Reuters:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with Samsung in its big-money smartphone patent fight with Apple, throwing out an appeals court ruling that the South Korean company had to pay a $399 million penalty to its American rival for copying key iPhone designs.
The 8-0 ruling, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, held that a patent violator does not always have to fork over its entire profits from the sales of products using stolen designs, if the designs covered only certain components and not the whole thing.
Samsung is still guilty of infringement. The only dispute now is how much they’ll have to fork over to Apple.
What kills me is that Apple had to pay nearly that amount to Creative long ago for “lists on a small screen.” But even after Samsung’s blatant and effortful copying, they’ll end up paying less than that. Very frustrating.