A ruling by a judge in the US has foiled Apple’s attempt to ban Samsung phones.
A plea by Apple to ban the US sales of some Samsung smartphones has been rejected by a US District court judge in San Jose. Apple had charged Samsung with patent infringement over the features that were allegedly replicated in the Samsung Galaxy devices. The ruling, that came on Wednesday, 27, 2014, has proved to be a major setback for the California-based company.
The Apple vs Samsung battle began around 4 years ago, when Apple claimed that Samsung had copied some of its patent features in its Galaxy series. The ruling on Wednesday comes nearly 4 months after a jury awarded Apple $119 million in damages for Samsung’s patent infringements on technology used in the iPhone, which is much lesser than the $2.2 billion that Apple was seeking.
Apple was soliciting a ban, in the US, on 9 Samsung smartphones that apparently infringed on the iPhone technology. US District Judge Lucy Koh , refused Apple’s injunction citing, “Apple has not established that it suffered significant harm in the form of either lost sales or reputational injury.”
The patents that are said to be infringed upon are:
- Auto-correction feature on the keyboard
- Creation of links for e-mail addresses
- Phone numbers appearing in a text
- The swiping gesture to unlock the phone
The devices that Apple had sought to ban in the US:
- The Admire
- Galaxy Nexus
- Stratosphere
- Galaxy S III
- Galaxy S II Skyrocket
- Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch
- Galaxy Note
- Galaxy Note II
- Galaxy S II
While issues between the two smartphone market leaders have been settled outside the US, they are in a legal tangle in the US. Verdicts from 2012 and May are still under review.
