Apple Inc deserved the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages Samsung Electronics Co paid for infringing patented designs of the iPhone, because the product's distinctive look drives people to purchase it, a group of design industry professionals told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, informs Reuters.

Setting up a clash with a number of Silicon Valley companies that have come out on the side of Samsung, more than 100 designers and educators signed on to a new court brief supporting Apple.

They include famous fashion names Calvin Klein, Paul Smith and Alexander Wang, the industrial design director at Parsons School of Design, the design director for Bentley Motors, and Tony Chambers, the editor-in-chief of Wallpaper magazine.

Samsung has appealed to the Supreme Court part of the $548 million it paid Apple last December related to a jury verdict from 2012. Samsung says the $399 million of that amount, awarded for copying the designs of the iPhone's rounded-corner front face, bezel and grid of icons, is excessive, adding that they contributed only marginally to a complex product.

Samsung has had a number of trade groups come out on its side, including The Internet Association as well as Silicon Valley heavyweights Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc unit Google, which makes the Android operating system used in Samsung's phones.

If not reversed, the Federal Circuit decision "could lead to diminished innovation, pave the way for design troll patent litigation and negatively impact the economy and consumers," Samsung spokeswoman Danielle Meister Cohen said in an email on Thursday.