## Facts

- Apple sued Samsung in the Northern District of California alleging that certain Samsung smartphones infringed Apple design patents covering aspects of the iPhone’s appearance, including a rectangular front face with rounded corners and a grid of colorful icons on a black screen.
- Apple sought design-patent damages under 35 U.S.C. § 289, which awards the infringer’s “total profit” on the relevant “article of manufacture.”
- A jury found infringement and awarded Apple $399 million, reflecting Samsung’s entire profit from the sales of the accused smartphones.
- The Federal Circuit affirmed the full-profit award, treating the entire smartphone as the relevant “article of manufacture” for § 289.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve whether, for multicomponent products, the “article of manufacture” must always be the end product sold to consumers.

## Issues

1. In applying 35 U.S.C. § 289 to a multicomponent product, must the “article of manufacture” always be the end product sold to the consumer, or can it be a component of that product?
2. If a component can be the “article of manufacture,” did the Federal Circuit err by adopting a categorical rule requiring the whole product as the relevant article for § 289 “total profit” damages?

## Decision

- The Court unanimously reversed the Federal Circuit and remanded.
- The Court held that, for a multicomponent product, the relevant “article of manufacture” under § 289 need not be the end product sold to consumers and may be a component of that product.
- The Court did not decide which article (the entire phone or a component) was the proper one on the facts and declined to adopt a test for identifying the relevant article, leaving that task to the lower courts on remand.

## Legal Principles

- The term “article of manufacture” in § 289 is broad enough to include both an end product sold to consumers and a component of that product, whether or not the component is sold separately.
- Because design patents under § 171(a) may cover designs for components of multicomponent products, § 289’s remedial term “article of manufacture” must also encompass components.
- A categorical rule that the relevant “article of manufacture” must always be the entire consumer-sold product cannot be reconciled with the text of § 289.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that § 289 “total profit” design-patent damages for multicomponent products may be based on a component rather than necessarily the entire product, reversing the Federal Circuit’s whole-product rule and remanding for further proceedings to determine the proper article of manufacture and resulting damages.


Samsung Elecs. Co. v. Apple Inc., 580 U.S. 53 (2016)