The judges dismissed Apple's claim that Samsung had made profits by copying parts of its patented Iphones design, but the court ruled that the South Korean company should not pay the benefits of its eleven phone models because the alleged plagiarism alone Responds to a very small part of the devices.
The case now returns to the lower jurisdiction to continue the dispute. South Korea's Samsung and US-based Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., Have held a court battle over mobile phone patents since 2011 that has brought them to court around the world and has spent millions of dollars.
The apple company sued Samsung in 2011 for plagiarizing the appearance of its mobile devices, and in 2012 a federal jury ruled Apple, claiming that its rival had copied the design of some devices to market Models like the Galaxy S II.
Samsung is accused of having stolen three patented features: the rounded appearance of the corners of the iPhone, the bezel design that holds the screen to the rest of the phone and the layout of the colorful icons of the applications on the screen of the cell phone.
120 years without studying
As a result of the litigation, a court ordered Samsung to pay Apple an indemnity of about one billion at first. Samsung paid to Apple over $ 548 million in December 2015 and is now trying to get the Supreme Court to avoid paying the others about $ 400 million, which is the sum of the benefits that the South Korean company got 11 models of phones supposedly similar to those of Apple.
The fine against Samsung was stipulated in 2012 by a jury, a form with which the citizens administer justice and that today some Supreme Court judges questioned to doubt that it is the best form to settle a case so technical and centered in the design of mobile phones. In 120 years the Supreme Court has not studied a patent case and the last time it did it was in the 1870s to mediate a dispute over the design of spoon mangoes.