US Courts to Samsung: No Really, You Copied the iPhone

The products involved in this particular case, such as the iPhone 4, are now near-relics in the tech market, flooded these days with Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Galaxy S5.

That part of the verdict – which has been pared from an original judgment of $1 billion – accounts for about $400 million of the $548 million in damages Samsung still, must pay Apple from their first trial.

Even if it does – and the Supreme Court hears it – I doubt Samsung will see much in the way of further reductions. In the years since, the case expanded to dozens of courts around the globe, including South Korea, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected without elaboration Samsung’s request to re-examine the case.

Samsung has lost a bid to have an appeals court rehear a portion of its long-running patent case against Apple.

The design patents infringement in question covered minor details of the smartphone aspect and did not incorporate thousands of patents as alleged by Apple.

Fellow tech giants Google, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Facebook backed Samsung’s appeal of the damages.

Samsung told The Register it was “disappointed” by this week’s news, and would give no word on whether or not it will file an appeal. “Opinion.5-14-2015.1.PDF” >(PDF), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the violations concerning design patents but struck down certain damages related to trade dress, a legal term that refers to the way a product is packaged or presented. Samsung didn’t want to go back to California, and asked the Washington DC court to form a 12-judge panel and reconsider.

In a July filing about the 2012 case, Apple argued that “Samsung’s petition for rehearing attempts to make a straightforward decision by a unanimous panel seem unduly complex”.

Looking ahead, Samsung hasn’t said how it will handle the court’s ruling on Thursday.