Two months ago the United States Supreme Court confirmed that it will review the patent infringement matter between Samsung and Apple. This is the first time in over a 100 years that it has taken up a lawsuit related to design patents. Samsung submitted its opening brief before the Supreme Court today, arguing that design patents are grossly overvalued when it comes to the calculation of damages. Even though Samsung has paid $548 million in damages to Apple, the company reserves the right to obtain reimbursement if the previous judgement is reversed, modified, or set aside. It later filed a writ of certiorari before the US Supreme Court for a review of the decision that awarded Apple the damages.
It's now arguing that the impugned judgement be set aside, and if that can't be done then “at a minimum, a new trial is necessary.” Samsung argues that even if it's held that the company did infringe on Apple's patents then its rival should only get profits from the parts of the smartphone that infringe on its patents, and not profits from the entire phone. Samsung further argues that the precedent of “grossly overrewarding design patents” is going to hurt competition and will even lead to “absurd” results in other lawsuits. “If the current ruling is left to stand, it would value a single design patent over the hundreds of thousands of groundbreaking technology patents, leading to vastly overvalued design patents,” Samsung said in a statement.
Apple has not yet commented on the filing but it's certainly going to respond to Samsung's arguments in its filings before the apex court. This is by no means an open and shut case. Given the implications a Supreme Court ruling on this matter will have on the technology industry at large, the highest court in the land has a huge burden on its shoulders and it's certainly going to take its time before it comes to a decision.
