Key Facts
The case was in 2016 which pertains to a patent. In the case, the petitioners were the company of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; They petitioned to revise the previous court decision, in which The Apple Inc., won the case. The case is as follows: Apple claimed that Samsung has manufactured many models of smartphones which breached the design patented by Apple that design includes a front face of a phone in a rectanle shape with round edges, as well as a grid of multi-colored icons on a screen that was black.
According to the decision, Apple was awarded approximately $ 399 million in damages, which constitutes the entire profit of Samsung for selling the smartphones that were found to be infringing. The previous case was decided according to 35 U. S. C. which states that if any patented design or a colorable imitation of it has been applied to the article of manufacture then the offended party is eligible for a compensation up to the entire profit of the offender for selling the infringing “article of manufacture,” but not less than $250.
Issue
The petitioner, Samsung asked the court to revise the decision because the design of their screen does not consist the whole smartphone, and thus it was asserted that the infringer should not return the total profit for selling the product. Such claims were made previously by the petitioner and were rejected, because it was stated that the design of the screen could not be sold to consumers separately, but only as a part of the entire product (smartphone).
Rule
The legislation according to which the case was decided is 35 U. S. C. §289 (Section 289 of the Patent Act).
Decision
The court decision was reversed; the case was remanded for further investigation the following proceedings were to be consistent with the decision of the Supreme Court pertaining to the definition of “article of manufacture.”
Reasoning
The Supreme Court of the U.S. decided that the term “article of manufacture” could mean both the end product that is sold to the client, and a component of that product. Thus, it was decided that. Even though it is difficult to decide which part of Samsung’s profits is due to the infringed design, it appears clear that a significant part of this profit is due to the elements of the infringing smartphones other than their design.
Work Cited
Samsung Electronics vs Apple Inc 2016