Hasta La Gadget!

At the end of last month, Samsung was faced with an injunction from the court that resulted in the possibility of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus receiving a sales ban in the US – one of their major global markets. Not too long after that, Samsung naturally went on the defensive and decided to contest that injunction in the court, only to have their efforts shot down. Not only that, a US judge did reject another request by Samsung to prevent a ban on its Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the US, which is the third legal blow against the South Korean conglomerate in a space of one week.

Right now, there are legal battles being fought across approximately 10 countries between Apple and Samsung, where patents are their ammunition of choice, and these two fierce rivals intend to be the final word where mobile devices are concerned. Lee Sun-tae, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities, has somewhat softened the blow, saying, “The impact on Samsung is limited as shipment volume of Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Nexus are quite small. Even if Apple wins an injunction request on Galaxy S III, Samsung will have plenty of time to get around it, as it normally takes quite a long time for a court to process such requests.”

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple to block Samsung Galaxy Nexus sales in California, Apple sues Samsung in Germany again,

Samsung says it is working on an anti-Apple legal plan with Google, confirming the search giant’s direct involvement with its legal issues for the first time, and suggests a patent settlement is in the pipeline. Having seen the Galaxy Nexus slapped with a preliminary injunction last week, which it promptly appealed, Samsung now says it has a “game plan” with Google, The Korea Times reports, on how to squeeze more royalties out of its Cupertino rival.

Exactly what that plan might entail is still a secret, with Samsung refusing to detail it publicly. “It’s too early to comment on our game plan [with Google] in the legal battle; but we will do our best to get more royalties from Apple, which has benefited from our technology,” a supposed Samsung insider told the Korean site. “The fight is becoming more dramatic and the possibility of a truce in the form of a cross-licensing deal, seems to be becoming likely.”

Samsung has a demanded 2.4-percent royalty rate for iPhone and iPad units using technology it has patented, but Apple argues such a fee is not in keeping with the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing terms. Complaints by Apple, among other, have seen Samsung made the subject of an antitrust investigation by the European Commission.

Google has already publicly lent its support to HTC in a previous case of patent-related war with Apple, and in fact sold HTC a set of patents it went on to use in a counter-strike against the iPhone maker. The Galaxy Nexus case is potentially even more threatening to Android, however, as the smartphone is Google’s de facto flagship device, and in which it had a significant hand in designing and guiding to market.

Samsung is currently waiting to hear whether the preliminary injunction will be frozen or not. The company argued that Apple had not sufficiently demonstrated that the infringed patent in question causes substantial  damage to iPhone sales.

Samsung: We’re working on an Apple attack with Google is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In a completely expected move, Samsung today filed to appeal the preliminary Galaxy Nexus ban granted to Apple last week, moving to stay the injunction. Among other claims, Samsung is arguing that the ban is “inconsistent with the Federal Circuit’s directive that market share losses must be substantial,” and, as Foss Patents puts it, “attributable to the ‘infringing feature,’ not just the presence of the infringing product on the market.” This, of course, mirrors Samsung’s appeal for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which also had its US sales halted last week. The Federal Circuit could very well decide to stay, putting the devices back on store shelves, but until then, we imagine Sammy will be looking longingly at Posner’s courtroom.

Samsung appeals Galaxy Nexus ban, of course originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Jul 2012 18:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier today, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple’s request for preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, giving Apple its second huge win this week following Judge Koh’s decision on Monday to halt the sales of all Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets in the U.S. Judge Koh previously denied Apple’s injunction request on the 10.1-inch tablet and other Galaxy smartphones, however, federal appeals court reportedly instructed Koh to reconsider Apple’s request. Reuters noted that Apple’s two legal victories this week is significant since pre-trial injunctions are rarely granted.

This was true last week when Apple’s other injunction request against Motorola  was denied by Judge Richard Posner of the Chicago federal court. “Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products,” Judge Koh said. Furthermore, the court ordered Apple to post a bond reported to be more than $95 million in order to secure payments for damages to Samsung, given that the South Korean tech giant is rendered not culpable, and should the decision be deemed wrong.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Galaxy Nexus wasn’t designed specifically to avoid Apple patents, Samsung Galaxy Nexus designed to bypass Apple’s patents,

Apple has been granted a preliminary sales injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US, with the Cupertino company now required to stump up a $96m bond in order to secure the ban. The decision was tweeted by Reuters’ Dan Levine, and follows a win earlier this week for Apple against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, with the US court granting a preliminary injunction against the Android tablet in the US.

The judge responsible for that tablet block, Justice Lucy Koh, is the same that has granted today’s Galaxy Nexus injunction. The financial stakes are significantly higher for the Nexus smartphone, however: Apple only needed to post a $2.6m bond in order to enact the Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction, perhaps a reflection on its comparatively lower sales potential and the fact that it has already been superseded.

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, however, is still the flagship Google own-brand smartphone. In fact, the search giant announced a discounting promotion at Google IO this past week, cutting the handset down to $349 unlocked and SIM-free.

According to Judge Koh, “Apple has articulated a plausible theory of irreparable harm” in its argument against Samsung and the Galaxy Nexus, because of “long-term loss of market share” along with “losses of downstream sales.” The patent in question is the so-called ’604 Siri-style quick search patent, which describes a system “using a plurality of heuristic algorithms to operate upon information descriptors input by the user, the present invention locates and displays candidate items of information for selection and/or retrieval … Thus, the advantages of a search engine can be exploited, while listing only relevant object candidate items of information.”

If the last injunction is anything to go by, Apple will waste no time in posting the required bond, and Samsung will move equally swiftly to appeal the decision.

Update: According to FOSS Patents, Apple apparently managed to convince Judge Koh that all four of the patents it asserted were, in fact, likely infringed by Samsung. However the injunction was only applied based on the ’604 patent.

Apple granted preliminary sales ban of Galaxy Nexus is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.