18
Dec
gavel

Samsung Drops All Bids For Injunctions Against Apple Products In Europe

Posted by in Legal, News, Samsung

Samsung has officially sought to end all of its claims requesting bans of Apple products in Europe, according to a company official. The decision comes on continued probing by the European Union's anti-trust body, on allegations that Samsung is abusing its standards-essential patents by seeking product bans for their infringement. Note that this does not mean Samsung has dropped its lawsuits - merely the injunction demands involved in them.

Standards-essential patents have played a pretty important role in the mobile patent wars to date, though that role has been one which is increasingly under question. SEPs are patents on technologies that are used across broad parts of an industry (such as the underpinnings of 3G connectivity, for example), and because of their value as technological standards, are required to be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis to anyone seeking such a license.

23
Nov
gavel1

Court Says HTC Must Let Samsung's Lawyers See The Entirety Of Its Settlement With Apple

Posted by in Android OS, HTC, Legal, News, Samsung

The word "unredacted" is experiencing quite a spike in usage this morning, on news that HTC and Apple are being required to produce the full, uncut version of their patent licensing agreement for use by Samsung's legal counsel. The document in question, which had previously been provided sans 33 words (some of which were, presumably, numbers), was requested by Samsung last week for the purpose of arguing against Apple's post-trial motions for permanent injunctions against infringing Samsung products. To be clear, this request is a part of the already-gone-to-verdict $1 billion trial that happened this summer.

Samsung's request is evidentiary in nature, and because of the highly sensitive material involved, HTC and Apple's settlement will be for "attorney's eyes only," meaning any references to it in the record will be filed under seal, and redacted from any publicly released documents.

01
Oct
20120621T085037

Judge Koh Lifts Galaxy Tab 10.1 Sales Ban In US

Posted by in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Legal, News, Samsung

Do you want to buy a Galaxy Tab 10.1? No? Well, that's pretty understandable, but for Samsung, a US sales ban on the tablet issued earlier this year has been a symbolic thorn in the company's side throughout its ongoing legal spats with Apple. Today, after a decision from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals indicating the issue was ripe for review, that ban was lifted.

Judge Koh, reviewing the issue on the grounds under which the injunction was granted, found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was not infringing the patents which Apple based its injunction request on. This falls in line with the jury verdict on the Tab 10.1's non-infringement of Apple's design patents.