Samsung to Supreme Court: Apple got too much money for its design patents

In its opening brief to the highest court in the land, Samsung says damages should be calculated only on the parts of a phone that infringe Apple's patents, not the profits for the entire device. Design patents are given too much value when it comes to legal damages, Samsung has argued to the US Supreme Court in its patent dispute with Apple. In an opening brief filed Wednesday with the nation's highest court, Samsung presented its arguments for why an earlier ruling in Apple's favor should be thrown out. It said in the filing that "at a minimum, a new trial is necessary." Samsung contends that Apple should only get profits from the parts of a smartphone that infringe Apple's patents -- the front face and a grid of icons on a user interface -- not the profits from the entire phone. It said that "grossly overrewarding design patents" will hurt competition and innovation and will lead to "absurd" results in other lawsuits. "If the current ruling is left to stand, it would value a single design patent over the hundreds of thousands of groundbreaking technology patents, leading to vastly overvalued design patents," Samsung said in a statement. Click to read the rest of the article