Published in News

Appeals Court backs Samsung in appeal against Apple

by on29 February 2016


Apple did not invent slide to unlock

A US appeals court overturned a $120 million jury verdict against Samsung saying that the company did not infringe Apple's "quick links" patent, and that patents for the iPhone's slide-to-unlock and auto-correct features were invalid.

More embarrassing was the fact that Apple was also liable for infringing one of Samsung's patents.

The ruling was issued by a unanimous three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit, the country's top court specializing in patent issues and it reverses a May 2014 verdict from a federal court in San Jose, California ordering Samsung to pay $119.6 million for using Apple's patented technology without permission.

Infringement of the quick links feature, which allows the device to recognise data on the touchscreen, such as a phone number, and link to it to make a call, accounted for nearly $99 million of the damages.

While the appeals court said that Samsung did not use the same technology to detect and link to specific data, it also said Apple's other patents were obvious compared to previously known inventions and should never have been granted. Lawyers watching the case said that Apple "rolled the dice" in forcing the case to court and should have settled much earlier.

However the whole case was never about Patents, but was all about Steve Jobs punishing his partner Samsung for daring to make a smartphone and providing Apple with competition.  Apple did OK in the patent wars that followed but would have made a lot more money had it settled with Samsung early on in the mess.  It should have realised it was never going to win on the "slide to lock" issue a long time ago.  That particular patent was thrown out by German court too.

Last modified on 29 February 2016
Rate this item
(12 votes)

Read more about: