The United States Patent and Trademark Office has ruled that one of Apple’s iPhone design patents should never have been granted, Foss Patents reports. The patent office’s Central Reexamination Division — acting on an anonymous request from 2013 that may have came from Samsung — issued a non-final action last week rejecting the design patents that formed part of a 2012 Apple lawsuit against Samsung.
That suit resulted in a judge ordering Samsung to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to Apple, an award that was later reduced to $548 million. This latest blow against Apple’s patents — while still technically non-final — further undermines the basis of that $548 million ruling, but Samsung’s appeal on that verdict was rejected last week despite other tech companies voicing support for Samsung’s position, leaving an appeal to the U.S.
Supreme Court to be Samsung’s last option.
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