Ondrej Holzman The original $930 million that Samsung was supposed to pay Apple for violating various patents will be reduced by up to 40 percent. Although the appeals court upheld the previous decision that Samsung infringed Apple's design and utility model patents, the overall visual appearance of Apple products, the so-called trade dress, was not infringed.
US Court in San Jose, California, which delivered the verdict at the end of 2013, so now they have to recalculate the part of the original judgment that concerns trade dress patents. These describe the overall appearance of the product, including its packaging. According to Reuters will go up to 40% of the total of $930 million.
Court of Appeal to which Samsung he appealed last December, decided that the aesthetics of the iPhone could not be protected. Although Apple argued that the iPhone's rounded edges and other design elements were intended to give its phone a unique look, Apple also confirmed that these elements also made the device more intuitive, according to the court.
Therefore, in the end, the appeals court told Apple that it cannot protect all these elements with a patent, because then it could have a monopoly on them. At the same time, the protection of trade dress must, according to the court, be balanced with the fundamental right of companies to compete on the market by imitating competing products.
Despite the not entirely victorious verdict of the appeals court, Apple expressed satisfaction. "This is a victory for design and those who respect it," the California-based company said in a statement Monday. Samsung has not yet commented on the latest verdict in the never-ending case.
