Overturning an earlier decision, a U.S. appeals court on Friday reinstated a lower-court verdict that Samsung Electronics pay Apple US$120 million for violating three iPhone patents.

In February, a three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that Samsung did not infringe upon the patents on "quick links," "slide-to-unlock" and "auto-correct" technologies, and therefore does not need to pay $120 million ordered by a lower court.

Apple appealed that decision, arguing that the panel relied on extra-record evidence "none of which, it said, was of record and that the panel appears to have located only through independent research," according to court records.

On Friday, a full panel of judges at the same court accepted Apple's appeal in a 8-3 decision.

"We affirm and reinstate the district court judgment," the court said. "We thus reinstate the district court's award of costs which the panel had vacated."

Friday's ruling reinstated the 2012 verdict by a federal court in San Jose, California, that ordered Samsung to pay Apple US$119.6 million for violating the three patents.

The case is one of a series of legal battles between the two smartphone giants, and is separate from another case in which Samsung was ordered in 2012 to pay Apple $1.05 billion for violating Apple's patents. But that amount was later reduced gradually to $548 million.

That case is pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. (Yonhap)