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25 April 2017Patents

Apple v Samsung: $400m design patent dispute rumbles on

Lawyers acting for technology companies Apple and Samsung have filed opening briefs in their $400 million patent dispute.

It comes after the US Supreme Court issued an 8-0 decision in December and reversed the judgment of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which had ordered Samsung to pay the US company $399 million in damages for design patent infringement.

The patents concerned in the suit are D618,677, D593,087 and D604,305.

The ‘677 patent covers the rectangular front face of a smartphone with curved corners, the ‘087 patent introduces a rim surrounding the bottom of the device, and the ‘305 patent relates to the shape of the grid displaying app icons on the screen.

Section 289 of the US Patent Code states that a party is liable for the total profit of a product that infringes another party’s design patent.

Samsung had filed a writ of certiorari in December 2015. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in March last year and oral arguments were held in October.

On Friday, April 21, both companies filed briefs at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division.

In its opening brief, Samsung requested (pdf) that the court vacate the $399 million judgment and asked for a new damages trial on all products in which the juries found design patent liability.

Samsung said that the court should reject Apple’s suggestion that the existing judgment can “simply remain in place even though the Supreme Court has now reversed this court’s and the Federal Circuit’s interpretation of section 289 of the Patent Act”.

The brief added that the Supreme Court’s new rule invalidates the legal premise on which design patent damages were tried in the earlier trials and “eliminates any legal basis for the $399 million design patent award amounting to Samsung’s total profit on its entire phones”.

Apple also filed its opening brief (pdf) at the California court on April 21, saying that “no additional proceedings are needed”.

The technology company argued that the figure “represents the damages awarded by two juries for infringement of Apple’s design patents by eleven Samsung products”.

Apple said that the $399 million judgment should be confirmed.

The case continues.

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24 October 2017   A US judge has ordered a new trial in the long-running design patent dispute between Apple and Samsung.
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25 May 2018   Technology company Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple a total of $539 million in a long-running patent dispute.
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28 June 2018   Apple and Samsung have settled their long-running design patent dispute, one month after a jury awarded $539 million to Apple in the clash.