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South Korean Court Dismisses Samsung's Patent Lawsuit Against Apple

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Apr 12, 2001
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A judge representing the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea has dismissed a Samsung lawsuit stating that Apple had infringed on three of the company's patents, removing the opportunity for Samsung to receive monetary benefits and impose a sales ban on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, reports Reuters. The verdict comes after a August 2012 ruling by a South Korean court declaring that Samsung and Apple had violated each others patents, ultimately resulting in the sales ban of some older products from both companies in South Korea.

apple_samsung_logos.jpg
A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said Apple products such as the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad2 did not violate Samsung patents on short message display methods and messaging grouping features.

The court ruled against a sale ban on the products and threw out Samsung's claim for 100 million won ($95,100) in damages.

"We are glad the Korean court joined others around the world in standing up for real innovation and rejecting Samsung's ridiculous claims," Apple Korea spokesman Steve Park said.
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In the same ruling, the court also fined Samsung 25 million won (approximately $23,800) for violating the "rubber banding" patent that enables a visual effect when scrolling through a page on a touch-screen device.

Last year, Samsung was ordered to pay Apple a total of $1.05 billion after a U.S. jury found the South Korean company guilty of willfully violating multiple Apple patents. Back in March, Judge Lucy Koh struck $450 million from the $1 billion awarded to Samsung after deciding the jury may have miscalculated the damages due to a misunderstanding of patent issues.

A retrial held last month found Samsung liable for $290 million in damages. The company replying to the verdict by filing a motion to halt payment, requesting a reevaluation of the validity of No. 7,844,915 covering Apple's "pinch-to-zoom" gestures. The motion to stay the damages however was denied, with a reevaluation of the pinch-to-zoom patent still set to take place.

Article Link: South Korean Court Dismisses Samsung's Patent Lawsuit Against Apple
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/12/south-korean-court-dismisses-samsungs-patent-lawsuit-against-apple/
keysofanxiety

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
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macs4nw said:
Hard to argue against a judgement by a court in your own country.
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Exactly. I've also heard that Samsung make up a crazy percentage of Korea's GDP - around 20% (don't have a citation so I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly).

If that's the case then it really goes to show how important this ruling was.
 
J

JacinTatt

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Jun 12, 2012
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Breaking News: MacRumours posts a Mac Rumour.

At least, that's what the title will be one day...
 
gnasher729

gnasher729

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Nov 25, 2005
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Are you sure these numbers are right? Samsung asking for $95,100 and being fined $23,785? I would have thought for these amounts of money neither Samsung's nor Apple's lawyers nor the judge would get out of bed in the morning.

The other thing: Apple wasn't awarded $290 million. They were awarded close to $900 million. The $290 million is for a portion of the original judgment that was found to be calculated incorrectly and was now fixed. (Roughly: Original judgement $1000 million of which $400 million were found to be calculated wrong, new judgment the original $600 million that were calculated correctly, plus $290 million which are the $400 million this time calculated correctly).
 
macduke

macduke

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Jun 27, 2007
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If this doesn't prove that Apple are the good guys and Samsung are the copying b*stards, then I'm not sure what will?
 
Rocketman

Rocketman

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Claremont, The intellectual capitol of the world.
MacRumors said:
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]

removing the opportunity for Samsung to receive monetary

In the same ruling, the court also fined Samsung 25 million won (approximately $23,800)


A retrial held last month found Samsung liable for $290 million in damages.
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Just the differences in scale alone are astounding. $23,800 vs $290,000,000.

$23,800 doesn't sound like much until you realize it is 25 million won!! That's a chunk of currency.

But then $290m is W304,621,000,000,000, or 304.6 T Won.
 
M

MikhailT

macrumors 601
Nov 12, 2007
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macduke said:
If this doesn't prove that Apple are the good guys and Samsung are the copying *****s, then I'm not sure what will?
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It doesn't prove anything, Samsung is just throwing any lawsuits they can at Apple. Apple will eventually stop winning and neither sides will win anything anymore, they're just fighting for nothing, losing friends and letting competition catch up.

There are only two possible outcomes that I can see: a huge patent deal between both companies (likely as MS/Apple got friendly in the end) or governments abolish patents completely or regulate them to ban such petty fights.
 
gnasher729

gnasher729

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Consultant said:
Appears that some judges in South Korea that can't be bribed.
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Hmmh. I always thought that in many countries judges don't need to be bribed to make an unfair ruling in a case between a local and a foreign company. What you mean is "Appears that some judges in South Korea are impartial".
 
kdarling

kdarling

macrumors P6
Jun 9, 2007
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First university coding class = 47 years ago
macduke said:
If this doesn't prove that Apple are the good guys and Samsung are the copying b*stards, then I'm not sure what will?
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Certainly this case does not do that, since it was only about whether or not Apple infringed on some Samsung texting patents.

It also bears repeating once again, that it doesn't matter who the defendant is (here it's Apple, but it could be anybody), software patent infringement is virtually never about copying. It's about developers independently coming up with the same implementation.

It's a prime reason why many countries don't allow software patents at all. Software patents benefit large corporations the most, as they have the time and money to put into making lots of patent applications (and re-applications).
 
K

kenetic

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2006
156
1
Can we just play along. The cost of the law suit are crazy expensive. These two companies also have a business relationship with each other.
 
luffytubby

luffytubby

macrumors 6502a
Jan 22, 2008
684
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Oletros said:
Samsung loses a lawsuit in Korea, Apple gets invalidated a patent in Germany, the always funny world of patent lawsuits
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Nothing funny about it. These patent laws are so ********* retarded. The only people who wins this is lawyers. This is a waste of time and resources for both Apple and Samsung and their symbiotic relationship.

I'm really glad that this court did this ruling. South Korea is worse than USA as far as corruption goes; http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results
 
Gasu E.

Gasu E.

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Mar 20, 2004
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kenetic said:
Can we just play along. The cost of the law suit are crazy expensive. These two companies also have a business relationship with each other.
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In technology, pretty much every large company has some kind of business relationship with every other large company. But more to the point, why do you care about the cost of these law suits? I can understand the arguments against software patents in general (there are valid arguments that technology disemination may benefit the consumer), but why do you care if these companies put small dents in their otherwise-idle cash mountains?
 
S

surf2snow1

macrumors regular
Feb 26, 2008
173
75
Maybe the South Koreans are tired of these lawsuits as well and just want to see the companies keep manufacturing cool products while 'borrowing' ideas from each other and expanding on those ideas.
 
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