The Supreme Court’s holding which limits damages in a design patent infringement case will be given a test run in a new trial between Apple and Samsung. In 2012, Apple claimed a $1 billion victory against Samsung for infringement of its design patents incorporated into the original iPhones. Although that award had been whittled away in a series smaller victories by Samsung, the award stood at just under $400 million until the Supreme Court held that the damages should have been limited to the “article of manufacture” which could have been a mere component of that end-user product.
In remanding the case back to the District Court to readdress damages, the test for determining the article of manufacture remains unclear. Now, the District Court has ordered a new trial on damages stating that the jury instructions were impermissibly broad, in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, because they did not allow the jury to consider if the relevant product for calculating damages could be less than the entire device.
In this new trial, it will be incumbent on the parties and ultimately the Court to establish a test for determining the article of manufacture.
Source – VentureBeat
