Samsung wins legal victory over Apple as Supreme Court throws out $US399m penalty for copying the iPhone
A
unanimous Supreme Court sided with smartphone maker Samsung in its
high-profile patent dispute with Apple over design of the iPhone.
Picture: AP.
THE
US Supreme Court has tossed out a $US399 million ($535 million) patent
award from Samsung over copying Apple’s iPhone design, sending the case
back to a lower court.
The justices ruled 8-0 that
Samsung should not be required to forfeit the entire profits from its
smartphones for infringement on design components, in a case closely
watched by the tech industry.The 11-page ruling found that the $399 million penalty — one element of a major patent infringement case — was inappropriate because it represented “Samsung’s entire profit from the sale of its infringing smartphones” for copying the iPhone’s “rectangular front face with rounded edges and a grid of colourful icons on a black screen.”
The
justices ruled 8-0 that Samsung should not be required to forfeit the
entire profits from its smartphones for infringement on design
components, in a case closely watched by the tech industry. Picture:
AFP.Source:AFP
“The parties ask us to go further and resolve whether, for each of the design patents at issue here, the relevant article of manufacture is the smartphone, or a particular smartphone component,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion.
“Doing so would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article of manufacture ... and to parse the record to apply that test in this case.”
The court sent the case back to the appellate court in Washington to resolve the details of the case.
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