At issue in the original case were design patents for a black, rectangular, round-cornered front face; a similar rectangular round-cornered front face plus the surrounding rim, known as the bezel; and a colorful grid of 16 icons. Those icons were a particular point of contention because many of the images used by Samsung shared distinct similarities with their Apple counterpart (the phone, messages and contact icons, for instance, looked identical aside from minor superficial changes). Those three patents are being considered in the Supreme Court case.
Kathleen Sullivan, Samsung's attorney who spoke before the Supreme Court, tells reporters after the hearing she's hopeful about the outcome, "We firmly believe that strong design patent protection spurs creativity and innovation," Noreen Krall, Apple's chief litigation officer, said mujjo genuine leather iphone xr case - olive in a statement, "And that's why we've defended ourselves against those who steal our ideas, Eleven times now, Samsung has been found guilty of intentionally and blatantly copying the iPhone, Every court at every level has agreed, We think that's wrong and that it poses chilling risks to the future of design innovation."Samsung attorney Kathleen Sullivan, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel, told reporters after the hearing that the precedent of court decisions awarding full profits for design patent infringement "devalues all of the [other] important patents that comprise a smartphone." She noted that a typical device has 250,000 patented features necessary for making it work, and design is a part of that, Sullivan also said she's "hopeful" about the outcome of the case..
"We're hopeful the Supreme Court will give a sensible and fair reading of the design patent damages statute, and we believe that will be a win for business and consumers alike," Sullivan said. Sullivan kicked off Tuesday's argument by saying it makes "no sense" to give a patent holder the entire profits from a device for infringing narrow design patents. She was given 25 minutes to make Samsung's argument and answer questions, as well as four minutes at the end for a rebuttal. She didn't get more than two or three minutes into her remarks before Kennedy stopped her with the first question. What he wanted to know was how juries would figure out the value a patented design has. "I'd have the iPhone in the jury room. I'd look at it [and] I just wouldn't know."Sullivan said Samsung has proposed jurors consider two factors when determining what a "relevant article of manufacture" is (in other words, what the infringing part of the device actually is): What does the design patent claim and what is the product to which it has been applied?.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, has proposed four questions for juries to identify what a "relevant article of manufacture is." They must consider the scope of the claimed design, the extent to which that design determines the appearance of the product as a whole, whether the design is conceptually distinct from the product as a whole and the extent to which the mujjo genuine leather iphone xr case - olive various components can be physically separated, Seth Waxman, a partner at law firm WilmerHale who spoke for Apple at the Supreme Court hearing Tuesday, said that Samsung in previous trials never tried to show the design applied to only a part of the device, not the entire phone..
"What's so easy about this case is that they never identified, to the jury, in either case, any article of manufacture other than the phone," Waxman said. And all of Samsung's "evidence was calculated based on the total profits to the phone."All that's left is to wait for the justices to deliberate. First published October 11, 8:39 a.m. PTUpdated 11:30 a.m. PT with additional details and with outside attorney comment. The justices, who said they'd be confused if they were jurors, used the analogy of a Volkswagen Beetle to understand the two sides.
