Samsung might be in a position to save Apple from a $533 million fine if the South Korean manufacturer is able to beat Texas licensing firm Smartflash, currently in court with Apple over patents used by Apple for iTunes' payment services.

The patents used by Apple also apply to Samsung's own payments services for mobile, meaning it will face its own court case. In the early stages, Samsung claims Smartflash shouldn't be allowed these patents, claiming they haven't been commercially used by the firm that has also shown no intent to use the patents.

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Smartflash claims it was going to use the payments patent alongside a partnership with Britney Spears in 2001, but it never came to fruition. The company has been holding onto the patent for 14 years since.

The review board will be held at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office where a team of judges will look at the patent and make a decision whether it's relevant to the case at hand.

If Samsung win, Apple's own case will be dropped by the USPTO despite a judge in Texas deciding Apple owed Smartflash the money. Apple apparently needs to pay for transactions and revenue generated from iTunes for that time, which amounts to over $500 million.

Most patent experts can't see Smartflash making it out of this battle without losing its patent. The likelihood a panel of experts deciding Smartflash has every right to sit on the patent is low, especially considering the size of Samsung and Apple.

Even if Apple were forced to pay up, it would go through a few more court battles and Apple is furiously trying to show it will do anything to not pay. Same with Samsung, although the South Korean giant has less room to be annoying.

The court case has opened up a new line of questioning as to how long patents can remain relevant if they aren't used for commercial products. Apple sits on quite a few patents and trademarks, but it doesn't seem to mind that heavily when another company jumps in and works on a project using non-commercialized patents.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has also said patent reform needs to be done by the U.S. government to avoid these types of cases in the future. It recently dropped its Rockstar Consortium -- a massive U.S. patent troll -- which affected Google and Samsung for half a decade.

TagsSmartflash, iTunes