By Andrew Chung
After five years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court
will hear arguments on Tuesday in the bitter patent dispute between the world's
two top smartphone manufacturers over the amount Samsung (005930.KS)
should pay Apple (AAPL.O) for
copying the iPhone's distinctive look.
A sales assistant uses her mobile phone next to the company logos of Apple and Samsung at a store in Hefei, Anhui province September 10, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
The justices' ruling, due by the end of June, could
have a long-term impact for designers and product manufacturers going forward
because the Supreme Court, if it agrees with Samsung, could limit the penalties
for swiping a patented design.
Samsung Electronics Co
Ltd paid Apple Inc $548.2 million last December, fulfilling part of its
liability stemming from a 2012 verdict for infringing Apple's iPhone patents
and copying its look.
But Samsung will argue before
the Supreme Court that it should not have had to make as much as $399 million
of that payout for infringement of three patented designs on the iPhone's
rounded-corner front face, its bezel and the colorful grid of icons that
represent programs and applications.
It will be the Supreme
Court's first case involving design patents in more than 120 years, when the
products at issue were carpets and rugs.
Cupertino,
California-based Apple sued its South Korean rival in 2011, claiming Samsung
stole its technology and the iPhone's trademarked appearance.
Samsung has said it
should not have had to fork over all of its profits on phones that infringed
the patents, which contributed only marginally to a complex product with
thousands of patented features.
Apple has said Samsung was properly penalized for
ripping off its work.
With the many years of fighting behind these fierce
rivals, this case has become mostly about money, said Michael Risch, a
professor at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.
"The infringement has been affirmed, now it's
whether this huge judgment should be affirmed," he said.
Risch
joined a group of 50 university professors who filed a brief supporting Samsung
in the case, as did Silicon Valley heavyweights Facebook Inc (FB.O) and
Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O)
Google, which makes the Android operating system used in Samsung's phones.
Apple, meanwhile, has been supported in court papers
by those who emphasize the importance of design in consumer buying choices,
including famous fashion names like Calvin Klein and Alexander Wang.
Last May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit in Washington upheld the 2012 patent verdict, but overturned Samsung's
liability for trademark infringement. Samsung asked the Supreme Court to review
the design patent part of the case.
On Tuesday, the companies will argue over a provision
in U.S. patent law requiring infringers to pay a design patent owner their
total profits on an infringing "article of manufacture."
Samsung said in court documents that the article of
manufacture here was not its entire phone as sold, as the lower courts had
ruled, and so its damages should be pared back.
If the Supreme Court does not rule in its favor,
Samsung said, "an infringer of a patented cupholder design must pay its
entire profits on a car."
In its court papers, Apple agreed that an article of
manufacture may be a mere component of a product, but said that in this case
the evidence shows that it is the entire phone as sold by Samsung.
The case is Samsung Electronics Co Ltd v. Apple Inc,
in the Supreme Court of the United States, No. 15-777
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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