Supreme Court won’t hear Apple v. Samsung round two

The colossal courtroom clash between Apple and Samsung over patents won't be making a second appearance at the Supreme Court.

The two tech titans went at it in front of juries in San Jose over the course of two blockbuster trials, held in 2012 and 2014. Both times juries returned verdicts in favor of Apple—the first ordering Samsung to pay more than $1 billion in damages, the second ordering a payment of $120 million.

News today concerns the second verdict. In 2016, the $120 million verdict was thrown out entirely by a panel of judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals. The judges said that patents on Apple features like smartphone autocorrect and "slide to unlock" were invalid in light of prior art.

But it turned out that the judges who were skeptics of Apple's smartphone patents were a decided minority on the court. The full Federal Circuit court decided to take up the case "en banc," and when it was reheard, Apple was victorious on an 8-3 vote.

That got Apple its $120 million verdict back. Samsung asked the US Supreme Court to be the final arbiter on the matter—just as it was for the first litigation. Today, the high court denied (PDF) Samsung's petition without comment. That means the Korean company is seemingly at the end of its long legal road and will need to pay out the $120 million.

The infringed patents in this case include US Patent Nos. 8,046,721 (slide-to-unlock), 8,074,172 (word correction), and 5,946,647 (quick links). The '647 "quick links" patent, which describes a process for turning structures such as addresses and phone numbers into easily clickable links, accounted for nearly $100 million of the damages award.

It's a win for Apple, but it's far from what the Cupertino company was hoping for. Apple lawyers had sought more than $2 billion in damages at the second trial, making the jury's award around 5 percent of what was asked for. The $120 million won't make much of a dent in Samsung's bottom line. The South Korean conglomerate's third-quarter operating profits amounted to $12.91 billion.

As for that first verdict, it has gone up and down through appeals courts many times, significantly lowering the damages figure in the process. Right now, it's getting lined up for another jury trial to reconsider $399 million in damages. The US Supreme Court said that the method used to calculate damages on design patents, the biggest part of the verdict, was improper.

The first trial accused a wide range of Samsung phones of infringing iPhone patents, including the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II. The second trial made allegations against a newer range of Samsung products, including the Galaxy III, Note II, Stratosphere, and Galaxy Nexus phones.