The federal appeals court in Washington that hears patent cases ruled for Apple on both counts. Part of the original verdict also is subject to a retrial on damages, which would further the amount Samsung would have to pay.
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Google, Facebook and Hewlett-Packard backed Samsung’s position before the appeals court. The South Korean electronics company argued that the patented designs were only minor features of the infringing products. Since then Samsung has been fighting against that ruling.
The seemingly never-ending legal feud between Apple and Samsung has entered its final arc. If the justices decide to do so, however, Samsung and Apple will each file briefs on the merits of the case, and be given 30 minutes to make oral arguments.
Design patents are less common than so-called utility patents, which cover how something works.
As a result, lawsuits over design patents are rare.
The last time the Supreme Court heard cases on patents covering the appearance of a product instead of the way it works was in the late 1800s, when the court battles concerned designs of spoon handles, carpets and saddles.
One study found 250,000 patents in a smartphone, Carrier said.
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. Samsung emphasized that the jury was improperly allowed to consider even the unprotected aspects of the iPhone in the determining whether it violated the patented features.
Samsung and Apple rank first and second in global market share of smartphones. The two companies control almost all of the smartphone industry’s profits, with Apple garnering the vast majority.
Samsung took to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in a last-ditch effort to pare back the more than $548 million in damages it must pay Apple for infringing the patents and designs of the iPhone. In addition, Samsung doesn’t agree with how design patent damages are calculated, contending that in a patent infringement case, the victimized company should not be permitted to recoup all the money the offending company made on the affected products, where the patents at issue comprised only a portion of those products. In the spring, the two companies will face off in the San Jose court over an additional $400 million from the original award.
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Samsung challenged the $399 million in damages from the $548 million because the award included all of its profits from infringing products.
