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It's go time for that legal battle that refuses to die: Apple v. Samsung.
The two smartphone giants will meet in a San Jose, California, court for a week starting Monday to determine how much Samsung owes for illegally using three Apple design patents and two utility patents. The lawsuit, initially filed in 2011, made it all the way to the Supreme Court in late 2016 before being sent back to the lower court. This will be the third district court trial for the case.
Samsung has already been found to infringe Apple's patents. The argument centers on how much it owes Apple for copying some of its patented features, like the rectangular shape of the iPhone. Previously, Samsung paid $548 million, and $399 million of that is being reconsidered in this trial.
The South Korean company hopes to pay less by using a Supreme Court decision that changed how the parties may calculate the damages.
[...] Only $399 million of the $548 million paid to Apple -- considered the "additional remedy" amount under Section 289 of the Patent Act of 1952 (35 U.S.C. 289) -- is being examined in the 2018 retrial. The additional $149 million in damages Samsung paid Apple isn't at stake.
Now that the Supreme Court has said damages can be based on a portion of a product, not necessarily the entire infringing device, Samsung hopes the jury will award a smaller damages amount to Apple.
[...] In December 2015, Samsung asked the Supreme Court to examine the decisions reached by lower courts. It wanted the nation's highest court to determine whether design patent damages could be based on part of a device, not the entire gadget.
The court accepted the request and held a hearing in October 2016 -- the first time it had examined a design patent case since the 1800s. It ultimately agreed with Samsung and said damages could be determined differently than in the past.
Apple and Samsung faced off at the Supreme Court in October 2016.
That ruling reshaped the value of designs and how much one company may have to pay for copying the look of a competitor's product. Previously, an infringing "article of manufacture" was considered an entire device. Now an article of manufacture can be only a small portion of a device, which would limit the amount of damages that can be awarded.
Instead of making a decision on the damages themselves, the justices sent the case back to the lower court to determine the process for deciding how much money is owed for infringement.
That's the crux of this trial. Though the Supreme Court decision said an article of manufacture could be based on which part of a product infringes a patent, instead of the entire product, it didn't say how to decide that.
(Score: 1) by kanweg on Monday May 14 2018, @09:15PM
It is not a patent (which requires an invention, i.e. a solution to a technical problem; and which must be New and Inventiveness to be valid), but a *design* patent. That first word makes all the difference. It is just about looks. Like a bottle of Coca cola can be recognized by its particular shape it is not a better bottle than a pepsi bottle. A design patent relates to the looks only. The scope of protection of a design patent is quite limited. So, yes, you can get protection for the particular shape. There are other shapes to choose from. You can market bottles with cola, no problem. Just make sure that if people see the bottle, they are not confused into thinking it is Coca cola.
Bert