Apple has agreed to limit the term of one of the patents it used to win a $ 1.05 billion jury verdict against Samsung. The company filed a so-called “terminal disclaimer” with the patent office today, which limits the term of patent D618,677, a patent that 12 different Samsung phones were found to infringe.
It’s not much of a sacrifice. Patent terms are typically 20 years from the filing date, but by filing the disclaimer, Apple now links its D’677 patent to the term of an earlier patent, No. D593,087. In doing so it’s giving up about 16 months of patent life. Since the earlier ‘087 patent was applied for in July 2007, both patents should now live to around 2027, unless invalidated.
The idea appears to be to cut off one of Samsung’s post-trial arguments. Samsung has argued that notwithstanding the jury verdict, Apple’s design patents are invalid for a number of reasons; in particular, it argues that the D’677 patent is invalid for so-called “double patenting.” In other words, the D’087 and the D’677 patents are too similar to be granted separate patents.
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