The latest round in Apple and Samsung's bitterglobal battle for supremacy in the more than $300 billion smartphone market begins Tuesday in a courtroom a few miles from Apple's Silicon Valley headquarters.
In courts, government tribunals and regulatory agenciesaround world, Apple Inc. has argued that Samsung's Android-based phones copyvital iPhone features. Samsung Electronics Co. is fighting back with its owncomplaints that some key Apple patents are invalid and Apple has also copiedSamsung's technology.
The two have each won and lost legal skirmishes over thelast couple of years, and the companies appear oceans apart in settling theirdifferences. Analysts predict continued litigation for months to come.
On Tuesday, the latest chapter opens in a federal courtroomin San Jose,where lawyers from the two companies and US District Judge Lucy Koh will beginpicking a jury to calculate how much South Korea-based Samsung owes Apple forinfringing Apple's patents on 13 older Samsung smartphones and computer tablets
Representatives of both companies declined to comment.
With Apple's Cupertinoheadquarters about a 10-minute drive from the courthouse, potential jurors willbe asked if any family members work for Apple and whether the company'sproximity will have any effect on their views of the case.
A different jury in August found that Samsung infringed sixApple patents to create and market 26 smartphones and computer tablets. Thepanel ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion.
Koh then tossed out $450 million of that amount afterdeciding the jury wrongly calculated damages for 14 products. Amid an avalancheof legal filings afterward, Koh reduced the damages at issue to $400 millionand the products to 13, then ordered a new jury to recalculate damages forthose products.
Some four dozen people are listed on the trial's witnesslist, many of them experts hired by
Apple and Samsung to deliver damageestimates, which range from zero to more than the original $400 million.
Despite the amount of money involved, the currentproceedings are somewhat of a warm-up for a much larger trial scheduled forMarch. That trial will focus on newer products still on the market, while thecurrent trial is a battle over products that are several years old and nolonger sold in the US.More money is at stake, and Apple is asking that Samsung be barred from sellingsome of its current devices in the US.
In both cases, jurors will hear from experts opining on theglobal market and offering dramatically differing views on damages. In thecurrent case, the jury will determine damages by deciding - among other issues- whether Samsung's behavior actually cost Apple sales.
Whatever the outcome, appeals are expected."This trial is just about money. Though several hundredmillion dollars are at stake, that isn't going to make or break either of thecompanies involved," said Mark Lemley a Stanford Universitylaw school professor who specializes in technology issues. "But the trialis also the last step in getting this case ready for the inevitable appeal. ...That appeal will have broader ramifications."
Apple transformed the mobile phone industry when it startedselling the iPhone in 2007, but its success was quickly imitated and Samsung'ssmartphone shipments surpassed Apple's
iPhone sales in 2011.
According to research group IDC, Samsung shipped 81 milliondevices in the July-to-September quarter for a market share of 31 percent,making it the world's top seller. Apple is a distant second, having shipped 34million iPhones, for a market share of 13 percent over the same period.
Photo: Reuters 
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