US Supreme Court Invalidated $399 Infringement Fee Charged To Samsung Over iPhone’s Design
$399 Million Infringement penalty fee charged to Samsung for copying Apple’s iPhone design was invalidated by US Supreme Court.
Samsung will not be required anymore to pay an infringement fee from its smartphone for copying the iPhone’s design for technology innovation. The justice’s ruled 8-0 over the infringement case and it was sent back to lower court. The analysts said that indictment was restraint by the copyright holders who expect to gain more from infringement of their unit.
Samsung was accused of copying the iPhone’s rectangular front with rounded edges and colorful icons on the screen. The $399 million penalty fee charged to Samsung was inappropriate, according to the 11-page ruling.
The court refrain from exploring more details of how will the lower court should determine the penalty. “doing so would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article of manufacture… and to parse the record to apply that test in this case,” written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor quoted by Inquirer.
The case was sent back by the court in Washington to resolve the details. Samsung was ordered to pay an infringement penalty for copying iPhone design and details. From the original amount of $1 billion it goes down to $548 million.
The court will still balance between protecting the intellectual property and technological innovation of the company. But the ruling may cause disappointment to the two companies, according to Dennis Crouch, a University of Missouri law professor and co-director of the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship.
The ruling has still no clarification even though it gives hope to Samsung. The court had allowed damages at the component level and made the case open for interpretations.
Samsung was supported by IT sector giants such as Google, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Dell, who has a strict ruling on infringement of design. While Apple by big names in design professionals citing Coca-Cola’s iconic bottle.