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posted by janrinok on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the eventually dept.

The nation's highest court will decide whether Samsung is required to pay Apple in a long-running patent infringement case:

The end of the smartphone wars is almost here. Six years after Apple Inc. filed its first lawsuit alleging unauthorized copying of the iPhone, the company will square off at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday against rival Samsung Electronics Co. They will argue over how much of a $399 million patent infringement award Samsung must pay.

The fight will be one of the last showdowns between two antagonists that have filed four dozen lawsuits against each other and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on legal fees. Samsung says the award, which represents its entire profit from 11 disputed phones, is a "disproportionate" sum for infringement of Apple's patented design features. Apple says the full award is warranted given Samsung's "blatant copying" of the iPhone's iconic look.

The case comes as both companies grapple with more pressing legal concerns -- Apple's $15 billion European tax fight and Samsung's exploding-battery crisis. It will be the Supreme Court's first examination in 120 years of design patents, which cover the ornamental look of an object rather than any functional aspect. The court last looked at design patents in disputes involving spoon handles in the 1870s and carpets in the 1890s.

Apple's design patents cover the rounded corners of its phones, the rim that surrounds the front face and the grid of icons that users view. A federal appeals court upheld the award, saying U.S. patent law lets Apple recoup Samsung's total profit from the phones, and not just the part attributable to the copied design.


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  • (Score: 2) by Jesus_666 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:19PM

    by Jesus_666 (3044) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:19PM (#413648)
    It's just "designed in California". It turned out that the hipster is just metrosexual.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2