Despite some of the bigger cases and battles dying out, the back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung still burns bright.
According to a report published recently by Bloomberg, Apple has just won an appeals court ruling that could make Samsung stop using some features within its smartphones and tablets. Based on the ruling, which was delivered by a U.S. appeals court, Apple was rewarded with a narrow ruling, which articulates that Samsung is not able to use Apple’s technology within its products. More than that, though, the court ruled that to not bear this ruling meant that some patent inventors would lose their patent rights.
As a refresher, Apple won a ruling against Samsung that stated the latter company infringed on several different products from Apple, including Slide-to-Unlock, a quicklinks feature, and autocorrect. While that’s still the case, the trial judge did not determine that Samsung must remove those features from its products, instead opting to go for only monetary reimbursement for the infringements.
The court went on to say that these features had an impact on products when customers were deciding between them, and that consideration had to go into the ruling and weighed against the intention of blocking an invention moving forward, which could have large implications on future devices and the patents tied to them.
“The public generally does not benefit when that competition comes at the expense of a patentee’s investment-backed property right,” the court ruled. “This is not a case where the public would be deprived of Samsung’s products. Apple does not seek to enjoin the sale of lifesaving drugs, but to prevent Samsung from profiting from the unauthorized use of infringing features in its cellphones and tablets.”
Of course, Samsung is appealing everything it can at this point, specifically the underlying infringement verdict, but that’s still pending.
[via Bloomberg]
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