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Apple's Lengthy Lawsuit With Samsung Over Copying iPhone's Design Headed Back to Court

Monday October 23, 2017 4:58 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's over six year old legal battle with Samsung for copying the iPhone's design is headed back to court yet again.

U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh on Sunday ordered that a new trial is required to determine whether Apple's $399 million award for Samsung's design patent infringement should stand or whether a new damages trial is required.


Apple and Samsung have until Wednesday to propose a retrial date, according to intellectual property analyst Florian Mueller, but he believes there is about a 30 percent chance the two parties could settle out of court before then.

The lawsuit dates back to 2011, when Apple successfully sued Samsung for infringing upon the iPhone's patented design, including its rectangular front face with rounded edges and grid of colorful icons on a black screen.

Apple's damages were awarded based on Samsung's entire profit from the sale of its infringing smartphones, but Samsung argued that the amount should be a percentage based on individual components like the front bezel or display.

Last December, the U.S. Supreme Court recommended that the U.S. Court of Appeals reconsider the damages amount that Samsung owes.

Apple's statement at the time:
The question before the Supreme Court was how to calculate the amount Samsung should pay for their copying. Our case has always been about Samsung's blatant copying of our ideas, and that was never in dispute. We will continue to protect the years of hard work that has made iPhone the world's most innovative and beloved product. We remain optimistic that the lower courts will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn't right.
Calvin Klein, Dieter Rams, and over 100 other top designers backed Apple last year, arguing the iPhone maker is entitled to all profits Samsung has earned from infringing designs. They cited a 1949 study stating that more than 99 percent of Americans could identify a bottle of Coca-Cola by shape alone.

Apple was initially awarded nearly $1 billion in damages, but a significant part of the decision was reversed in 2015, leaving Samsung owing $548 million. The amount was eventually lowered to $399 million in subsequent retrials.

Tags: Samsung, lawsuit, patent trials
[ 110 comments ]


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Glassed Silver
22 months ago
I think my great great great great great grandchildren will witness the end of this battle when nobody even uses smartphones anymore but is already connected to 32G networks with implanted chips.

Glassed Silver:mac
Rating: 14 Votes
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robeddie
22 months ago
The coca-cola example is one thing, but Apple is essentially saying they’ve got a patent on something the shape of a rectangle with a screen covering most of one side.

Somthing needs to be done about the patent system.
Rating: 10 Votes
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MH01
22 months ago
Anyone care to predict when the legal fees will exceed the settlement?

Or is that now?
Rating: 9 Votes
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HowieIsaacks
22 months ago
I wish I was one of the attorneys working on this case! What bothers me the most about this case is that it seems to be impossible for Apple to get justice in this case, but patent trolls can win much more quickly. WTF! At least Apple is producing products instead of sitting on (often outdated and vague) patents.
Rating: 9 Votes
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roland.g
22 months ago

They can drop it, Samsung made a much better looking smartphone with the S8 than the X.

Typical response outside logical language.
Rating: 6 Votes
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RuffyYoshi
22 months ago
They can drop it, Samsung made a much better looking smartphone with the S8 than the X.
Rating: 6 Votes
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vladi
22 months ago
iPhone OS is spiritual successor of Palm OS who happened to hold the design patent on Application Icon Grid.

Palm OS even had App dock like behavior with 4 app shortcuts that had their own hardware buttons. iOS just switched those hardware buttons for on screen dock at the bottom.

Battery icon and clock on the header? Palm OS.

All the default apps that came with original iPhone OS came straight from Palm OS.

Someone had to thought of all that as well before Apple adopted it as standard for iPhone OS.
Rating: 5 Votes
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kdarling
22 months ago

its always amusing how people think this boils down to rounded rectangles...


For this thread, it partly does. The three design patents in question were a round rectangle, a flat screen, and a colorful grid of icons.

come on now. samsung even had internal documents that fully admitted this


You're probably talking about that internal review document done by a different group than the smartphone group, which compared the Galaxy to the iPhone... after the Galaxy was out.

As for documents, this internal Samsung UI design predating the iPhone was yet another piece of prior art that I believe Apple's lawyers made sure the jury never saw:



The jury itself of course was also a disaster, mostly because of its foreman who made mistake after mistake, especially by telling his fellow jurors that prior art didn't matter. Everyone, including Apple, was shocked at how quickly they came back with a verdict, clearly wanting to go home for the weekend and never return.

Jurors Admit They Finished Quickly By Ignoring Prior Art & Other Key Factors ('https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120826/23534320161/applesamsung-jurors-admit-they-finished-quickly-ignoring-prior-art-other-key-factors.shtml')

Basically, a lot of prior art was hidden from, or ignored by, a misled jury. Small wonder that after appeals and review by higher judges, much of the awards have disappeared.





Rating: 5 Votes
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polbit
22 months ago
Yay, I was worried that the fun was over...

:eek:
Rating: 5 Votes
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Amacfa
22 months ago

They can drop it, Samsung made a much better looking smartphone with the S8 than the X.

Wrong, X is way sexier
Rating: 4 Votes

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