Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/22/apple_samsung_patent_iphone_fail/
Samsung's Japanese iPhone block bid fails
Fruity phone remains on sale in Japan as court dismisses patent infringement claims
Posted in Law, 22nd October 2012 03:43 GMT
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Apple’s global patent dispute with Samsung took another twist at the weekend after it was revealed a Tokyo court rejected a request by the Korean electronics giant for an injunction to stop all iPhone sales in Japan.
Samsung’s patent infringement claims revolved around technology used in the iPhone 4 and 4S for the downloading of apps and the airplane mode which turns off all radios so a device can be used in-flight.
However, Tokyo District Court rejected the claims on 14 September and 11 October, Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun [1] revealed.
The September case dealt with the app tech and the court ruled that Apple’s technology was sufficiently different to Samsung’s to throw out the injunction request. A month later, the court apparently decided that the patent infringement claim was invalid as the airplane mode feature wasn’t a new innovation as such but an extension of previous innovations.
Tokyo had been a reasonably happy hunting ground for Samsung until that time, after Judge Tamotsu Shoji ruled in August [2] that Samsung’s Galaxy devices do not infringe a single Apple patent related to the synching of music and video data.
Unperturbed, Cupertino last week filed an appeal [3] against this decision, which was something of a surprise coming just a week after Apple won big in California [4] – although Samsung is appealing this decision and the $1bn+ in damages it was ordered to pay. ®