The Supreme Court on Tuesday has favored Samsung regarding the $400 design patent case filed by Apple. The SC has released a ruling that states Samsung might have not really owe Apple the money for copying iPhone's design.
Based on the ruling by the SC, the decision from the lower court has been reversed. The decision asks Samsung to pay $399 million worth of profit to Apple for imitating Apple's thee patent designs for the iPhone. These designs include the iPhone's round corners, shape and how the icons appear in the smartphone, as reported by USA Today.
The SC's court ruling reportedly orders the court of appeals to conduct an investigation to identify and find out if Samsung has only copied some iPhone features and design from Apple, and not the whole idea and concept of the phone itself. Based on the report, Samsung initially faced $1 billion worth of penalties regarding the design patent case filed by the rival company but was reduced to $548 million.
According to LA Times, a federal jury in San Jose alleged Samsung for copying some of iPhone's design and smartphone features, which were patented by Apple in 2012. Nonetheless, the news site reports that it is still not clear as to how much of the iPhone's features and design copied by Samsung affected the customer's option in choosing what smartphone to buy.
The report also reveals that Samsung's sales has gone up ahead of its competitors in the late 2000's. This is when the company released its line of Galaxy smartphones, which reportedly looked more like Apple's iPhone, considering the phone's design and layout.
The Mercury News also reports that other huge companies have appealed to the Supreme Court, insisting that the case will likely affect them and other giant companies and may rise questions as to how patent rules are applied to technology products. The last design patent case handled by the Supreme Court was reportedly 30 years ago which battled over carpet designs.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
