Samsung gets partial victory over Apple in iPhone patents case appeal

The nearly $1 billion awarded to Apple by a jury in a trademark and patent case against Samsung Electronics just got sliced by about 40 percent. An appeals court rejected a big chunk of the $929 million Apple was expecting to receive. By Samsung's estimates, it should now owe only $547 million, though the final judgment will be decided by a lower court. Samsung did violate several patents but did not dilute iPhone design elements that could not be protected under trademark law, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said.

Apple had argued that the iPhone’s rectangular design was part of a trade dress, a legal term for design features that communicate who made the product. But features that are functional can’t be protected, and Apple failed to show that the look of the iPhone screen or its shape were not functional, the appeals court found. The jury had also found that Samsung violated several Apple user-interface patents, including pinch-and-zoom gestures. The appellate ruling is a partial victory for Samsung, which had also sought to reduce claims to only profits attributable to the features covered in the infringed patents as opposed to total profits. Apple and Samsung remain the world’s top two smartphone makers but both have been slightly undercut by smaller rivals in the two years since the case was first heard. Apple said in a statement that it was pleased the ruling was only a partial setback. "This case has always been about more than money," Apple stated. "It’s about innovation and the hard work that goes into inventing products that people love, which is hard to put a price on.”