District Court Judge Lucy Koh decided late Tuesday that Samsung didn’t willfully infringe six Apple patents as a federal jury found last August denying Apple the chance to get parts of the jury’s $1.05 billion damages award trebled.

Basically she said that Samsung had relied on its theory that Apple’s patents were invalid and so didn’t “objectively” infringe.

As it stands the billion-dollar award is about twice the royalties Samsung would have had to pay if it had licensed the technology when Apple made it an offer in 2010.

Judge Koh has yet to issue a decision on Samsung’s motion to throw out the award altogether or at least reduce it although Samsung claims the jury miscalculated the total and Koh looked like she might agree at a hearing in December.

She did deny Samsung’s bid for a new trial as “contrary to the interests of justice” as well as Apple’s attempt to get the jury’s decision that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 didn’t infringe an iPad design patent overturned.

In fact the only one of Apple’s post-trial motions she did grant was its contention that two claims in a Samsung wireless patent are invalid.

She did uphold the validity of all the Apple patents-in-suit.

Apple is already asking the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to review two appeals seeking to ban the sale of Samsung products it says infringe. It’s likely to go running to the Federal Circuit with parts of this decision too.