Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 US sales blocked by the Federal Court

by Mark Tyson on 27 June 2012, 14:23

Tags: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung (005935.KS), Apple iPad

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A California federal court has blocked the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the US. In the ongoing patent battle between Samsung and Apple the court ruled that there was “evidence that Samsung altered its design to make its product look more like Apple’s”. Also the court declared that Apple had a strong case for the injunction as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is “virtually indistinguishable” from the iPad.

The order was issued on Tuesday by US District Judge Lucy Koh, in San Jose, California, who had rejected a similar request by Apple late last year. In her summing up the judge said “Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products.” The initial complaint by Apple was filed in April 2011 accusing Samsung of making a device which “blatantly copied” the iPad Apple design.

Samsung representatives said they were disappointed in the decision and that this preliminary injunction was “…based on a single design patent that addressed just one aspect of the product's overall design.” A design feature that Samsung said is “generic” and enforcement of the patent would stifle innovation and progress. Samsung will file an appeal against the US ban.

The two companies have locked horns in more than 30 legal cases since 2010 with Apple focusing on design disputes while Samsung counterclaims Apple technology infringes upon its internet connectivity patents. In a Dutch court last week Samsung won such a case and Apple must pay damages for not licensing said technology.

In the US case Apple has agreed to post a $2.6 million bond to enforce the injunction and which will be used to compensate Samsung if the case is decided in their favour.

Analysts believe that this latest decision in the US is a significant development in favour of US based Apple Corporation and against South Korea’s Samsung. Colleen Chien, a law professor in Silicon Valley said “The relief being given to Apple here is extraordinary. Preliminary injunctions are rarely asked for and rarely granted.”

Currently Apple dominates the tablet market with 63 per cent of global sales compared to Samsung’s 7.5 per cent share according to DisplaySearch market research statistics. We are hoping to see a couple of significant entrants to this market shortly. Google is expected to unveil its Nexus 7 this week which should be both powerful and affordable. Also Microsoft is gearing up to deliver its new Surface tablets to coincide with the launch of Windows 8, expected to be aimed at the premium end of the market.

HEXUS Forums :: 14 Comments

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Posted by aidanjt - Wed 27 Jun 2012 14:37
:rolleyes:

All I can say, really. The patent trolling has got to stop. It's a bloody disaster.
Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH - Wed 27 Jun 2012 15:07
From the article:

Colleen Chien, a law professor in Silicon Valley said “The relief being given to Apple here is extraordinary. Preliminary injunctions are rarely asked for and rarely granted.”

Its simple. Apple is a US company and Samsung is a Korean competitor.
Posted by Hicks12 - Wed 27 Jun 2012 16:14
its also apples legal dept being given billions to simply walk up and slip in a healthy bribe no doubt :D, the cases they put forward are just faff but people seem to be approving it.

However i do think Apple must have forgot to give most of its budget to the legal department as it seems a number of court cases have been dismissed or decided against them, seems common sense is seeping through!.

Things like this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18529756
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18370258
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18579081 (the best one imo)

Its finally happening… they shouldnt have started this silly patent trolling, it was pretty minor before but now Apple has peed off every manufacturer they are getting a kicking :P.
Posted by Bunjiweb - Wed 27 Jun 2012 16:20
If anyone is able to define to me how on earth you make a tablet PC without them looking similar then I may see where Apple is coming from. As it stands thy are just massive patent trolls who are loosing customers because of their legal bullying covering a lack of innovation. It is a sad time that we live in when someone can draw a couple of rectangles with a screen in the middle and patent it as a design, it's almost like someone patenting the design of TV or Monitor…. preposterous.

A piece of evidence Samsung has drawn on a couple of times is from 2001: Space Oddesy where two people are seen to be observing video and information on what is not much more than a black rectangle with a screen in the middle, or as Apple would call it, an iPad.

http://youtu.be/JQ8pQVDyaLo

This Guy, Roger Fidler has also given an expert opinion at the trials as he personally came up with a tablet prototype well before the iPad came along, which he must be kicking himself for not patenting….

