Apple Inc.’s request for a U.S. sales ban on more than two dozen devices manufactured by Samsung Electronics was rejected by a federal judge, reports from the U.S. said on Tuesday.
According to U.S. district judge Lucy Koh, the iPhone maker failed to establish that consumer demand for Samsung products was driven by technology that Samsung stole from Apple.
In her ruling, Koh said that “it wasn’t in the public interest to bar Samsung devices because the infringing elements constituted a limited part of Samsung phones.
“Samsung may have cut into Apple’s customer base somewhat, but there is no suggestion that Samsung will wipe out Apple’s customer base, or force Apple out of the business of making smartphones,” she added.
Another point made by Samsung’s defense is that only three of the 26 products that Apple sought to block from sales are still being sold: the Galaxy S2, Galaxy S2 Epic and Galaxy S2 Skyrocket.
The newest models in the smartphone lineups of both Apple and Samsung, including the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3, respectively, have been added to a related lawsuit in which the world’s top two global firms are accusing each other of copying the other’s products. The trial for the case is scheduled for next year.
The latest in the trial of Samsung against Apple comes on the back of a number of rulings that were found to be in favor of the South Korean bellwether.
As soon as the trial hearing started in the first week of this month, the judge had hinted that it was likely for the damage awards that Samsung was ordered to pay Apple by a jury verdict in August to be reduced, saying that the jury probably miscalculated the amount.
Experts are currently expecting the damages to be slashed for Samsung, but don’t believe the verdict will be overturned entirely.
Last week, Apple failed to persuade Koh to rule that two of Samsung’s patents are unenforceable. Koh at the time said she would not consider Apple’s arguments about the patents from Samsung because the jury had already ruled in favor of the California-based company.
The same jury in August had found that contrary to Samsung’s claims in a lawsuit against Apple, that the iPhone maker had not infringed the two patents ― on what Samsung considered as essential to industry standard for 3G mobile technology.
Regardless of the ruling, Apple had sought another ruling from the judge that the patents were unenforceable on the grounds that Samsung manipulated the technology standard-setting process to obtain them.
By Kim Ji-hyun and news reports (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)
