The US Supreme Court's recent decision in Samsung v Apple has not made determining damages for design patent infringement any easier, according to WIPR readers.
Responding to WIPR's most recent survey, 66% of respondents believed that the ruling, which held that the term "article of manufacture" is broad enough to encompass "both a product sold to a consumer as well as a component of that product", did not make determination of damages any easier.
In an 8-0 decision, the court reversed the judgment of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which had ordered Samsung to pay Apple $399 million in damages.
They added that "the designer of a $1 component of a $1,000 smartphone cannot now claim the infringer's entire profits for that smartphone"—and that "can only be the correct result".
They explained that the ruling "will only go towards extending the litigation between Apple and Samsung, making it hard for determinations to be reached in other cases until the final judgment is reached".

Source: WIPR