The United States Department of Justice believes that Apple and Samsung should once again face each other in court over what seems like never-ending patent litigation. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed an amicus brief that requests the Supreme Court to overturn an earlier ruling that had favored Apple over Samsung, asking that the two companies be returned to face off once again as part of a hearing that would determine if additional and ongoing litigation is required.
Apple and Samsung find themselves in the luxury position of being the top two smartphone manufactures globally. Apple of course designs and manufacturers the iOS-powered iPhone, whereas Samsung produces a range of extremely popular devices built on top of the open-source Android platform.
Rather than simply getting on with building and marketing new devices, the two behemoth companies have been battling over alleged patent infringements in an almost non-stop battle since 2011. Samsung had initially been ordered to pay Apple $930 million in damages, which it has since been trying to appeal and reduce.
Although Samsung was initially found to have infringed on the iPhone’s patents, which resulted in an award of $930 million, the South Korean company was able to see a small amount of light at the end of the tunnel when that figure was reduced to $548 million in May of last year. The monetary amount payable to Apple may have been reduced, but the appeals court did still uphold the ruling that Samsung infringed Apple-owned patents, including those relating to the bezel and rounded icons found on Apple’s devices.
As part of its amicus brief, the U.S. Department of Justice has stated that “it was unclear whether Samsung had produced enough evidence to support its argument that phone components, not the entire phone, should be what matters when calculating damages.” It’s now asking the Supreme Court to send the case back to trial court to ascertain if a new trial is required.
The current Apple vs. Samsung landscape is focusing on Samsung’s belief that the damages award to Apple are hugely excessive, given the fact that they have been granted based on an infringement that relates to only a certain part of specific component of a device, rather than the device as a whole.
(Source: Reuters)
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