Samsung challenges $539mn verdict in Apple patent case

Samsung has filed a motion with the US District Court in San Jose, California, to appeal a verdict that asked the South Korean giant to pay Apple $539 million for copying patented iPhone designs - a legal battle that dates back to 2011.

Samsung thinks the verdict is wrong and wants a refund of some damages already paid, CNET reported on Monday. 

It asked a court last week to either dismiss the judgment or retry the case in which the damages were decided, the report said. 

Samsung was given the $539 million penalty last month as it was found infringing on five patents with Android phones it sold in 2010 and 2011. 

The legal dispute between the two tech giants dates to 2011 when Apple sued Samsung. This led the South Korean tech giant to countersue the Cupertino, California-headquartered Apple in the same year, according to a report in The Korea Herald in May.

Samsung lost the case in 2012. It was ordered to pay the US tech giant more than $1 billion for infringing on three of Apple's design patents related to mobile devices -- the quick links to phone numbers, the slide-to-unlock feature and the auto-correct function.

Under the US patent law, infringement of a design patent can result in a plaintiff receiving total profits made through the product. 

Samsung's lawyers appealed the case, bringing down the compensation of $1 billion to $400 million in 2015 at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. 

In an attempt to limit the compensation to profits attributable to a specific component patent in question, Samsung then appealed the lower court's ruling to the Supreme Court.

The South Korean tech behemoth argued that component design could be just a small part of a smartphone whose technologies involve more than 200,000 patents.

In late 2016, the US Supreme Court agreed with Samsung and ordered the two tech giants to negotiate a date for a retrial to settle the award money for Apple, the The Korea Herald report said. 

The new appeal against the $539 million verdict suggests that the seven-year-old legal battle between the two tech giants is far from over.