US appeal court sides with Samsung in Apple lawsuit, will reduce fine

The Apple VS Samsung lawsuit still isn't over. Last year, a US court ruled in Apple's favor in a lawsuit over patents, ordering Samsung to pay $930 million in damages. Obviously the Korean device maker appealed the ruling and now, the US appeals court has sided with Samsung.

The US Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit today confirmed a Jury's verdict, stating that while Samsung did violate some of Apple's patents, it had not infringed on everything. As a result, the $930 million payout could be reduced significantly by as much as $382 million.

The court's ruling said: “We affirm the jury's verdict on the design patent infringements, the validity of two utility patent claims, and the damages awarded for the design and utility patent infringements appealed by Samsung. However, we reverse the jury's findings that the asserted trade dresses are protectable. We therefore vacate the jury's damages awards against the Samsung products that were found liable for trade dress dilution and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The appeals court decided that Samsung did not infringe on Apple's ‘trade dress', which is a trademark pertaining to how a device looks or is packaged. Apple tried to make the argument that Samsung had copied the iPhone's flat surface, rectangular shape and rounded corners. However, the company failed to present enough evidence to support this.

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KitGuru Says: So Samsung will still be paying Apple a significant amount of money but it won't be quite as much as before. Hopefully this will be the end of this long running legal battle.

Via: The Inquirer

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