Shortly after winning a sales injunction against old but infringing Samsung devices in the second patent trial, Apple has suffered a reversal of the verdict from an appeal by Samsung. The US Court of Appeals in Washington on Friday overturned the jury verdict in the second patent trial, which awarded Apple a largely-symbolic $120 million award after finding that Samsung had infringed on three Apple patents. In the appeal, the court found no infringement in one case, that two other Apple patents were invalid, and that Apple was liable for infringing a single Samsung patent.
This marks the first significant win for Samsung in a legal dispute with Apple since the dispute between the two companies began in 2011. Apple is very likely to pursue an appeal if possible, in an effort to defend its "quick links" patent that was the centerpiece of
the second trial -- which covered other patents and products than the first patent trial. The Appeals court also ruled that the "slide-to-unlock" and "auto-correct" patents that the jury found Samsung guilty of copying were invalid, effectively nullifying the jury award.
Patent case observer Florian Mueller, who
correctly predicted that an appeals court would rule the way it did, believes that now that Apple has definitively won payment from Samsung over the first trial, it should move to drop all remaining US litigation with Samsung, noting that in particular the "slide-to-unlock" patent, "however good the idea was from a usability point of view, simply isn't a patentable invention."
He also noted that even when the jury awarded apple $120 million, it was less than five percent of the $2.5 billion Apple was originally seeking in the second trial. He mentioned that a total of 18 judges in four countries have agreed with the view that "slide to unlock" wasn't a valid patent, with only one -- Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over both of the US Apple-Samsung trials -- finding it valid.
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