Apple sued Samsung in the United States on April 15, 2011, claiming that Galaxy smartphones and tablets infringed Apple utility patents, design patents and trade dress. A 2012 jury awarded Apple about $1.05 billion, but that was only the first major number in a seven-year sequence of retrials, appeals and recalculations. The Federal Circuit later vacated the trade-dress findings, the Supreme Court changed the rule for calculating design-patent damages, a 2018 retrial produced a $539 million verdict, and the companies settled the remaining U.S. smartphone litigation on June 27, 2018. The settlement terms were not disclosed.
What Apple actually alleged
“Samsung copied the iPhone” is a shorthand for a much narrower set of legal claims. Apple’s first complaint identified particular patents, products and forms of intellectual property; it did not ask a court to decide whether every Galaxy device was generally similar to an iPhone.
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Utility patents
Utility patents protect functional inventions, such as technical or software-related methods. Apple asserted utility-patent claims against specified Samsung products.
Design patents
Design patents protect ornamental appearance. In this litigation, the claimed subject could relate to a phone’s overall visual design or particular visual features. Design-patent damages became the Supreme Court’s central issue in 2016.
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Trade dress
Trade dress protects product or packaging appearance that identifies a source, provided the appearance is distinctive and nonfunctional. The first jury found trade-dress liability, but the Federal Circuit later vacated those findings.
Apple also asserted trademark-related claims. Samsung denied infringement and filed counterclaims. The original complaint and appellate record describe the claims and accused products in detail: Federal Circuit case history.
2011: Apple files the original U.S. case
April 15 — Complaint in Northern California
Apple filed case 5:11-cv-01846 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint targeted Galaxy smartphones and tablets and combined utility-patent, design-patent, trademark and trade-dress theories.
Apple and Samsung were direct smartphone and tablet competitors, while Samsung was also a major Apple supplier. Protecting the iPhone’s visual identity and slowing competing Android products are commonly offered explanations for Apple’s strategy, but those are interpretations of the business context, not findings that decided the case.
Spring and summer — Product samples and early injunction fights
Apple sought samples of current and forthcoming Galaxy devices. The disputes show that the case concerned both past sales and whether newer products might continue the allegedly infringing features.
Apple also sought preliminary restrictions in the United States. Preliminary relief requires a different showing from liability after a full trial, so a court’s refusal to impose a broad pretrial ban did not decide the eventual infringement claims.
August — Galaxy Tab injunction in Germany
A German court issued a preliminary injunction affecting the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The order was later narrowed geographically. It was not a permanent, Europe-wide finding under U.S. law. International proceedings were separate cases governed by local law; an injunction in Germany did not establish infringement in the United States. A broad chronology of the international disputes is available at Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co..
2012: First trial and the $1.05 billion headline
April — A second U.S. case begins
Apple filed case 5:12-cv-00630, a separate Northern District of California action involving newer patents and products. It was not a retrial of the 2011 case. Samsung again asserted counterclaims. The separate docket is available through the case record.
July–August — First jury trial
The first case went to trial in July and August. The jury found that 26 Samsung products infringed or diluted one or more Apple rights. On August 24, it awarded Apple approximately $1.049 billion. The verdict was a jury award, not an immutable final judgment; post-trial review identified calculation problems.
The verdict form and contemporaneous court materials are collected in the district-court record.
2013–2014: Damages are recalculated
December 2012 — Partial damages retrial ordered
The district court determined that the original jury had made damages calculations errors and ordered a partial retrial for certain products.
November 2013 — $290,456,793 retrial award
A second jury considered the narrower product group and awarded Apple $290,456,793. This amount was part of the recalculation process, not an additional sum to add mechanically to the 2012 verdict. The Federal Circuit record describes the retrial at this opinion.
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After post-trial proceedings, the district court entered a $929,780,039 judgment covering the design-patent, utility-patent and trade-dress claims then remaining. It was a district-court judgment at that stage, not the final economic result of the entire conflict. The order is reproduced at Justia.
2012–2014: The separate second U.S. case
May 2014 — Different patents, products and verdict
The second case reached a jury after a 13-day trial. Contemporary reporting put Apple’s award at approximately $119.6 million, while Samsung received approximately $158,000 on a counterclaim. Those figures came from a different set of asserted rights and accused products; they did not replace or retry the 2012 verdict. Trial materials appear in the second-case docket, with reporting at Time.
