Impact assessment of Apple’s renewed motion for U.S. permanent injunction against Samsung

“On November 18, 2013 the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived Apple’s bid for a permanent patent injunction against Samsung’s Android-based devices with respect to three multitouch software patents (rubber-banding, tap-to-zoom-and-navigate, and pinch-to-zoom API), while affirming Judge Lucy Koh’s denial of injunctive relief with respect to the asserted design patents,” Florian Müller writes FOSS Patents.

“An appellate opinion is not the end of the appellate proceedings, however. Samsung could have tried to delay the process through a petition for a rehearing (and, theoretically, a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court),” Müller writes. “But Samsung didn’t do any of that, and as a result, the Federal Circuit yesterday (December 26, 2013) issued the formal mandate to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Judge Koh’s court).”

“Still on the same day, Apple brought (as it had announced in a motion following the recent damages retrial) a renewed motion for a permanent injunction, requesting that another injunction hearing be held as early as January 30, 2014,” Müller writes. “By exhausting all appeals, Apple can keep the patent technically alive until at least mid-2017 (probably 2018). But at this stage, the patent is of highly dubious validity. If I were a judge having to decide on an injunction motion involving this patent, I would try hard to find a way to avoid that this probably-invalid patent does any harm to Samsung. And I guess Judge Koh will try, too.”

Read more in the full article here.