Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

SSNNF · KRX · Electronic Technology, Semiconductors · Founded 1969

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Inc., 580 U.S. 53, is the general title of a series of patent infringement lawsuits between Apple Inc. and Samsung Inc. in the United States Court system, regarding the design of smartphones and tablet computers. Between them, the two companies have dominated the manufacturing of smartphones since the early 2010s, and made about 40% of all smartphones sold worldwide as of 2024. In early 2011, Apple initiated patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung, who typically responded with countersuits. Apple's multinational litigation over technology patents became known as part of the phone wars: the colloquial term for extensive litigation and fierce competition in the global market for consumer mobile communications. By late 2011, Apple and Samsung were litigating about twenty cases in ten countries. By the following year they were still embroiled in more than 50 lawsuits worldwide, with billions of dollars in damages claimed between them. While Apple won a ruling in its favor in the United States, Samsung won rulings in South Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom. On June 4, 2013, Samsung won a limited ban from the U.S. International Trade Commission on sales of certain Apple products after the commission found Apple had violated a Samsung patent, but this was vetoed by U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. In December 2016, the United States Supreme Court decided 8–0 to reverse a lower court decision that awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple and remanded the case to the Federal Circuit Court court to determine which aspects of American patent law had been used correctly or incorrectly in the previous hearings. The two companies finally reached an out-of-court settlement in the United States in 2018.