Appeals Court Rules Judge Must Reconsider Banning Samsung Devices for Apple Patent Violations

[MacRumors]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today ruled that Judge Lucy Koh, who presides over the Apple v. Samsung case, must reconsider her 2011 decision not to ban Samsung devices that infringed on Apple products, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The appeals court ruled unanimously that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., made errors last year when she denied Apple's request for a court injunction against 26 Samsung products.

The court said parts of Judge Koh's ruling against Apple were correct, but it said the judge should spend more time considering evidence offered by the iPhone maker to support arguments that Apple is being irreparably harmed by Samsung's patent infringement.

During the original Apple v. Samsung trial, Apple requested an injunction to prevent Samsung from selling its Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets within the United States. Koh denied Apple's request, suggesting there was no evidence Apple would suffer irreparable harm if Samsung was able to continue selling its products.

Koh did issue preliminary injunctions against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Tab, but the appeals court later reversed the ban on the Galaxy Nexus.

While today's appeals court ruling upholds Koh's original decision disallowing Apple from requesting an injunction based on design patents, it does allow for a possible injunction on Samsung products based on Apple's utility patents, such as the "Steve Jobs patent" and Apple's "rubber banding" patent covering bounce back.

With both stronger patents and the possibility of an injunction, Apple will have a good case for a Samsung product ban during its second infringement lawsuit that will cover more recent Samsung products like the Galaxy S III, and the Galaxy Note II, among other products. Though the injunction Koh must reconsider dates back to the 2011 lawsuit and covers older products, it would also affect newer devices with a similar infringement pattern.

The second trial will begin in 2014 and is separate from the current ongoing trial, in which Samsung will be forced to pay close to $1 billion in damages following the conclusion of this week's damages retrial.

Article Link: Appeals Court Rules Judge Must Reconsider Banning Samsung Devices for Apple Patent Violations

 

[Squilly]

Can't everyone just play nice, please...? This is getting ridiculous.

 

[josh.b]

Samsung copies everyone, I don't see how this is such a complex matter. Anyone with a brain cell can see this.

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Can't everyone just play nice, please...? This is getting ridiculous.

Well when Samsung do their own work there won't be anything to go to court over.

Do you think leonardo davinci would just stand aside while someone else copies his mona lisa and start outselling the original?

 

[Glideslope]

About time.

See ya Lucy. Back to Village Court Tuesday Eve. Going to be painful Samsung.

 

[Rogifan]

Are these even products people are buying? Seems stupid to ban older devices.

 

[Squilly]

Samsung copies everyone, I don't see how this is such a complex matter. Anyone with a brain cell can see this.

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Well when Samsung do their own work there won't be anything to go to court over.

Do you think leonardo davinci would just stand aside while someone else copies his mona lisa and start outselling the original?

It is their own work. They take hints from competition. Look at Apple. They took hints from Amazon's Kindle Fire with immense sales. They didn't copy it but they did make a 7" tablet to compete. It's essentially the same situation. You don't see Apple suing Amazon (except for the App Store naming issue).

 

[Mark Booth]

Can't everyone just play nice, please...? This is getting ridiculous.

This is business. And EVERY business (be it Apple or any other) deserves to have its patented technology protected.

Companies spend tens of millions of dollars to bring a product to market and then some people believe they shouldn't fight to protect the patents their products contain? The patents that help make their products unique?

The only thing ridiculous is an attitude like yours. And the very moment it was YOUR patent that was copied, you'd be throwing a hissy fit and calling in the lawyers.

Mark

 

[gnasher729]

Are these even products people are buying? Seems stupid to ban older devices.

That's Samsung's strategy.

Do whatever you want, copy whatever you like, and drag it out in the courts until any legal recourse is worthless.

 

[Mark Booth]

It is their own work. They take hints from competition. Look at Apple. They took hints from Amazon's Kindle Fire with immense sales. They didn't copy it but they did make a 7" tablet to compete. It's essentially the same situation. You don't see Apple suing Amazon (except for the App Store naming issue).

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Samsung didn't just copy the shape and visual appearance of the iPhone and iPad, Samsung copied software features within iOS. The jury found that Samsung INTENTIONALLY tried to make its products like the iPhone/iPad.

It's NOT "essentially the same situation"! Not even in the same ballpark. Go educate yourself before you embarrass yourself further.

Mark

 

[samcraig]

I challenge anyone to create a flow chart which describes all the current lawsuits between Apple and Samsung

 

[techwhiz]

My Galaxy S4 is nothing like and iPhone.
Apple might have a chance against the S4 and eat into that market if they had a phone with a 4.5" screen.

Until such time as Apple has a larger screen, I won't even consider an iPhone.
I'm an Apple shareholder!

 

[Mark Booth]

I challenge anyone to create a flow chart which describes all the current lawsuits between Apple and Samsung

It's NOT just Apple and Samsung!

The chart is over a year old, so some of those might be settled now (and possibly others added).

 

[everything-i]

This all seem pointless as by the time the courts get round to banning anything its out of date and a new model is out sometimes two or three new models are out. The whole system seems useless to cope with these types of products with such short life cycles.

Money gets awarded then its not then a bit of it is again then an appeal then it all goes through the wash again, all the time the legal types are getting rich off the back of it. Your forced to go to court to prevent a free for all on copying your IP. Just seems the whole process puts companies between a rock and a hard place and no one wins but the company that copies and gains early market share because of it because the penalties are minuscule in comparison to the profits.

