[NewsPoster]

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC has ruled that Apple should have been awarded an injunction against Samsung during the second smartphone patent trial. In its ruling affirming the embargo, and pointing out errors by the lower court, the appeals court declared that "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."

The original ruling covered Apple's auto-correct, data detector, and slide-to-unlock features in iOS. A jury comprised largely of self-described "non-technical" users of modern technology delivered the mixed verdict in the second trial, with Samsung found not guilty of infringing two of Apple's five contested patents, with a mixed result on the controversial "slide to unlock" patent. Apple was, for the first time outside of South Korea, found guilty of infringing a Samsung-owned patent in the same trial.

Products found infringing the data detectors patent were the Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Galaxy S III, and Stratosphere products. The Samsung Admire, Galaxy Nexus, and Stratosphere products were found to infringe the "slide to unlock" patent. Apple's autocorrect patent was violated in Samsung's Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S II Skyrocket, and Stratosphere products.

The case has now been returned to the court to reconsider the injunction, which at this point is mostly meaningless, as it would be applied to products no longer on the market.

[Inkling]

I'm with the lesser courts on this one. An injunction against sales make little sense, particularly in a clash between the two largest companies making smartphone. At most, Samsung should have had to pay Apple royalties and then only after all appeals were lost. To understand the follow of this appeals court decision, simply imagine that the case goes all the way to the top and Samsung wins. Do we really want to distort the market by requiring Apple to pay not only for all those lost sales and for the damage to Samsung's marketshare and future sales. That'd be billions in damages, all of which would be passed along to consumers.

[ElectroTech]

@Inkling - No one can say that you don't have an inkling but in this case, you seem to completely ignore justice. Samsung should not have been able to ever copy and profit from Apple's IP and Apple DOES NOT HAVE TO SHARE its IP through Samsung's theft and then a forced 'royalty' payment. Apple could have owned the smart phone market unless Samsung/Google actually innovated and moved the industry forward.

I despise pragmatic solutions like yours that are devoid of true justice.

[panjandrum]

I'm not normally all that annoyed by this type of IP theft; After all, even Steve Jobs didn't really "invent" nearly as many things as he is attributed with inventing. What he did extremely well was look at technologies, see what was wrong with them, and then create markedly improved versions. And that is all well and good. In the case of Samsung, however, it's absurd to the point of being an open attack. They are just thumbing their noses saying "we will copy whatever we want, whenever we want". It's not just the hardware designs, it's the stores, and even the naming of products and the advertising. It's so bad I, personally, wouldn't even mind seeing a blanket ban of all Samsung products in the USA. As soon as they can't sell everything else here, I bet they would actually have a moment's reflection on how not to steal.

[pairof9s]

If you think about it more deeply, you'll see that Samsung really had no option but to "steal" the ideas. If they do nothing or spend years getting features that surpass the iPhone, their phones will never sell in comparison, simply relying on the "cheapest phone" market. So to say an injunction would scare Samsung into not continuing to lift these ideas is really overlooking the predicament they were in...it's worth rolling the dice for.

And the ridiculously slow courts have shown the gamble paid off. At this point, Samsung has both market share and public awareness...they'd gladly pay any royalties to Apple for what they've gained.

Like it or not (and I seriously don't!), Samsung played this correctly all the way through.

[MitchIves]

Samsung has a long history of doing this. They were doing it with televisions long before it was phones. This is their business plan. They can't develop on their own or don't want to. R&D is hard work and expensive. It's easier to steal it... wait to see if the aggrieved party can afford to sue... and if there is a legal challenge... drag it through the slow court process while racking up sales. Then if you are eventually caught, stall or negotiate through the appeals process and if required, negotiate a token payment that is far less than the sales you had to date. It's as predictable as the sunrise. Samsung is a despicable company and I don't own a single product of theirs, nor will I allow any around me...

[climacs]

"The case has now been returned to the court to reconsider the injunction, which at this point, is mostly meaningless, as it would be applied to products no longer on the market."

And this is why IP laws are virtually meaningless to big corporations. Samsung should have to pay enormous (billions of dollars) damages to Apple.

[DiabloConQueso]

MitchIves, you'd better toss out your iPhones and computers then, as it's extremely difficult to come by one that doesn't use a Samsung component that's critical to the operation of the device in one way or another.

Here's just a few components of Apple products that are (or have been) manufactured by Samsung:

- The A-series processor
- The flash memory (in some models)
- The RAM (in some models)

While Apple is distancing themselves from Samsung by using different vendors when it can for those particular parts, it's really, really difficult to do so, because Samsung's fabrication and manufacturing plants are head-and-shoulders above all others in most all regards.

I don't think many people realize just how gigantic, diverse, and pervasive Samsung really is. If one really wishes to boycott Samsung electronics from their lives, they're going to be leading a very technologically lackluster life -- there's a good chance that a Samsung component lives in just about all of your electronic and computing devices.