Court blocks USA sales of old Samsung phones in Apple battle

A federal court in Washington has ruled in favor of Apple and announced that Samsung has to update its Samsung Galaxy smartphones” software so that the copied features, such as “slide to unlock”, “autocorrect” and “quick link’ are removed. Given that Samsung’s mobile business is now focused on later iterations of those devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Note 5, the ruling will have only a minor effect on its bottom line.

Apple’s court of appeals victory over Samsung will see the ongoing case referred back to the US District Court after to reconsider the injunction. The court did not honor the request back then.

Several tech companies, including Google, had sided with Samsung in the case, arguing against such injunctions. CNN reported that the ruling has come through long after Samsung has upgraded its features on the later phones. However, they allowed Samsung to sell its devices without the features protected by Apple’s patents.

“Apple seeks only a narrow feature-based injunction commensurate in scope with its monopoly rights”, Yonhap news agency quoted the court as stating on Saturday.

Remember that landmark lawsuit that made the headlines previous year when a judge ordered Samsung to pay Apple $120m in damages for patent infringement?

It added, “We want to reassure our millions of loyal customers that all of our flagship smartphones, which are wanted and loved by American consumers, will remain for sale and available for customer service support in the US”. Samsung indicated in the appeal that most of the technology at issue in the trial has already been removed from its products, but nevertheless warned of larger consequences if Apple got its way and won any kind of sales ban.

In a dissent, Sharon Prost, the appeals court’s chief judge, found Apple had failed to prove meaningful harm from the patent violations, describing the technology as “minor features” in iPhones. Not so easy, but not impossible, either, which is what the appeals court saw the earlier reading as making it. “If an injunction were not to issue in this case, such a decision would virtually foreclose the possibility of injunctive relief in any multifaceted, multifunction technology”, the court writes. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. In late 2014, the two firms agreed to drop all the patent cases being fought outside the US. The Federal Circuit last month turned aside Samsung’s bid to delay…