November 7,2017:

On Monday, US Supreme Court upheld a $120 million patent award that Samsung was ordered to pay Apple over patents for “Slide to Unlock” and the other features used on smartphones.

Case is separate from a bigger patent court battle in which Samsung was initially ordered to pay $1 billion to the Apple. That case is set for a new trial over some elements of damages awarded.

Monday’s ruling of US Supreme Court involved some smartphone features that Apple alleged were copied by South Korean electronics giant Samsung while Samsung had claimed that these features were “obvious” and thus not able to be patented.

Apple had sought some $2.2 billion at trial, only to have a jury award California-based company $119.6 million.

Appeals panel overturned that verdict, but full appellate panel reinstated the award in October 2016 by a vote of 8-3.

Samsung submitted before the Court that,“by many who believed that Court should hear the case to reinstate fair standards that promote innovation and prevent abuse of patent system.”

Samsung further pointed out that one of the Apple’s patents at issue in this case has been invalidated by the Courts and yet today’s decision allows Apple to unjustly profit from this patent, stunts innovation and places competition in courtroom rather than marketplace.

Samsung and Apple agreed in the year 2014 to drop all the patent disputes outside US thus marking a partial ceasefire in a seemingly relentless legal war between world’s two tech giants.

However this is end of one of the cases which companies have against each other. They still haven’t put an end to their much bigger lawsuit the one that originally gave Apple more than a $1 billion in win against Samsung, which has since been whittled down to closer to $400 million. That case returns to court in May,2018 to debate on how the damages should be calculated.

Source - ptinews.com