“A federal appeals court on Friday pressed Samsung Electronics Co. on whether the company should have been allowed to continue selling a range of phones and tablets after a California jury found the products infringed patents held by rival Apple Inc.,” Brent Kendall reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit didn’t clearly signal which way it intended to rule, but the three-judge panel that heard arguments by the two companies questioned portions of a trial judge’s ruling last December favoring Samsung,” Kendall reports. “In that earlier ruling, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif. decided that an injunction against 26 Samsung products wasn’t appropriate.”
Kendall report, “Judge Koh said Apple had not been able to show that it lost sales because Samsung infringed the iPhone maker’s patents. Apple lawyer William F. Lee argued that Samsung deliberately copied the company’s ‘revolutionary’ iPhone that took Apple five years and $5 billion to develop. The case was a ‘classic’ instance in which a rival should be banned for selling products because of patent infringement, Mr. Lee said. Samsung lawyer Kathleen Sullivan argued that paying monetary compensation to Apple would be an adequate remedy for any infringement and said that a product injunction wasn’t warranted.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Apple to judges: not banning Samsung products would be a ‘fundamental change’ in patent law – August 9, 2013
Apple asks U.S. appeals court to halt Samsung’s slavish copying – August 9, 2013
Apple seeks sales ban on Samsung mobile devices in U.S. ITC, court cases – August 9, 2013
Apple faces three major legal showdowns Friday – August 8, 2013
Just a fine or award is like Samsung paying for the rights to Apple’s patents that it DOESN’T want to sell, which is what Samsung wants. Don’t patent holders get any kind of protection against outright theft regardless of how it plays in the market? Since Samsung stole patents that elevated it’s products competitively enough to Apple’s we’ll never know just how much better Apple’s products would have sold had Samsung’s Android phones been deficient of those patents. Don’t these idiot judges see that? Unbelievable.
Yeah, Samsung’s view is that they were discovered red-handed burgling Apple, but just leave them at it and send them a bill later. Predictable ethics from a company headed by a convicted criminal. Be interesting to hear their views on the abolition of jails and death sentences.
If the fine was closer to 100 trillion instead of 1 billion I would say that the fine would be adequate. A fine has to hurt to be an effective deterant to further malfeasance.
What would Samsung do without its legal guardian and protector, Lucy Koh? American taxpayers pay her daily wages but Samsung pays for her retirement home. Which, I wonder, is the bigger carrot?
Yes one can’t help but wonder if it will give her a job like it did the suspect judge who covered its ass over here.
I’m surprised more isn’t made of that story. Was that the retired judge who was used as an expert witness?
Most of those devices are out of sale anyway, so probable ban will not make real difference, even if granted. The “justice” is years late.
Müller reports, “And that sales ban will, contrary to widespread misbelief and ignorance, not be limited to a few mostly obsolete products but will also apply to newer infringing products that are “no more than colorably different”, which a judge clarifies it not overbroad (as Samsung alleged) but simply the standard language.
There are only few of those are “new”, and even though are not really new much (last year’s models at best) because it takes many months to undergo the procedure of adding a newer model.
It shouldn’t matter if the innovator lost sales or not. A blatant copier should not be allowed to sell infringing products.
If found that they should have been banned then a monetary consideration for that revenue gained in the meantime should be granted against Samsung ie an additional fine but hey, no chance of that I guess so delay pays.
The most important precedent that can be set here is of there is a serious enough penalty that it makes delay tactics unprofitable for predatory theives like Samsung in the future.
Boycott Samsung.
I already do!
I think it it warranted as a deterrent.