2015: Federal Circuit removes trade dress from the award
On May 18, 2015, the Federal Circuit largely upheld the design- and utility-patent infringement findings but vacated the trade-dress findings and sent damages issues back for further proceedings. That ruling is why the $929.8 million judgment cannot be described as an untouched final award. Read the decision at the Federal Circuit.
December — Reported $548 million payment
Samsung paid Apple approximately $548 million, according to contemporary reporting, while preserving appellate challenges. It was a payment during the continuing litigation, not proof that the original $1.05 billion verdict remained intact or that all later issues were resolved. The report is at Le Monde.
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In Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., decided December 6, 2016, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Federal Circuit’s approach to design-patent damages and remanded the case. The opinion is available from the Supreme Court and in searchable form at the Legal Information Institute.
What “article of manufacture” means
For a multicomponent product, the statute’s relevant “article of manufacture” can be a component rather than automatically the entire product. Applied to a smartphone, the damages analysis could therefore focus on a relevant component if the legal test supported that result.
The Court did not find that Samsung was non-infringing, invalidate all Apple patents, decide that Apple had copied Samsung, or set a final repayment figure. It changed the damages methodology and sent the question back to the lower courts.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.2017–2018: Remand, royalties and another damages verdict
February 7, 2017 — Federal Circuit post-remand decision
The Federal Circuit issued a further decision after the Supreme Court’s intervention. That ruling continued the remand process rather than supplying a single final dollar amount: Federal Circuit decision.
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In the separate case, the district court addressed ongoing royalties and awarded a stipulated $6,494,252 plus interest. It also considered disputes involving products alleged to use design-arounds. The order is at the district-court docket.
May 24 — $539 million design-damages retrial
A jury awarded Apple approximately $539 million in the later design-patent damages retrial. This was a jury verdict shortly before settlement, not a publicly confirmed final payment.
June 2018: Settlement ends the remaining U.S. litigation
On June 27, 2018, Apple and Samsung settled the remaining U.S. smartphone patent litigation covered by the agreement. The parties did not publicly disclose the settlement’s financial or other terms. The settlement ended the active litigation covered by it; it did not erase the historical judgments or the Supreme Court precedent. Axios reported the settlement.
Why the dollar figures keep changing
These numbers are not additive. They refer to different products, claims, procedural stages and damages theories, and some replaced or overlapped with others.
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| Figure | What it represents | Proper description |
|---|---|---|
| Approximately $1.05 billion | August 2012 first-case jury verdict | Initial award later reduced and reworked |
| $290,456,793 | November 2013 partial damages retrial | Narrower product set in the recalculation |
| $929,780,039 | March 2014 district-court judgment | Pre-appeal judgment including claims later affected by appellate rulings |
| Approximately $119.6 million | May 2014 second-case Apple award | Separate patents and products |
| Approximately $548 million | Reported December 2015 payment | Payment while appellate issues continued |
| Approximately $399 million | Design-patent figure discussed in the Supreme Court proceedings | Design-patent component, not the whole litigation |
| $6,494,252 plus interest | January 2018 stipulated ongoing royalties | Second-case royalty proceeding |
| Approximately $539 million | May 2018 design-damages retrial verdict | Jury award before the confidential settlement |
What Apple ultimately won—and what it did not
- Apple obtained important infringement findings and substantial monetary awards in particular U.S. proceedings.
- The original trade-dress findings were vacated on appeal.
- The Supreme Court rejected the automatic use of the entire smartphone as the design-patent damages article and required further analysis.
- The May 2018 $539 million amount was a verdict, not a disclosed settlement payment.
- The companies’ final settlement economics are unknown because the terms were confidential.
Accordingly, it is accurate to say Apple won major liability and damages battles, but not that a single $1 billion judgment cleanly decided the entire worldwide dispute. Nor is it accurate to say the Supreme Court declared Samsung an innocent party: the Court ruled for Samsung on the damages methodology and remanded the case.
Why the litigation still matters
The dispute established a practical warning for anyone reading headline patent numbers: infringement, validity, damages, injunctions and settlement are separate questions. It also made the “article of manufacture” issue central to design-patent law for complex products, where a product may contain many visually and technically distinct components.
For legal research, the primary U.S. records remain available through PACER and the free, sometimes incomplete CourtListener collection. The Supreme Court’s official docket is at 15-777.
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