Apple v. Samsung: petition for Supreme Court to take first look at design patent case in 122 years

As it announced in August, Samsung has filed a petition for writ of certiorari (request for Supreme Court review) today in its almost five-year-old litigation with Apple. While it's statistically very hard to get the attention of the top U.S. court, I actually think the design patent-related issues Samsung's lawyers (of the Quinn Emanuel firm) raise here are extraordinarily certworthy:Where a design patent includes unprotected non-ornamental features, should a district court be required to limit that patent to its protected ornamental scope?Where a design patent is applied to only a component of a product, should an award of infringer's profits be limited to those profits attributable to the component?The first question is about properly defining the scope of a design patent. If functional elements such as rounded corners (everyone carrying a phone in a pocket would agree that they have a practical benefit) were deemed to be "owned" by a design patent…