fell squarely within Wi-LAN’s rate sheets.
The district court deemed the Samsung license “‘not relevant’” because Kennedy supposedly had not testified it was “comparable” to Apple’s hypothetical license. But Kennedy testified that Samsung was “certainly the most comparable.” He accounted for pertinent differences, such as the Samsung license’s greater scope and Apple’s greater sales—differences going to “weight,” not “admissibility.” Samsung’s license was relevant because its adjustment right was an “economic circumstance” bearing on the hypothetical negotiation. Declaring it “ ‘not relevant,’ ” was legal error.