Samsung wins patent dispute with Apple in $399 judgement

The US Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday handed smartphone maker Samsung victory in its long-running high-profile patent dispute with Apple after it threw out a $US399 million judgement against Samsung for over the design of iPhone.

The US Apex court in a unanimous opinion said that damages for design patent infringement can be based only on the part of the device that infringed the patents, not necessarily on the entire product. 

According to the court ruling, Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features at issue are only a little part of the devices.
 
According to current law, an award could be received on the entire profits of an infringing device.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion for the court that the only question resolved today "is whether, in the case of a multicomponent product, the relevant 'article of manufacture' must always be the end product sold to the consumer or whether it can also be a component of that product."

The court concluded that the relevant article of manufacture "need not be the end product sold to the consumer but may be only a component of that product."

The case will now returns to a lower court for further proceeding.