Samsung gets a big chunk of money back from Apple

Three months after Apple secured a huge court win over rival Samsung, the United States Supreme Court has stepped in and reversed the previous ruling, throwing out hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and sending the case back to a lower court.

The Supreme Court's ruling on Tuesday is a new chapter in the five-year-old battle between the two companies. This particular round related to $399 million Samsung was ordered to pay Apple for copying the iPhone's rounded edges, flat screen, and the way in which apps are arranged.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Samsung didn't dispute that it copied Apple's design but they did argue that the jury focused too much on the overall design of their phones when making the decision as opposed to just those specific elements.

Samsung also argued that the dollar value of the fine, which, under the Design Patent Act of 1887, was to be the total profit from sales of devices that used the patented bits (or, in Samsung's case, several of its phones) was unfairly high.

Apple argued the overall design of its phones was everything and, thus, the ruling was completely fair (which one would expect from a company selling a $300 book about the history of its products' designs).

The Court ruled unanimously 8-0 in favor of Samsung. In her decision (which you can read in full below), Justice Sonia Sotomayor focuses on the phrase “design[s] for an article of manufacture” from the 130-year-old act being used here. Sotomayor says the term is broad enough that it could mean either the entire phone or the individual components.

Thus, Samsung gets its money back -- for now. The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower courts to decide how exactly the total money that Samsung owes Apple for those components will be calculated.

In 2012, a jury awarded Apple a tad over $1 billion in damages for copyright infringements by Samsung but that amount was later reduced.

Samsung lost a similar case to Apple again in 2014 but was ordered to pay a much smaller award.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press