U.S. appeals court upholds Apple's partial win in Samsung patent case

A U.S. appeals court on Monday upheld a jury's verdict that Samsung Electronics infringed the Apple Inc.'s patents, but vacated part of the 930-million-U.S. dollar damages awards.

"We affirm the jury's verdict on the design patent infringements, the validity of two utility patent claims, and the damages awarded for the design and utility patent infringements appealed by Samsung," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which deals with patent lawsuit appeals, said in its ruling.

However, the appeals court concluded that "the jury's findings of non-functionality of the asserted trade dresses were not supported by substantial evidence," and ordered a trial court in California to reconsider the award of 382 million dollars for Samsung's dilution of Apple's trade dress, a term that generally refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging.

"We reverse the jury's findings that the asserted trade dresses are protectable. We therefore vacate the jury's damages awards against the Samsung products that were found liable for trade dress dilution and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion," said the appeals court.

The appeals court's ruling came after a California jury in 2012 found that Samsung infringed several Apple patents and Apple was eventually awarded 930 million dollars in damages.

Apple and Samsung, the world's top two smartphone producers, have been embroiled in what's been described as a "patent war of the century" across the globe. The two giants last year agreed to end all patent lawsuits outside the United States. Endi