The WSJ ran an interesting little piece back in March which provided some what of an insight and showed that the judges weren't overly supporting of Apple's designs being patent-able….

Several decades ago, he worked for Knight-Ridder, a national newspaper chain, in Detroit, Washington and Miami as a graphics guru and design expert. His colleagues from those days remember a big thinker, a science-fiction addict and a bit of an oddball. Fidler was constantly scribbling designs for a tablet, telling anyone in earshot that newsprint would one day vanish.

Many ignored him, apparently at their peril. Apple — a $500 billion company — has sold more than 55 million iPads since introducing them in 2010, ushering in the post-PC revolution. Apple’s third iteration of the iPad, with a screen displaying 1 million more pixels than a high-definition TV, goes on sale this Friday. Lines will be long.

“It was not quite like Roger had descended from another planet, but he was saying some things that were simply very hard to believe at the time,” said John Woolley, who worked with Fidler at Knight-Ridder. “He had conjured up this idea of a tablet at a time when laptops were revolutionary. He was clearly a futurist. And he didn’t care what anyone believed. He never backed down.”

In 1979, Fidler joined Knight-Ridder’s corporate office to work on new business models. In 1981 — more than a decade before he made his viral video — he published an essay describing the tablet future. “These units could have tactile controls,” he wrote. “When readers wanted to read the whole story, they would simply press the capsule or tease headline and the complete story would instantly appear on the screen.”

Fidler even devised a fake plastic tablet, holding it up at journalism conferences to guffaws. His mock-up was rectangular and thin. “It just seemed so obvious to me that it had to be a touch screen,” Fidler said. “And it had to be portable. It had to fit in an attache case. It had to be comfortable to hold. That was the idea.”

… So what has changed since? Despite the obvious fact that Apple is a Californian company, why are they becoming so biased towards Apple? Is Apple's money going a long way behind closed doors to influence the outcome of these legal proceedings, or is the cultish behaviour of the company sucking in people who should have been remaining impartial to either side.

A company that thinks THIS is acceptable, amongst other things, will never get money from me.
Posted by crossy - Wed 27 Jun 2012 16:45
In the ongoing patent battle between Samsung and Apple the court ruled that there was “evidence that Samsung altered its design to make its product look more like Apple’s”. Also the court declared that Apple had a strong case for the injunction as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is “virtually indistinguishable” from the iPad.
So (that first bit) do they (the court) have initial designs and then the final ones? If not, then I fail to see how there can be evidence that copying has gone on, short of a memo/email saying that. And anyone who can't tell Galaxy Tab from iPad is either blind or a complete idiot - and I would suggest that even a blind person could tell one from the other if given them to hold.
In her summing up the judge said “Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products.” … Currently Apple dominates the tablet market with 63 per cent of global sales compared to Samsung’s 7.5 per cent share according to DisplaySearch market research statistics.
In which case if Samsung are attempting to “compete unfairly” then I'd suggest that they're making a piss-poor job of doing so. :p
Samsung representatives said they were disappointed in the decision and that this preliminary injunction was “…based on a single design patent that addressed just one aspect of the product's overall design.” A design feature that Samsung said is “generic” and enforcement of the patent would stifle innovation and progress.
Anyone know what this single feature is? Hopefully not that moronic (as in “never should have been granted”) copyright for a tablet design with a large screen and a bezel around it. And where was Google meanwhile - surely time for them to do a “friend of court” involvement, otherwise the Nexus tablet will be next?

Anyone who thinks this is anything to do with “protecting Apple's IP” is either naive or biased, and it's obvious that Apple is using this solely to enforce their huge market dominance (I'd call 9:1 market share “huge”). Shame they couldn't spend as much time generating devices that would hold this dominance based on technical merit - rather than underhanded legal manoeuvres (and there's also a slight suspicion - in my mind at least - of playing of the “home company advantage” which if true is even more reason to dislike them)

Such a shame… :inquisiti

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