Samsung successful in Supreme Court challenge to Apple patent decision

South Korean smartphone maker Samsung has won a US Supreme Court case which overturns a lower court's decision to make it pay as much as $399m to rival Apple.

The lower court had previously decided that Samsung owed Apple the full amount of profits gained from sales of its phones, due to infringing design patents on the latter's flagship iPhone.

The verdict came via Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and represents a crucial victory for Samsung at a time when it is struggling to regain the trust of consumers and investors following a series of mishaps with its smartphones and other technology.

Sotomayor's decision was based on the fact that the separation between the device and components of the device was not made clear by Apple's legal team.

"The term 'article of manufacture' is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product whether sold separately or not," Sotomayor wrote.

The original penalty against Samsung had been closer to $1bn after a jury concluded in 2012 that the company had infringed three separate patents. However, the figure has since been reduced, and now may not even come to fruition.

Even though it is likely that Apple will respond with another case, a Samsung win would have wide-reaching implications for the tech industry, opening the doors for the mimicking of established products by competitors.

Apple reacted strongly to the court's decision on Tuesday, referring to Samsung's actions as "blatant copying of our ideas".