“Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court just pronounced his ruling on the first one of Samsung’s seven patent infringement claims against Apple in Germany,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “Samsung’s complaint over a patent declared essential to the 3G/UMTS wireless telecommunications standard was rejected.”
“Samsung has four other lawsuits going against Apple in Germany, involving six more patents,” Mueller reports. “Apple is suing Samsung over six patents (also in Mannheim), with a hearing on one of Apple’s lawsuits to take place today (at noon by local time).”
Mueller reports, “The pronouncement did not include the reasoning… There are two reasonably likely possibilities: either Apple’s products weren’t deemed to infringe on the patent in a technical sense or the court believes Samsung’s rights are exhausted and Apple has, by extension, a license… If the reason for the rejection was technical non-infringement, Samsung’s other assertions of 3G/UMTS patents in Germany could still succeed. However, if the reason was patent exhaustion, all but one of the four remaining Samsung lawsuits in Germany (one over two patents unrelated to 3G, including a smiley input patent) would likely be thrown out as well.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And the saga continues…
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Dan K.” and “Dow C.” for the heads up.]