A California jury on Friday ordered South Korean smartphone giant Samsung to pay Apple Inc. 119.6 million U.S. dollars for infringement on two software patents -- a fraction of the 2.2 billion in damages Apple had demanded.

The same jurors also endorsed counterclaims by Samsung and ordered Apple to pay 158,400 dollars to its arch rival in damages over one Samsung patent.

Hailing the verdict as a victory, Apple said in a statement that Samsung "willfully" stole ideas and copied products, including the slide-to-unlock patent and search technology.

"We are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers," the company said.

Apple and Samsung, the world's top two smartphone producers, have been embroiled in what's been described as a "patent war of the century" in more than 10 countries across the globe.

In late November, a U.S. jury issued a verdict ordering Samsung to pay Apple 290 million U.S. dollars in damages for copying key features of its iPhone and iPad devices.

The figure was lower than the 1.05 billion dollars imposed by a previous jury in August 2012, but higher than the 52.7 million dollars Samsung sought to pay. Apple requested 379.8 million dollars in damages from Samsung.

In a separate lawsuit in August 2012, Samsung won after a Seoul court ruled that the Cupertino-based iPhone maker infringed on Samsung's two standard patents for data transmission technology.

(Source: Xinhua)