The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling that said Samsung must pay Apple $399 million as a penalty for infringing on Apple’s smartphone patents.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the 8-0 opinion handing Samsung a partial win on Tuesday, as the case is headed back to a lower court.
The high court held that the federal circuit erred by defining “article of manufacture” in a way that benefited Apple, as it required Samsung to pay penalties as if its entire phone were based on designs stolen from Apple. The Supreme Court’s decision reversed that to Samsung’s benefit, by saying a smaller penalty can be assessed if only some components of the products design were stolen.
At issue in Samsung v. Apple were Apple’s iPhone design patents for the mobile phones’ rectangular shape and rounded corners with a certain graphical on-screen design.
The court’s opinion punted on resolving disputes about what was stolen among the individual patents, effectively allowing lower courts to settle the amount Samsung may have to pay to Apple and the amount Samsung may recover.
