US Department of Justice intervenes in Apple v Samsung
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has intervened in the Apple v Samsung patent battle, urging the US Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that found in favour of Apple.
In an amicus brief filed at the court on June 8, the DoJ said the case should return to a district court for more litigation.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the dispute in March this year after granting Samsung’s writ of certiorari, applied for in December last year.
Samsung was appealing against a 2015 decision handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which awarded Apple $548 million in damages.
The Federal Circuit’s ruling affirmed an earlier 2012 decision handed down by the US District Court for the Northern District of California, although the damages were reduced from $930 million after a $382 million award based on trade dress dilution was vacated by the court.
The award was based on the total profits made by Samsung from products that allegedly infringed three design patents owned by Apple.
The patents, D618,677 and D593,087, cover the rectangular front face of a smartphone with curved corners. The ‘087 patent also introduces a rim surrounding the bottom of the device.
Design patent D604,305 relates to the shape of the grid displaying app icons on the screen.
The award was based on section 289 of the US Patent Code, which states that a party is liable for the total profit of a product that infringes another party’s design patent.
Samsung rejected the notion of applying damages based on total profit. It said the decision would create “a sea-change” in the law of design patents that dramatically increases their value relative to other forms of intellectual property.
The Supreme Court accepted Samsung’s argument and agreed to look into whether courts should award damages based on total profits if the patent applies to only one component of a product.
But according to Reuters, the DoJ said it was unclear whether Samsung had produced enough evidence to support its argument and said the case should be sent back to the lower court to determine whether a new trial is warranted on that issue.
South Korea-based Samsung has already received the support of technology companies including Google, Facebook, eBay and Dell.
In an amicus brief filed jointly by the companies last year, they argued that “awarding a design patentee the total profit from an infringer’s product when the design covers only a relatively minor portion of the product is out of proportion with the significance of the design and out of touch with economic realities”.
