Andre Yoskowitz
4 Aug 2016 20:16
Over 100 designers have signed a court brief on behalf of Apple, taking sides in a patent battle that has hundreds of millions of dollars in damages waiting.
A few of the big names include Calvin Klein, Paul Smith and Alexander Wang, who claim Samsung should pay damages for infringing on Apple's design patents and that by stealing the designs, Samsung made more sales due to their appeal.
In 2012, a jury awarded Apple $548 million for copying "the designs of the iPhone's rounded-corner front face, bezels and grid of icons." Samsung is fighting $399 million of the damages, claiming the infringing designs were a minimal part of a much more complex phone and that the Supreme Court should look into whether one patent infringement should lead to them paying for all missed profits by Apple.
The designers, for their part, say the "look of the product comes to represent the underlying features, functions, and total user experience," and that stealing the design certainly leads to lost sales for Apple. On the other side, Samsung has some tech giants including Facebook and Google who claim that such a decision against Samsung "could lead to diminished innovation, pave the way for design troll patent litigation and negatively impact the economy and consumers."
Source:
Reuters