Samsung and Apple have been going at in court for months now and so far, the latter of those companies has had the most success. Back in October, however, a three-judge panel of the United States Court Of Appeals for the Federal Circuit blocked Apple’s request for a pretrial sales ban of the Galaxy Nexus. Banning the sale of a Samsung flagship could have spelled huge trouble for the company, especially going into the holiday season.
Apple has not given up, though, and has asked that all nine Federal Circuit Judges re-analyze their decision. Apple will need 5 of the 9 judges to rule in its favor to win the review. And over the past few months, the Supreme Court has made obtaining U.S. sales bans increasingly difficult, so the chances of Apple being successful are slim.
Samsung, who obviously will not take this laying down, filed a report last Friday urging the judges to stick with their original decision. The company says that Apple has not provided any strong evidence to show a “casual nexus” between the search capabilities found on Samsung’s Galaxy devices and the iPhone. Apple, on the other hand, claims that its patented search technology is the reason for iPhone’s continued success.
Judge Lucy Koh, who has worked on much of the Apple v Samsung patent case rejected Apple’s request for a permanent sales ban in December, using the October rejection as part of her reasoning.
Apple and Samsung are currently scheduled to go to trial in March 2014 in front of a federal court in San Jose, California. This trial covers different patents than the ones involved in Apple’s previous victory, so there is still hope for Samsung.
Apple scored a huge victory over Samsung last August when it was awarded $1.05 billion in damages from Samsung, with the judge ruling that the company had copied several key features from the iPhone and iPad.
Given that the Galaxy Nexus is the main focus of this ban and has already been largely replaced by the Nexus 4, an Apple win would not be detrimental to Samsung. It would hurt the company though, as the Galaxy Nexus is still sold from Verizon.