Around ten months back, the US Supreme Court concluded that a previous ruling in favour of Apple was unjust and sent the case back to District Court. Now just last weekend, a District Court judge in California wrote in a retrial for the Apple Vs Samsung case surrounding three iPhone 3G patents.
The retrial date is to be decided on by the two tech giants by today (25th October).
The patents in question relate to the "black rectangular front face of a phone with rounded corners," "the rectangular front face of a phone with rounded corners and a raised rim," and "the grid of 16 colourful icons on a black screen."
The decision ten months ago reflected the decision that damages should be readjusted in accordance with the court’s definition of ‘article of manufacture’, under section 289 of the Patent Act. It was decided that the term ‘article of manufacture’ could apply to both a product sold to a consumer as well as a component of said product.
According to the Jurist, Judge Lucy Koh of the US District Court concluded that:
“the jury instructions given at trial did not accurately reflect the law and that the instructions prejudiced Samsung by precluding the jury from considering whether the relevant article of manufacture for the purpose of [section] 289 was something other than the entire phone.”
In this retrial, a win for Apple would mean that hundreds of design patent owners could put forward very large lawsuits for all sorts of product components that are expensive to produce. The tech world, Silicon Valley and the legal sphere are all now keeping a watchful eye in this situation and the impending precedent that may come.
