Richard Wolf

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's ruling Tuesday that Samsung may not owe Apple the full profits from smartphones that copied iPhone design features could further expand the market for the popular devices.

The high court reversed a lower court decision that had forced Samsung to pay $399 million in damages for violating three of Apple's design patents on the iPhone's shape and colorful icons. The justices ordered that court to decide if only components were infringed upon, not the entire product.

The 8-0 verdict from Justice Sonia Sotomayor was a much-needed victory for Samsung, beset with problems ranging from smartphones that burst into flames to washers with exploding tops. It initially faced nearly $1 billion in penalties, later reduced to $548 million, for imitating elements of the iPhone's design. Nearly $400 million was at stake in the current dispute.

"The term 'article of manufacture' is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product whether sold separately or not," Sotomayor wrote.

The ruling jibed with comments several justices had made when the highly charged case was argued in October. Chief Justice John Roberts noted then that Samsung did not infringe on "all the chips and wires."

The ruling could impact the buying habits of consumers, who increasingly are being offered a slew of new smartphones from Apple, Samsung and others that offer similar features. While Samsung still could pay a hefty penalty, the decision may ease the risk for manufacturers who mimic other products.

The legal battle between the two tech giants represented the first design patent case to reach the high court in more than a century. A jury in 2012 had ruled that because Samsung infringed on three of Apple's iPhone design patents, it must fork over the entire profits from the phones in question.

But the high court's ruling left open what courts should do when balancing design against a full product. An "article of manufacture," it said, "is simply a thing made by hand or machine."

"In the case of a design for a single-component product, such as a dinner plate, the product is the 'article of manufacture' to which the design has been applied," Sotomayor wrote. "In the case of a design for a multi-component product, such as a kitchen oven, identifying the 'article of manufacture' to which the design has been applied is a more difficult task."

The five-year-old fight between the world's two most successful smartphone makers had threatened to upend the tech industry. It was watched closely by companies with a stake in the outcome — from Facebook, Google, Dell and Lenovo on Samsung's side, to more than 100 designers from companies such as Nike and Calvin Klein in Apple's corner.

Apple took a hard line Tuesday against what it called Samsung's "blatant copying of our ideas" and said it hoped lower courts "will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn't right."

Samsung did not immediately respond. During oral argument, its attorney, Kathleen Sullivan, told the justices that "a smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work."

Now the case will return to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has jurisdiction on patent cases, to determine what portion of its profits Samsung must pay.

Several experts on intellectual property law predicted it won't be easy for courts to differentiate between a product's design and its overall use, not to mention setting dollar figures for components.

"It is possible that we will enter into years of turmoil over the proper tests for calculating damages for infringement of a design patent," said Rick McKenna, head of the design rights group at the law firm Foley & Lardner.

Contributing: Jon Swartz in San Francisco.