Samsung facing $3 billion dollar lawsuit over patent infringement

US data security company PACid Technologies is suing Samsung for patent infringement. The suit concerns three patents, believed to be related to the biometric security features of Samsung’s recent Galaxy devices; specifically, the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S8 (and the Edge/Plus variants thereof).

The news arrives via The Investor and ETNews, which cited a complaint filed with the Texas Eastern District Court on April 6.

The patents, two of which are said to be based in the US and one of which originated from Korea, have seemingly been infringed upon by Samsung’s KNOX security system and biometric operating system PASS.

Given the millions of devices sold in the past three years since the release of the Galaxy S6 in 2015, it’s believed that the compensation for the claim could be between $2.8 and $3 billion dollars.

PACid has been likened to a “patent troll” and is said to have previously sued Google, Apple and Nintendo for patent infringement. A Samsung representative told ETNews that the company is “planning to look for countermeasures after going over [the] claims made by PACid.”

Samsung has faced several significant setbacks in recent years, from having to discontinue one of its major 2016 smartphones due to safety concerns, to its acting chief Lee Jae-yong being sentenced to prison for bribery, perjury, embezzlement in 2017 (Lee was released from prison in February following a successful appeal).

This doesn’t seem to have harmed business to any great extent, however, as the company is still predicting mammoth $14.5 billion operating profits for Q1 2018. Should Samsung find itself with a $3 billion penalty, it would probably just shrug and carry on.