AFTER a jury in a federal court in California ruled on August 24th that Samsung had violated some of Apple’s patents, one wag online began referring to the South Korean company as “Samesung”. But for Samsung, the verdict is no laughing matter. As well as vindicating Apple, the jury awarded it $1 billion in damages—an amount that could be tripled because Samsung is deemed to have “willfully” copied some aspects of Apple’s wildly popular iPhone and its iPad tablet computer.