Apple and Samsung may turn to settlement talks now that the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals made a ruling that sort of splits the baby on the companies long-running patent dispute.
In making its ruling, the influential court may have provided resolution to some key issues, writes Howard Mintz for the Mercury News.
For Apple, the appeals court, in its review of a 2012 jury verdict in what is known as Apple I, largely found that Samsung infringed Apple s patents when it came to the iPhone and iPad.
For Samsung, the court agreed that Samsung s design features such as rounded corners and other aspects of its products appearance did not violate Apple s so-called trade dress protections, because the design features were tied to the function of the products.
In what was a blow to Apple, the court chopped about $400 million out of the nearly $1 billion jury-awarded damages.
Unless the parties can settle, there s a chance the cases will go to the Supreme Court. In last year s Apple II, another federal jury awarded $120 million in damages to Apple in an iPhone patent case against Samsung. That case is also on appeal.
Above: Apple s headquarters. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, FILE)
