The Apple vs Samsung patent infringement lawsuit has made its journey through the entire legal system of the United States over five years and now it has been sent back to square one. Samsung had its day before the Supreme Court which ruled in its favor and said that damages in design patent cases should only apply to individual components of a device and not the entire device. It reached a conclusion that damages related to patent infringement could not be calculated on all sales of the device.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has now remanded the Apple vs Samsung lawsuit back to its originating venue which is the Northern District Court of California. That's where it all started five years ago when this lawsuit was first filed against Samsung. The lower court is going to settle the matter so there might even be a new damages trial.
Apple's position since day one has been that Samsung should be made to pay damages on entire device sales for infringing on its patents. It did have some victories initially. The company won $1 billion in damages as part of the California jury trial back in 2012 but Samsung was able to get a part of that sum vacated in a partial retrial. The amount was brought down to $548 million and Samsung agreed to pay it in 2015.
It will be very interesting now to see how the lower trial court proceeds with this matter that has captivated legal circles for half a decade.
