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from the Henry-VI,-Part-2,-Act-IV,-Scene-2 dept.
The Apple v. Samsung saga continues:
The Apple v. Samsung lawsuit is getting a big "reset," thanks to last year's Supreme Court ruling on design patents. The long-running litigation rollercoaster has included so many turns it's hard to keep track. The case was filed in 2011 and went to a 2012 jury trial, which resulted in a blockbuster verdict of more than $1 billion. Post-trial damage motions whittled that down, and then there was a 2013 damages re-trial in front of a separate jury. An appeals court kicked out trademark-related damages altogether.
Meanwhile, a whole separate case moved forward in which Apple sued over a new generation of Samsung products. That lawsuit went to a jury trial in 2014 and resulted in a $120 million verdict, far less than the $2 billion Apple was seeking. That verdict was thrown out on appeal, then reinstated on a subsequent appeal. So that one appears to stand.
But back to that first case. After a lot of back and forth, Samsung agreed to make a payment of $548 million, but the Korean giant didn't give up its right to appeal. In a landmark case over design patents, the US Supreme Court said that the damages had been done all wrong—but the justices gave little guidance as to how they should be done. The high court threw out $399 million of the damages Apple had won.
New trial order (PDF).
Also at CNET.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:39PM
Even this isn't the worst part, the worst part is that patents these days do not include the details of the design.
Basically, the whole reason we have patents (get the design so it isn't lost to history) is gone, replaced by claims as to what the invention does.