A federal appeals court Thursday refused to re-examine Samsung’s appeal of a stinging 2012 jury verdict that found the tech giant violated Apple’s iPhone patents.
Without comment, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Samsung’s bid to reconsider a previous ruling largely backing Apple — leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the only legal option left for Samsung to try to overturn hundreds of millions of dollars in damages it now owes Apple in their ongoing patent feud.
Samsung had urged the Federal Circuit to rehear the case with its full 12-judge roster, arguing that a three-judge panel erred earlier this year when it left intact a jury’s verdict that the South Korean tech giant’s smartphones and tablets infringed on Apple’s design patents.
That part of the verdict — which has been pared from an original judgment of $1 billion — accounts for about $400 million of the $548 million in damages Samsung still must pay Apple from their first trial.
The Washington, D.C.-based appeals court, which reviews all patent appeals, upheld the centerpiece of Apple’s case against Samsung, which rested on claims that Samsung’s smartphones and tablets violated Apple’s patent rights on the iPhone.
Silicon Valley heavyweights such as Google, Facebook and Hewlett-Packard backed Samsung’s request for a rehearing, but the appeals court declined. Samsung could not immediately be reached for comment, but can petition the Supreme Court to review the case.
Samsung appealed a San Jose jury’s August 2012 verdict that it violated Apple’s patent or trademark rights in 23 products, such as the Galaxy S2 smartphone, as well as about $930 million in damages awarded to the iPhone maker. The case, known as “Apple I,” was the first of two trials between the feuding tech titans. Another federal jury last year found Samsung copied iPhone technology in more recent products, but awarded $120 million in damages, a fraction of what Apple sought. That case also has been appealed to the Federal Circuit.
The Federal Circuit carved out about $370 million from the first jury verdict, rejecting Apple’s claims that some of its simple technology at issue, such as the basic shape of an iPhone, violate so-called trade dress protections that prompt consumers to consider certain products unique. Apple still may have a chance to recover damages for those legal claims if the company seeks a retrial on the issue.
The Federal Circuit, however, rejected Samsung’s appeal of the patent violations, prompting the company’s bid on Wednesday to get the judges to reconsider. “The jury could have reasonably relied on the evidence in the record to reach its infringement verdict,” the three-judge panel wrote in May.
The products involved in this particular case, such as the iPhone 4, are now near-relics in the tech market, flooded these days with Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Galaxy S5.
Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 or follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz.
