“This case involves the infringement of designs for smartphones. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit identified the entire smartphone as the only permissible ‘article of manufacture’ for the purpose of calculating [35 U.S.C.] § 289 damages because consumers could not separately purchase components of the smartphones. The question before us is whether that reading is consistent with § 289.”
“We hold that it is not. . . . [T]he 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. Thus, reading ‘article of manufacture’ in § 289 to cover only an end product sold to a consumer gives too narrow a meaning to the phrase.”
