
Supreme Court rules for Samsung in smartphone fight with Apple - wstrange
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-iphone-idUSKBN13V1XL
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Hupriene
The actual opinion is quite short.
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-777_7lho.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-777_7lho.pdf)

It basically states that if a single component of a multi-component device
infringes a patent, then calculations of damages based on profit can (but
aren't required to) consider only the profit made on that component. While the
ruling is in Samsung's favor, it seems unlikely to make much of a difference
in the disposition of the case.

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Oletros
It will make a difference in the damages

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Hupriene
It _may_ make a difference in damages. From what I can see nothing in this
decision says that the lower court must change its damage calculations. This
only says that they have the option to.

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wyldfire
> The justices in their 8-0 ruling sent the case back to the lower court for
> further proceedings.

Interesting part of Sotomayor's opinion [1]. "The parties ask us to go further
and resolve whether, for each of the design patents at issue here, the
relevant article of manufacture is the smartphone, or a particular smartphone
component. Doing so would require us to set out a test for identifying the
relevant article of manufacture ... We decline to lay out a test ..."

Sounds to me like the decision is based on the subtle specific scope of the
patent(s) and or legislation on what scope is allowed.

[1]
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-777_7lho.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-777_7lho.pdf)

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drzaiusapelord
This is probably a good precedent. If my product has 15 lines of infringing
code out of 2 million, then you shouldn't be entitled to my entire profit
margin. There should be some basic test by the courts to determine what
percentage is liable. This means less of a payout and ideally lower incentives
for patent trolls to litigate and more of a "fair" compensation instead of a
winner-takes-all model that seems to be the default.

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lightedman
"If my product has 15 lines of infringing code out of 2 million, then you
shouldn't be entitled to my entire profit margin."

If out of 2M lines of code you have 15 infringing lines, unless those lines
are to something very specific and not general like say a simple random number
generator anyone using that language would write the exact same way, you
shouldn't have to pay jack and it shouldn't be considered infringing in the
first place.

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r00fus
LOC is a bad analogy as it's often easy to determine coupling.

It'd be more like saying my car had tail/headlights like a Mercedes - how much
of my sales/revenue is because it looks like a Merc?

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drzaiusapelord
Trademarks and trade dress are completely separate issues from software
patents.

I can code something 100% unique with an apple logo and looks exactly like an
ipad. I violate no software patents.

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wyldfire
This was flagged for being political or some other reason?

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dang
Probably for being political. We did ask users to err on the side of flagging
for one week. Clearly it would normally be on topic.

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vxNsr
Wow pretty crazy that's it's fully unanimous

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umanwizard
Lots of SC decisions are unanimous. I think the majority in fact.

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nrki
> The 5.7 terawatt-hours of electricity Google consumed

> [Microsoft] data centers currently use about 3.3 million megawatt-hours

Come on, editor.

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vinay427
I think you meant to comment on this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114803)

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devy
S/he might be looking at the "ALSO IN TECHNOLOGY NEWS" section on that Reuter
article and commenting the editorial there :)

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perseusprime11
At this point, Samsung should just pay up and focus on removing the "explode"
feature from their smart phones. They did copy the designs blatantly.

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michaelmrose
The engineers are working on one the lawyers on another its not like the legal
team is going to roll up their sleeves and pull out some schematics.

