Intellectual property attorney and Stanford Law School professor Mark A. Lemley has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Samsung in its longstanding battle with Apple, telling the justices that the South Korean company should not have to pay nearly $400 million in damages.

The high court should clarify how damages are awarded for the infringement of design patents and roll back the Federal Circuit’s determination that companies must cough up their entire profits for an infringing product, even if the design that received a patent is a small part of an infringing item, according to the amicus brief written on behalf of 49 other law professors by Lemley, who Law360 recently named as an Icon of IP.

Lemley deemed the Federal Circuit’s opinion a “draconian” ruling that conflicts with interpretations by the Second and Sixth Circuit of federal statutes, writing that the ruling is based on circumstances that were conceived more than 100 years ago.