The US Supreme Court on November 6 rejected Samsung's appeal to re-evaluate the California court jury order that found the former guilty of infringing on Apple patents in 2014. With the ruling, Samsung will have to shell out roughly $120 million dollars to the Cupertino-based company.
Back in 2014, Apple had taken Samsung to court for infringing on two of its patent — one, the mobile phone code that converted phone number to links for direct call option and the most prominently used smartphone feature, 'slide to unlock' screen.
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Initially, the company had asked for a whopping $2.191 billion in damages for Samsung using the aforementioned patents and three negligible ones in 10 products. In return, Samsung had filed a case against Apple for unauthorised use of its intellectual property in nine products in iPhones and iPads categories for a meagre $6.2 million.
After three days' hearing, California court jury members found both parties guilty of infringing each other's technologies, but reduced the quantum of compensation to $119,625,000 and $158,400 to Apple and Samsung, respectively, The Verge reported.
Not satisfied with the verdict, Samsung took the issue to higher courts and since then, it has been battling Apple and finally ended up at the doors of the US Supreme Court this year. As it turns out, it was a futile attempt by Samsung and now, has no option to pay to Apple.
This is just one of many lawsuits that Samsung and Apple are fighting in lower courts across the US -- the prominent one being the iPhone design patent infringement. The former is accused of stealing iPhone's rounded edges, flat screen and shape of apps on the mobile touch screen. The lower court had found Samsung guilty and asked to $339 million fine.
In December 2016, the US Supreme Court had stayed the order as Samsung found the $339 million fine unfairly high. Samsung wants the court to formulate a fair compensation based on profits from the units sold (as per US' Design Patent Act of 1887). The case is currently under negotiation in a lower court.
