Apple Inc. (AAPL) Shakes as Samsung Asks Supreme Court to Weaken Brand

Samsung argues that the lower courts misapplied the law covering design patents, which it says are meant to protect ” ornamental” features that aren’t part of a product’s function. Most prominent among them is Google, whose Android mobile operating system runs most of the smartphones produced by Samsung, Apple’s leading rival, and other phone makers. We also heard that Samsung was planning to submit an appeal of an Apple design patent to the US Supreme Court, though, and now that’s exactly what’s happened.

In the United States the legal standard for infringement of a design patent centres on the “ordinary observer” test, and whether that observer “would be deceived into thinking that the accused design was the same as the patented design”. And then, Samsung would have to successfully argue the case outlined in its appeal.

Now it would appear that Samsung is taking case to the Supreme Court in the U.S., as they have now asked the court to look at the case between the two company’s. Samsung wants the Supreme Court to give guidance on what’s covered by design patents and what damages can be collected.

Samsung challenged the $399 million in damages from the $548 million because the award included all of its profits from infringing products.

The two tech behemoths have been battling over smartphone design elements in court since 2012, when a jury at the US District Court of Northern California found in favour of Apple, after both parties were out for financial restitution of up to $2.5 billion in damages. Samsung says the 1887 law pertaining to design patents is outdated and too punitive for modern products such as a smartphone, which Samsung says contains about 250,000 design and utility patents. Appeals court rulings have limited the amount patent owners can collect in damages when patented technology is used in a multi-component product. In the report, it said that Samsung still has the right to get a reimbursement in case the suit is overturned.

“As with many large tech companies in the top 10, particularly the foreign ones, the patents are primarily used for defensive purposes”, he said.