The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed Apple a partial victory Monday in the company’s quest to obtain a permanent sales ban on some Samsung mobile devices. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that U.S. District Judge Lucy…
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Koh in San Jose erred when she ruled last year against Apple’s request for a permanent injunction barring the sale of 26 Samsung devices (http://1.usa.gov/19zwwdE). Apple had requested the injunction after a federal jury found that the Samsung devices violated six Apple patents. Apple argued before the Federal Circuit in August that Koh’s ruling -- that Apple had not sufficiently proven that the devices were a main reason behind Apple’s lost sales -- was a “fundamental change” to U.S. patent law. Koh is currently hearing a retrial of the case over the amount of damages Apple is entitled to receive; Koh had reduced an initial award of $1.05 billion to $595 million (CD Aug 12 p10). The Federal Circuit panel Monday let stand Koh’s ruling that Apple was not entitled to an injunction over three design patents, but ruled Koh needed to reconsider her ruling as it related to three utility patents. “Rather than show that a patent feature is the exclusive reason for consumer demand, Apple must show some connection between the patented feature and demand for Samsung products,” the court said in its ruling. “The district court abused its discretion by failing to properly analyze whether damages would adequately compensate Apple for Samsung’s infringement of these patents.” Although the Federal Circuit ruling ordered a reconsideration of the injunction over Apple’s utility patents, “the remand concerns a very narrow scope of evidence presented by Apple,” Samsung said in a statement. “Therefore, we are confident that an injunction will be avoided.” Apple did not comment.