WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Samsung on what it must pay Apple for infringing on part of the design of the iPhone. In a brief supporting Samsung, companies including Google and Facebook said the legal framework governing the design patents at issue was “out of step with modern technology.”

Samsung, the Korean electronics company, argued that design patents, which address what products look like, are poorly suited to complex devices with many features, adding that they can give rise to disproportionate penalties.

Design patents once covered household items like spoons and fireplace grates — whose design was central to the product — and a finding of infringement required the defendant to turn over all of its profits. Samsung argued that this “total profit rule” did not make sense in the digital era and would “reward design patents far beyond the value of any inventive contribution.”

“In other words,” the company’s brief said, “even if the patented features contributed 1 percent of the value of Samsung’s phones, Apple gets 100 percent of Samsung’s profits.”