Today in San Jose, CA, Apple told a US District Court Judge that they would appeal her decision from earlier in the week to not ban sales on several Samsung devices. On Monday, Judge Lucy Koh denied Apple’s bid to have a sales ban on 26 Samsung phones, saying that any infringing features or patents were just part of a larger feature set. Also known as standards-essential patents. And because of Judge Koh’s decision, it allowed Samsung to continue selling all 26 devices in the US. Most of which are older models, so Samsung probably wouldn’t have cared to much about those, but they would care about the Galaxy S3 and Note 2 being banned as those are their current flagship devices.
That ban was one of many following a jury verdict in August that found Samsung infringing on multiple Apple patents, some of which have been rejected now, and left Samsung with a tentative $1.05 billion in damages that is still subject to being adjusted. Of course this filing comes a day after Samsung noted one of Apple’s key patents used in their case back in August was being reexamined. With all twenty one of their claims being rejected by the USPTO, US Patent and Trademark Office. In fact earlier today the pinch-to-zoom patent was rejected by the Patent office, which was also used in this case back in August.
We are still awaiting Judge Koh to make a ruling that could change these damages. Earlier this month, Samsung and Apple had a 3 and half hour long hearing where Apple argued to increase damages, and Samsung of course argued to lower them. Pretty predictable right?
So that’s the appeal for this bid to ban the sales of many of Samsung’s phones. Hopefully Apple doesn’t get granted that ban since many of their patents have been ruled invalid by the USPTO in the recent weeks.