Court Opens Door for Apple to Force Samsung to Change Products

Samsung told the appeals court in March that none of its current models use two of the patents, and only a single product still has the autolink feature, so there’s no hardship on it, the court ruled. But an appeals court ruled that Apple could not patent the basic design of the iPhone, putting some of that award in jeopardy.

A Federal Court of Appeals issued a ruling today stating that gives Apple a leg up against Samsung in the companies’ long-running smartphone legal competition.

Don’t expect this – or anytime soon – to be the end of the story, however.

Apple potentially could attempt to use an injunction to go after newer Samsung devices if they have features similar to the patents at issue.

Apple had been denied an injunction against Samsung by a lower court in May 2014. Unfortunately for Apple, this does not mean the company was actually awarded an injunction today.

Samsung had the backing of Google, HTC, LG, and Rackspace Hosting, but it wasn’t good enough.

“Apple does not seek to enjoin the sale of lifesaving drugs, but to prevent Samsung from profiting from the unauthorised use of infringing features in its cellphones and tablets”.

The case dates back to Apple’s lawsuit in 2012 alleging Samsung infringed on multiple patents for new touchscreen smartphones, including slide lock, autocorrect and the process in which iPhones can detect phone numbers or addresses in text and automatically create a hyperlink.

Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have been locked in a bitter feud for years over the patents covering a variety of features commonly used in many smartphones. It’s another victory in Apple’s string of wins against Samsung in a battle that has gone on for years. Results were mixed for the ‘721 “slide to unlock” patent, with some Samsung devices, such as the Galaxy Nexus, found to infringe, and others found not to.

Samsung has indicated that it could implement technological workarounds to its phones that would enable it to avoid continued infringement on Apple’s patents.

The judge said the third patent in the case involved a spelling correction feature that Apple didn’t use. At one point, more than 50 cases between the two companies were pending in various parts of the globe. Samsung had asked for $6.2 million in damages, and it had argued that if it had infringed all of Apple’s patents, it only owed $38.4 million. None of those were named in the suit, however, the ruling provides Apple’s legal team with a valuable precedent.

Update at 11:15 a.m. PT with Apple comment.