Mikey Campbell
The U.S. Supreme Court released a schedule of its upcoming October term sessions on Wednesday, announcing it will hear Samsung's appeal of a contentious patent lawsuit involving Apple on Oct. 11.
America's highest court said in March that it would offer an opinion on Apple's court win over Samsung, but had not blocked off an official hearing date until today.
The Supreme Court will discuss whether penalties assessed in a California federal court case over infringement of iPhone design patents, for which Samsung paid out $548 million in December, were excessive. In its petition to the court last year, Samsung asserted damages in patent cases pertaining to complex devices like smartphones should be based on patented components, not total profits from device sales.
In particular, the court has been petitioned to hear two questions. The first relates to design patent scope, while another asks whether patent trial damages should be assessed based on profits attributable to an infringing component or as a measure of total profits.
Apple maintains its case against Samsung is "legally unexceptional" and is therefore undeserving of review by the Supreme Court.
Depending on the outcome and ensuing Supreme Court opinion, Samsung expects to be reimbursed for its $548 million payment, a contingency afforded by terms included in the initial payout last year.
Charles Martin
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Andrew Orr
17 Comments
We have already seen Apple change their iPhone strategy by becoming less reliant on simple patent protected ideas and instead to difficult and expensive to reproduce hardware and service offerings. (E.g. Apple Music, Apple Pay, 3D touch, finger print sensor etc.)
Supreme Court + EU tax probe = interesting October for Apple!
I also find it interesting that so many businesses are accepting endorsements and advertising dollars from Samsung. I have to wonder where they are getting all that money, it sure isn't from the (lack of) profit from smartphones. Costco sells Samsung TVs almost exclusively along with a variety of other Samsung products. Yes there are a few Apple products but they all fit on one table (plus the AppleTV in 1-ft of shelf space). I guess people assume Samsung is an American company and they are buying American.
Totally disgusted with this Samsung, no ethics whatsoever. A government sponsored monopoly that looks the other way for all things that are almost criminal.
I hope Ginsberg is one of the justices on this case. She's neat!