Samsung asks Supreme Court to throw out $399M judgment

Several of the world’s technology titans filed briefs supporting Samsung while the case was in federal circuit court in Silicon Valley, according to the firm. Samsung could not immediately confirm on Monday whether the money had been paid.

Samsung also notes it has issues with how damages from patents are calculated in the USA, noting it’s possible within the current system for one company to sue another for the entirety of its profits. Since then Samsung has been fighting against that ruling.

Apple declined to comment directly on Samsung’s petition, but an Apple spokeswoman reiterated the company’s previous comment regarding its legal fight with Samsung, saying the company values “originality and innovation”.

The Supreme Court could decide early next year whether to hear the case, but arguments would not take place before the fall of 2016. In 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received about 36,000 design patent applications, compared with 580,000 utility patent applications.

She said the law governing design patents is “an absolute mess”, allowing a patent holder to win protection over ” basically any random part of a product without regard to whether consumers find it important or necessary at all”.

That’s one possible explanation for why the legal dispute between Apple and Samsung appears to be winding down, said Michael Risch, an expert on intellectual property at Villanova University law school.

Those design elements were protected, prompting the jury to award Apple all the profits from sales of smartphones containing those features, Samsung lawyers said in their filing.

While smartphones by Samsung and others existed before Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, the device helped turned a nascent market into a cultural revolution.

The patent war between Apple and Samsung began in 2012, where the jury ruled Samsung did indeed violate multiple Apple patents resulting in a $1.05 billion payout.

Samsung Electronics is urging the US Supreme Court to overturn a US$399 million (S$562 million) patent award it was ordered to pay Apple Inc for copied iPhone designs, in what would be the court’s first case involving design patents in 120 years.

It relates to an award of $399 million in damages for infringement of three design patents, which cover the face and rounded bezel design of the iPhone and the grid of sixteen icons on the phone’s home screen.

But neither has managed to deliver a knock-out blow with a number of rulings going different ways, and in an announcement they agreed to drop all litigation outside the United States, suggesting a line was finally being drawn.