Samsung is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a $399 million patent award it was ordered to pay Apple for copied iPhone designs. The Korean company paid Apple Inc $548.2 million on Monday, fulfilling part of its liability stemming from a 2012 verdict for infringing Apple's patents and copying the iPhone's look.

In a petition to the high court, Samsung said it should not have had to make as much as $399 million of that payout for copying the patented designs of the iPhone's rounded-corner front face, bezel, and gridded icons.

"A patented design might be the essential feature of a spoon or rug," Samsung wrote in its petition. "But the same is not true of smartphones, which contain countless other features that give them remarkable functionality wholly unrelated to their design."

Samsung also is challenging the infringement analysis, saying the jury was improperly allowed to consider even unprotected aspects of the iPhone in determining if the specific patented features were infringed.

It said that awarding total profits from the sale of its devices with those designs, even if they relate only to a small portion of the phone, allows for "unjustified windfalls" far beyond the inventive value of the patents.

The South Korean electronics company's quest to limit damages to Apple comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. in May stripped about $382 million from the $930 million Samsung owed following the 2012 verdict. The appeals court said the iPhone's appearance could not be protected through trademarks.

The court is expected to decide early next year whether to take up the case. If the justices were to take it, arguments would be heard in the nine-month term that begins in October.

Another trial over remaining damages relating to some of Samsung's infringing products in the case is set for next spring.