MacRumors:Samsung to Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court in Ongoing Patent Battle With Apple

August 19, 201510 yr

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Samsung is planning to take its ongoing patent war with Apple to the United States Surpreme Court, reports the San Jose Mercury News. In court papers filed today, Samsung said that by November it would ask the Supreme Court to hear its latest appeal.

"The questions present issues of enormous importance to patent litigation and the scope of innovation, especially in high-technology industries," Samsung's legal team wrote in a bid to hold off paying Apple hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for the patent violations.

Samsung's decision comes following a rejection from the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals last week, where the court refused Samsung's request for a new trial. Samsung had asked the court to reconsider a decision earlier this year that left the company on the hook for a $548 million payout to Apple.

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Samsung and Apple have been battling over patent infringement issues since 2012, when a jury ruled Samsung willfully violated several Apple patents, resulting in $1 billion in damages. Since then, Samsung has been fighting the ruling, and over the course of several appeals and a partial retrial, has gotten the damages reduced to the aforementioned $548 million total. If Samsung is successful, the Supreme Court could throw out another $400 million in damages.

Earlier this week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office invalidated a key iPhone design patent that was used in the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit, handing down a non-final rejection that Samsung could use in its appeal to the Supreme Court. Samsung also has the backing of technology companies like Facebook, Google, eBay, HP, and Dell, who have claimed the ruling against Samsung would "lead to absurd results and have a devastating impact on companies."

Samsung may, however, have difficulty getting the Supreme Court to hear its case. Of the thousands of cases that the Supreme Court is asked to review each year, it agrees to hear approximately 100 to 150.