Supreme Court sides with Samsung over Apple, says payments shouldn't cover whole device profits [u]
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of Samsung in a long-running dispute with Apple, arguing that design patents can only cover components of a smartphone, and not the entire product. [Updated with Apple statement]
The case will now head back to a lower court to determine what Samsung should pay, USA Today said. An original 2012 trial verdict levelled almost $1 billion in damages against the Korean company for violating iPhone design concepts, but this amount was later reduced to about $548 million. Samsung then decided to challenge $399 million of that at the Supreme Court.
Apple had contended that Samsung should hand over the whole profits from infringing devices. Samsung, though, suggested that this was ridiculous, likening it to forfeiting the whole profits of a car because of an infringing cupholder.
"A smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work," an attorney for Samsung once argued.
Legal action against Samsung began under former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who infamously threatened to go to "thermonuclear war" over Google's Android platform -- used by companies like Samsung -- claiming it was a "stolen product," and that he would even be willing to spend all of Apple's cash reserves to "destroy" it.
Jobs's hatred of Android helped push a plethora of lawsuits around the world, against Samsung and other Android device makers, but legal battles eventually scaled back to a handful of Samsung issues in the U.S. The 2012 case has been Apple's biggest victory so far.
Samsung was accused of going a step further, deliberately modeling the look of its phones after the iPhone in both hardware and software.
Update: "We remain optimistic that the lower courts will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn't right," Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said in a statement.
The case will now head back to a lower court to determine what Samsung should pay, USA Today said. An original 2012 trial verdict levelled almost $1 billion in damages against the Korean company for violating iPhone design concepts, but this amount was later reduced to about $548 million. Samsung then decided to challenge $399 million of that at the Supreme Court.
Apple had contended that Samsung should hand over the whole profits from infringing devices. Samsung, though, suggested that this was ridiculous, likening it to forfeiting the whole profits of a car because of an infringing cupholder.
"A smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work," an attorney for Samsung once argued.
Legal action against Samsung began under former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who infamously threatened to go to "thermonuclear war" over Google's Android platform -- used by companies like Samsung -- claiming it was a "stolen product," and that he would even be willing to spend all of Apple's cash reserves to "destroy" it.
Jobs's hatred of Android helped push a plethora of lawsuits around the world, against Samsung and other Android device makers, but legal battles eventually scaled back to a handful of Samsung issues in the U.S. The 2012 case has been Apple's biggest victory so far.
Samsung was accused of going a step further, deliberately modeling the look of its phones after the iPhone in both hardware and software.
Update: "We remain optimistic that the lower courts will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn't right," Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said in a statement.
Comments
So this gets sent back for another trial over damages.
What say you @tmay and @radarthekat ? I know you and I discussed this several times before in a few different threads.
Remember Steve Jobs saying "and boy have we patented it !!!" on the original iPhone. I guess he had more faith in the patent system he should have.
Latest news is S8 ditching 3.5mm headphone socket. And trying to beat Apple to the punch on a virtual home button. As usual Apple bears the brunt of "moving forward" with innovation and technology and Sammy just rides their coattails. I actually know people who've said, "you cannot play music on the new iPhone" until I patiently explained the situation.
Thank Facebook, and other outlets of misinformation and sensationalism, for that (literally, so many people I know got in an uproar because of whatever ill-informed rubbish they read on StalkBook)
Apple had contended that Samsung should hand over the whole profits from infringing devices. Samsung, though, suggested that this was ridiculous, likening it to forfeiting the whole profits of a car because of an infringing entire car.
Samsung copied more than one or two things, they copied the entire car. Apple wasn't allowed to bring all the infringements to trial but the SCOTUS is just a bunch of technically incompetent and socially inept group of old people who probably call all smartphones iPhones because they can't tell the difference between them. I used to be able to tell cars apart but nowadays, almost all of them look the same. The iPhone broke away from the me-to look of cell phones, everyone copied them, so we're now at the same point the auto industry is--nothing looks different (there are a few exceptions but these aren't marketed to the majority of people).
...and no I still don't like Samsung. They're not ethical IMHO. Copying is not OK.
Except a cupholder is not functionally relevant to the car, whereas Apple's patent fundamentally affect the way the Samsung phone operated.
No one buys a car because of a cupholder. Steal the cool way a phone works and sell your product like Samsung did? Shame.
PS: Apple has shitty lawyers.
SCOTUS did not say that Samsung should or should not pay $X damages. Instead they ruled it was not a mandate that all profits be automatically disgorged from the entire article of manufacture as interpreted, in this case Galaxy smartphones. and the both the original trial court and the Fed Appeals judges erred in their interpretation of the law. Samsung could still end up paying $400M more or less in damages, but it's up to a judge and jury to make that determination instead of an automatic and unwavering stipulation.
Way too much hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing, and attacks on SCOTUS in the thread and pretty much all because too many readers don't understand what they're commenting on IMHO. Once you look into it, do just a little reading outside of AI, it makes sense from a legal perspective. Apple may well benefit from this in a future trial where they are the defendant rather than the accuser.
EDIT: ...and a dislike. LOL. The thumbs up/down feature has become useless as a measure of post validity which I'm sure was not the intent of the admin when they added it.