Contrary to some speculation that Samsung may have timed its
formal request for a Supreme Court review of its first patent battle to specifically avoid paying the $548 million in damages it was order to produce by December 14, court records show the amount as indeed
sent to Apple -- though if the Korean manufacturer is successful in its latest appeal, Apple could conceivably have to pay back the money. The award, down to about half the
original $1.1 billion jury award for the copying, has been whittled down through numerous appeals and recalculations.
In order to renege on the payment, which Samsung delivered to Apple on December 11 according to the court filing, Samsung must first convince the Supreme Court that the previous guilty findings contain either serious legal errors or would jeopardize existing law through a grave miscarriage of justice. Apple was recently successful at winning a
Supreme Court review of its e-book verdict by arguing that the verdict would introduce a "chilling" effect to new commerce technology that challenges dominant industry players.
Should the Court agree to review the case, Samsung will have to come up with a new defense -- likely to be based on a claim of invalidity on
at least one of the key Apple patents in the case -- that will work where its previous arguments (eventually presented to no less than three juries and other courts beyond the original venue) have failed. Even if some or all of the patents Apple accused the company of copying are later ruled finally invalid, the Korean maker will still need to sway the justices that it did not intentionally copy them while they were valid -- a position it has admitted to in various proceedings while trying to argue that the penalty award should be reduced.
The US Patent and Trademark Office has indeed found that some of Apple's patents used in the case shouldn't have been granted, but the office often reverses itself during the torturously-long review process, and even if the patents in question are finally deemed invalid by the USPTO, Apple can still challenge the decision in court and appeal any court decision, potentially adding a decade or more to the final, irrevocable decision.
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