A Dutch court has found Apple guilty of infringing on a patent owned by Samsung and now the U.S. company must pay an undisclosed amount of compensation to Samsung.

The court in The Hague said Wednesday that Apple had violated a Samsung patent used in some of its smartphone and tablet PC products to connect to the Internet.

The verdict orders Apple to pay Samsung damages based on its Dutch sales figures. The fine is backdated to August 2010 as this is when Apple should have known it was violating the patent, according to the court.

The world's top two tech giants have been in a so-called "patent war," suing each other in about a dozen countries around the world, for the last few years as they compete for the No. 1 spot in the global market.