 

[Will do good]

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Samsung didn't just copy the shape and visual appearance of the iPhone and iPad, Samsung copied software features within iOS. The jury found that Samsung INTENTIONALLY tried to make its products like the iPhone/iPad.

It's NOT "essentially the same situation"! Not even in the same ballpark. Go educate yourself before you embarrass yourself further.

Mark

I agreed. Make Samsung hurt from this and hopefully they will think twice before stealing again.

 

[NutsNGum]

Imagine being a lawyer at Apple. Every day you'd be like:

 

[Rocketman]

Since the earlier products should have banned but were not, Apple should seek retroactive damages since the judge cannot unring the bell.

 

[Oletros]

The jury found that Samsung INTENTIONALLY tried to make its products like the iPhone/iPad.

Mmm, no, apart that the one that had to decide if the infringement was willfully was the judge, she ruled that there was no willfully infringement

 

[Glideslope]

I agreed. Make Samsung hurt from this and hopefully they will think twice before stealing again.

Don't worry. Bruce has his end game in sight. It may take a couple more years.

Remember, Samsung gets caught up in these things due to being careless, and rushing devices to market.

Eventually every Android phone sold will be required to pay a yet to be determined fee to Apple.

It's about margins, ALWAYS.

 

[Oletros]

Since the earlier products should have banned but were not, Apple should seek retroactive damages since the judge cannot unring the bell.

The appeal court has not said that the products should be banned

 

[undesign]

This is business. And EVERY business (be it Apple or any other) deserves to have its patented technology protected.

Companies spend tens of millions of dollars to bring a product to market and then some people believe they shouldn't fight to protect the patents their products contain? The patents that help make their products unique?

The only thing ridiculous is an attitude like yours. And the very moment it was YOUR patent that was copied, you'd be throwing a hissy fit and calling in the lawyers.

Mark

But multitouch isn't apple's technology

 

[josh.b]

It is their own work. They take hints from competition. Look at Apple. They took hints from Amazon's Kindle Fire with immense sales. They didn't copy it but they did make a 7" tablet to compete. It's essentially the same situation. You don't see Apple suing Amazon (except for the App Store naming issue).

Funny that. Notice you only see Apple suing when they claimed someone has come too close to their design/names?

Yeh Samsung stuff looked almost identical to Apple's originally, Kindle looks much more distinguishable. How is this so hard for you to understand?

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That's Samsung's strategy.

Do whatever you want, copy whatever you like, and drag it out in the courts until any legal recourse is worthless.

Yep exactly. Samsung know they can get do obvious theft and by the time they have to stop their sales they are already two generations ahead. Courts need to act immediately on stuff like this otherwise Samsung will just keep trolling the system. Cockroach of a company.

 

[Leney]

Also, copying another design is fine and not actionable UNLESS it is covered by a patent. So if Apple makes a bigger phone equivalent to the size of a Samsung phone, you may call that copying, but it is not actionable, because the size of the phone is not a protected design. So they're not doing anything wrong.

It doesn't matter that someone might think that an S4 looks nothing like an iPhone. What matters in IP litigation is whether any elements of that S4 are patented by another.

Samsung copied Apple-protected elements (design and utility patents) and Apple has every right to enforce it's intellectual property. Any other company would do the same.

 

[-hh]

This all seem pointless as by the time the courts get round to banning anything its out of date and a new model is out sometimes two or three new models are out. The whole system seems useless to cope with these types of products with such short life cycles.

It does seem pointless in that way - - which means that the question then becomes one of after all of the legal wranglings have transpired, what would be the appropriate means of dispensing Justice?


For example, my recommendation of Justice is that since Samsung resisted the product from being pulled from the market in a timely fashion, the appropriate punishment should be to make them pull it now: they have to go notify every customer who they sold one to and tell them that the customer has to turn in the offending hardware.

Of course, Samsung will have to reimburse their customer for such a "recall", plus bear the cost of the recall itself ... and more to the point, for each sold Samsung device (tracked by Serial#, so as to prevent them from doing a quick swap of unsold inventory) that they can't hand over to Apple, they should have to pay Apple the full retail price - -

- - and all of this expense is all above and beyond all of the actual fines for the infringement that get paid to Apple.

Have a court require a company to have to do this with each one of these "Tech Infringements" and the word will quickly get out that the punishment fits the crime.



-hh

 

[za9ra22]

It is their own work. They take hints from competition. Look at Apple......

That's a bit of history re-writing you've done there. They were already found guilty of stealing Apple's work, based on the evidence. That's rather more than taking a hint or two.

 

[TMay]

It is their own work. They take hints from competition. Look at Apple. They took hints from Amazon's Kindle Fire with immense sales. They didn't copy it but they did make a 7" tablet to compete. It's essentially the same situation. You don't see Apple suing Amazon (except for the App Store naming issue).

Apple's mini is closer to 8 inch, and a different aspect ratio 4:3 vs 16:10, not to mention Apple's build is different. It was Eddie Cue that pushed for a smaller iPad and he didn't mention Amazon:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57486733-37/heres-apples-e-mail-thread-about-a-7-inch-ipad/

Kindle Fire's "immense" sales? Numbers please.