In a major win for Samsung, the United States Supreme Court passed a ruling on Tuesday saying that the violation of Apple's smartphone design patents by the South Korean electronics giant may involve only a component and not the entire product.

The top court's order means Samsung might not have to pay huge penalties. The unanimous decision was taken by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Experts maintain that the ruling in the Samsung vs Apple patent battle is going to help Samsung which is facing a host of problems these days. Initially, Samsung faced penalties of around $1 billion but the fine was later reduced to $548 million.

While passing the order, the SC ruled that the patent infringement could affect just a component of the phones, such as their appearance and not all capabilities. In October, Chief Justice John Roberts had said during a hearing that Samsung did not infringe on "all the chips and wires."

"The 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," Sotomayor wrote.

Earlier, Samsung's attorney, Kathleen Sullivan, had expressed unhappiness over the penalties order and had said "A smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work."