[THE INVESTOR] The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a drawn-out legal battle between Samsung Electronics and Apple on Oct. 11, the court announced recently as it posted its schedule for the October 2016 term.

In March, the court announced it would hear the case, the first time the top court has looked at a design patent case since the 1800s. 


The rare decision comes after Samsung filed a request with the court last year to reexamine the case that it lost to Apple, which resulted in the former paying US$548 million to the latter.

The two companies have clashed since 2011, spending billions of dollars in court. Apple has claimed that Samsung infringed its design patents, including the iPhone’s rectangle design with curved corners, while Samsung has fought back by saying the ornamental design is just a piecemeal part of its complicated devices consisting of thousands of components.

One of the issues is the so-called entire-profits rule, under which the infringer must pay its total profits from infringing products. But Samsung is asking the court to apply on design patents the same damages standard for utility patents, in which courts must allocate the damages based on the value of the infringing feature.

After oral arguments are heard, the court is likely to give its order in December or January.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)