In case you forgot, Apple is locked in a fight with Samsung over patent infringements. Yes, it's been seven years already and, honestly, the end is nowhere in sight.
The latest development of the patent war comes from a federal courtroom in San Jose, California, where a jury ruled Thursday that the South Korean company must pay $539 million to Apple. Samsung has already said it disagrees.
"Today's decision flies in the face of a unanimous [US] Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages," the company wrote on its website on May 24.
"We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers."
That ruling sent the case back to a lower court, which would reassess the damages Samsung would have to pay Apple for. The $539 million figure on the table today is a huge downgrade from the $1 billion Apple was initially awarded back in 2012.
In the beginning, Apple wanted a whopping $2.5 billion in compensation, while Samsung offered them a paltry $28 million to settle the issue.
According to most recent court decisions, Samsung violated patents on three aspects of phone design: the rounded corners of the device; the bezels, or rim surrounding the display on top and below; and an interface in the form of a grid of colorful icons.
Before iOS was introduced in 2007, the phones used to have a standard "home" or "desktop" page as their default interface, with the now-standard "grid" of icons appearing only after a Menu button was pressed. Apple's great innovation was to make the former menu into the default screen. Today, all phone manufacturers have implement a similar interface, which makes an already complicated case even worse, Gizmodo notes.
In a statement to Bloomberg after Thursday's ruling, Apple said its case had "always been about more than money… We believe deeply in the value of design and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers."
