The U.S. Appeals Court ruled on May 18, 2015 that Apple's patented designs on its signature iPhone mobile phone had been copied by chief rival Samsung Electronics. That should have been the end of it, but oh no, Samsung was back in court on June 17 to fight that decision. Samsung urged the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case with its full 12-judge roster, arguing that a three-judge panel erred earlier this year when it left intact a jury's verdict that the South Korean tech giant's smartphones and tablets infringed on Apple's design patents. What followed was even worse. Samsung had gotten Silicon Valley heavy weights to back them in their push to get the case retried. Google, Facebook, Dell, eBay and others all joined in. We wrote about this in our report titled "WTF: Samsung and a Coalition of Whiners Filed a Motion against Apple over Apple's Patent Win over Samsung." Late yesterday the court quietly rejected Samsung's pleading.

A federal appeals court late yesterday refused to re-examine Samsung's appeal of a stinging 2012 jury verdict that found the tech giant violated Apple's iPhone patents.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that "Without comment, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Samsung's bid to reconsider a previous ruling largely backing Apple -- leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the only legal option left for Samsung to try to overturn hundreds of millions of dollars in damages it now owes Apple in their ongoing patent feud."

And don't think for a moment that Samsung won't go that route knowing that Silicon Valley companies are now backing them. This is Apple against everyone that matters in Silicon Valley. There's a real fear in Silicon Valley about Apple winning this case.

Even Xiaomi's Hugo Barra jumped into the fray recently to say "they" couldn't allow a company (Apple) to take ownership of smartphone design." Yes, even little copycat number two wants license to copy Apple's design without repercussions. What a sad reflection this is on Silicon Valley.

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