The Samsung and Apple disputes under legal proceedings is far from taking a break, with the latest turntable showing that the Supreme Court has had a change of heart and decided to favor Samsung over Apple in the latest chapter of the iPhone design patents.
Lower Court Decided That Damages Will Be Paid to Apple – Supreme Court Sides With Samsung Afterwards
Before the Supreme Court decided to make their own decision, a lower court spearheaded the verdict and stated that $399 million in damages will be given to Apple by Samsung regarding patent violations. According to the violations, Samsung’s early lineup of Galaxy smartphones borrowed some features from Apple’s iPhone, resulting in such legal proceedings taking place. However, Apple’s short-lived parade was cut short with the intervention of the Supreme Court, which sided with Samsung’s counter that an article of manufacture could be the component of a device, but not the device as a whole.
Unfortunately for Apple, the Supreme Court did not make a decision on whether or not Samsung’s design infringements were a component or the whole device. This turn of events means that the total damages amount will have to be revisited by the lower court, which will then decide what is going to be the outcome of the infringement case. To take you down memory lane, the case started out in Apple’s favor, with a whopping $1 billion USD being owed to the Cupertino tech giant.
The current ruling followed a monumental legal battle that took place between the two tech behemoths back in 2011. Apple sued Samsung, stating that its biggest rival in the smartphone industry stole its technology. It was one of the most closely witnessed patent cases to come to the U.S. court in recent years, and it looks like the ultimate decision is yet to be made.
