Yahoo – AFP,
28 Aug 2014
 |
Attendees
gather at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone
West center
on June 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California (AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan)
|
A judge on
Wednesday rejected a bid by Apple to ban US sales of rival Samsung smartphones
targeted in a recent $2 billion patent trial in Silicon Valley.
The
decision was seen as a setback for Apple in its long-running battle with
Samsung over features built into Android-powered mobile devices that compete
worldwide with iPhones and iPads.
The
California-based Apple requested an injunction on offending Samsung mobile
devices -- which were from the flagship Galaxy line -- after a patent trial
that ended with a mixed verdict in May.
 |
A Samsung
Electronics flag flies outside
their headquarters in Seoul, November 6,
2013
(AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je)
|
While the
amount of the award is huge, it is only a fraction of the more than $2 billion
Apple had sought at the outset of the case.
"Apple's
cited evidence indicates that Samsung paid close attention to, and tried to
incorporate, certain iPhone features," US District Court Judge Lucy Koh
said in a written ruling denying an injunction.
"While
indicative of copying by Samsung, this evidence alone does not establish that
the infringing features drove customer demand for Samsung's smartphones and
tablets."
"Apple
has not established that it suffered significant harm in the form of either
lost sales or reputational injury," Koh said in her latest ruling.
"Moreover,
Apple has not shown that it suffered any of these alleged harms because Samsung
infringed Apple's patents."
Partial
ceasefire
Patents at
issue in the case involve unlocking touchscreens with slide gestures,
automatically correcting words being typed, retrieving data sought by users and
performing actions on found data such as making a call after coming up with a
phone number.
Samsung
devices targeted by Apple included more than half a dozen smartphones from the
Galaxy line, along with the Galaxy 2 tablet.
Jurors
agreed that Samsung violated three of five Apple patents at issue in the
two-month-long trial.
Jurors also
found that Apple violated a Samsung patent and said Apple should pay its rival
$158,400 in damages.
In August
2012, a separate jury in the same court decided that Samsung should pay Apple
$1.049 billion in damages for illegally copying iPhone and iPad features, in
one of the biggest patent cases in decades.
The damage
award was later trimmed to $929 million and is being appealed.
Samsung and
Apple decided earlier this month to drop all patent disputes outside the United
States.
Both
companies have been locked in a three-year battle of litigative attrition in
close to a dozen countries, with each accusing the other of infringing on
various patents related to their flagship smartphone and tablet products.
But neither
has managed to deliver a knock-out blow with a number of rulings going
different ways, and the partial ceasefire suggested a line was being drawn.
Apple has
accused its South Korean rival of massive and wilful copying of its designs and
technology for smartphones and tablets.
Samsung has
counter-claimed that Apple had used some of its technology without permission.
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