The seemingly never-ending courtroom saga between Apple and Samsung has taken a new twist, reports
Reuters. In an amicus brief supplied to the US Supreme Court in Wednesday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has recommended that the Supreme Court should send back the case to trial courts in order to determine whether a new trial should be undertaken over a component of the case that was won by Samsung on appeal. If the Supreme Court accepts the DOJ's appeal, the court case which dates back to 2011 could be set to stretch out for some time to come.
The original case was brought to the court by Apple in 2011, when it claimed that Samsung had infringed on its trade dress, as well as the "look and feel" of its iPhones with its Galaxy S and Galaxy S2 models in particular, although this also extended to other now also defunct models in Samsung's line up. A 2012 jury trial sided with Apple in the case, awarding the Cupertino giant damages in order of $930 million. Subsequently, Samsung appealed the decision and was successful in reducing the damages to $548 million in May 2015 on the issue of trade dress infringement, but upheld the decision regarding Samsung's intellectual theft of Apple's iPhone design patents. These included Apple patents relating to the iPhone's rounded corners, bezel and its grids of icons.
The case as it
currently stands before the US Supreme Court, reports
Reuters, has Samsung asking the court to review the damages awarded to Apple with regard to the design component of the remaining award of $548 million. The Supreme Court justices have agreed to review whether the damages award should reflect the total profits from the product, or just the particular components of the product found to have been infringed upon.
However, in the DOJ's view, it does not believe that Samsung has supplied the court with sufficient evidence for its current position. Consequently, the DOJ is recommending that this matter is best determined in the trial courts and a trial court should decide whether this aspect of the case warrants a new trial on the issue. Whether Samsung ultimately faces any sort of significant penalty remains to be seen, however, it can be said that it has at least successfully staved off paying Apple a cent of damages awarded to it as far back as 2012.
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