The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made the decision that Samsung did not infringe upon Apple’s “trade dress” intellectual property, partially overturning an earlier jury decision. (image: Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr)
WASHINGTON, May 18 (Korea Bizwire) — A U.S. court ruled Monday that Apple cannot collect damages from Samsung Electronics for its claims that the South Korean electronics giant copied the overall look and feel of iPhone, a decision expected to lower the US$930 million damages awarded to Apple.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made the decision that Samsung did not infringe upon Apple’s “trade dress” intellectual property, partially overturning an earlier jury decision and sending the case back to a California federal court.
“We therefore vacate the jury’s damages awards against the Samsung products that were found liable for trade dress dilution and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in the decision.
The court, however, upheld the jury’s verdict that Samsung violated Apple’s design and utility patents.
Samsung was first found guilty in 2012 of violating Apple’s patents and ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion. But the amount was later lowered to $930 million. Of that, about $382 million is believed to be the part about “trade dress” infringement.
Should the trade dress porting be knocked off, the total damages awarded to Apple will be $548 million.
(Yonhap)
