For those readers who are intelligent lifeforms, and actually want to know what this appeal is about:
The primary part of this appeal is not about whether Samsung was found to infringe or not.
TL;DR - This is about the calculation of the award for design patents.
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For centuries, one or two design patents pretty much covered an entire product. In 1887, in response to a carpet maker getting a tiny award from a copied rug design patent, Congress passed a law that gave design patents a special bonus:
- The ability to award all of an infringer's profits to the design patent holder.
And that's what the Koh jury did. They gave Apple all or most of Samsung's profits on certain phones, partly for having an icon grid, flat face and rounded corners. There are other legal questions about them doing that, but...
The BIG question that everyone wants SCOTUS to address, which is whether or not the "entire profits" rule applies to the whole product, or just the parts that infringe.
You see, this is not 100 years with simple products. Today's highly integrated devices such as smartphones use literally thousands of patented items.
Allowing the award to encompass an entire product means that even if, say, Apple used a
single patented design element somewhere deep in a control panel, the patent holder could demand ALL of Apple's profits for the entire device.
Worse, it means that EVERY SINGLE design patent holder, large or small, could EACH DEMAND ALL THE PROFITS.
Good God. Taken to extremes, such awards could wipe out Apple and Samsung entirely. Not to mention everyone from the local grocer, to someone making a tiny product with their home savings.
Thus, virtually nobody (except designers, naturally) thinks that this is fair or the true intent of that law. If you think patent trolls are bad now, letting anyone demand an entire device's profits will bring out trolls like nothing ever seen before... while also putting both large and small companies at huge risk.
Even Apple is now backing off (as many here predicted) their original claim that it should apply to an entire device. They know that they themselves will be in grave danger if that concept stands. Instead, they're falling back on legal nitpicking to claim that SCOTUS should only look at what Samsung presented in that particular trial as proof of what percentage of their products infringed. But nobody wants just that. They want SCOTUS to make a stand.
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A slightly more detailed explanation of the appeals questions is in
one of my previous posts here.
TL;DR #2 - if you're one of those who thinks VirnetX shouldn't get a half billion dollars for a few utility patents, then you'd sure better start backing Samsung's side. Because that's nothing compared to the billions that someone with a tiny design patent could demand and get.
Couple of problems with your evidence. 1. It doesn't support your assertion at all. Read past the headline.
