Supreme Court Says Samsung Not in Full Violation of Apple Patents

Samsung versus Apple - Significant win for Samsung in the Supreme Court

A Supreme Court ruling this morning shows that, although Samsung did violate some of Apple’s design patents vis-a-vis specific components, the violations cannot be applied to the entire product.

During the Supreme Court’s ruling on Samsung versus Apple today, Justice Sonia Sotomayor is quoted as saying:

“The term ‘article of manufacture’ is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product whether sold separately or not.”

As such, Samsung will not have to fork over all profits from the sale of the violating phones, which was the initial ruling in 2012 by a jury.

This sorely needed victory for Samsung comes soon after their Note 7 recall woes and problems with exploding top loading washing machines.

The report suggests that Samsung will not have to pay the originally sought penalty of $1 billion – which was later reduced to $548 million – for copying certain elements of the iPhone’s design. At the time, Kathleen Sullivan, Samsung’s attorney, had told the court:

“A smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work.”

That strategy now seems to have worked, and it is now once again up to a lower court to decide what Samsung will actually have to pay for individual component violations.

That, in itself, is a humongous and highly complicated task because, as some justices observed, certain design elements are insignificant, while others are iconic. Bringing in the example of the Volkswagen Beetle, several justices have predicted that this will, indeed, be difficult to determine.

The five-year long battle of Samsung versus Apple isn’t over yet, and will likely be stretched out as legal experts try and navigate the exact portion of profits Samsung will end up paying, based on which components are considered violations against Apple. It could be another several years before this matter finds closure.

In the meantime, Samsung and Apple continue to battle it out as the top two smartphone brands in the world, followed by Huawei, Oppo and Vivo. With Samsung’s worries now partially over, they can focus on getting in shape for 2017 and the much awaiting Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Edge.

MUST READ: Samsung Galaxy S8 Could Come in Two Variants – 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch Screens

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