Samsung ordered to pay Apple nearly $539 million in damages in longstanding patent dispute

Edward C. Baig | USA TODAY

A California jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple nearly $539 million as financial damages for copying patented design and utility features on the original iPhone in its own phones.

Though a victory for Apple, the size of the sum is something of a split decision. Apple wanted about $1 billion. Samsung wanted to pay about $28 million.

The decision still represents a big blow to the South Korean company.

Samsung must pay about $533.3 million for infringing on design patents. The jury said Samsung owes Apple an additional $5.3 million for infringing on utility patents.

“Today’s decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages," Samsung said in a statement. "We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers.”

Apple issued a very different sounding statement:

"We believe deeply in the value of design, and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers," Apple said. "This case has always been about more than money. Apple ignited the smartphone revolution with iPhone and it is a fact that Samsung blatantly copied our design."

That Apple was due financial damages from its South Korea rival was not at issue when the two leading smartphone companies returned to a San Jose district courtroom last week. But both Apple and Samsung were trying to persuade the jury just how large or small those damages would be.

More: Samsung and Apple are back in court over iPhone design. Here's why.

The patent infringement saga dates to 2011. In December 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the near $400 million judgment that Apple had won over allegations that Samsung copied iPhone design features used in its own phones. The figure, based on Samsung’s profits from the sale of such phones, had already been whittled down through the courts from $1.05 billion that a jury awarded Apple in 2012.

Ahead of the retrial, Samsung had already paid $548 million to Apple. But what the Supreme Court effectively did was kick the case back down to the lower courts to have a jury decide how those damages will be calculated.

As part of the earlier verdict, it was determined that Samsung infringed on three of Apple's iPhone design patents covering a rectangular front face with rounded edges and a grid of colorful icons on a black screen.

The legal squabble centered around the so-called “article of manufacture” and whether in this case the relevant article meant the entire phone, or merely design features within the phone that relate to the infringed patents.

The Supreme Court previously noted the article of manufacturer is “broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product, whether sold separately or not.”

Apple had been seeking the full profits attributable to the sales of the infringed phones. During testimony last week, Apple marketing executive Greg Joswiak said the company was “risking everything” back when it was developing the iPhone.

Samsung had been arguing for smaller penalties directly related to the value of components or features impacted by the patents. Samsung hasn’t sold the phones in question in more than five years.

Before the trial began, Notre Dame Law School professor Mark McKenna told USA TODAY that determining the outcome of the case wouldn’t be easy for the jury, and that appears to have been the case.

“The Supreme Court decision struck me as obviously right,” McKenna said. “But it didn’t do anybody a favor by punting on the hard question which is 'How do I identify those circumstances where this is worth less than the whole?’ ”

The 1887 patent law on which the Apple-Samsung case depends relates to covered design patents for such items as carpets, wallpapers and oil cloths.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter