Samsung had to pay $399 million penalty to Apple for copying its key iPhone designs, but on Tuesday, US Supereme Court sided with Korean Giant in this patent fight. The fairness ruled 8-0 that Samsung don’t need to sacrifice the entire profits from its devices for breach on design apparatus, transferring the case back to a lower court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion, “The firms ask us to go further and resolve whether, for each of the intend patents at matter here, the related piece of produce is the Smartphone, or an exacting smartphone section. Doing so would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article of manufacture and to parse the record to apply that test in this case.”
The case is sent back to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to conclude how much Samsung must pay. However, they didn’t provide a timeline to judges and lower courts on how to navigate analogous disputes in future.
Apple’s Spokeperson Josh Rosenstock said in a statement that, “US Company stays up positive that the lower courts will again send an influential indication that stealing isn’t right.”
"Victory for Samsung and for all those who promote creativity, innovation and fair competition in the marketplace,” Samsung told Reuters in a statement. Samsung, Apple and the US government all agreed in court papers that the term could signify a section.