Apple wins court order banning sale of old Samsung phones

Some of these older devices are already no longer sold by Samsung so this ruling doesn’t really seem to affect the company too much.

According to Koh in her filing, “The court finds that Apple will suffer irreparable harm if Samsung continues to use its use of the infringing features, that monetary damages can not adequately compensate Apple for this resulting irreparable harm, and that the balance of equities and public interest favor entry of a permanent injunction”.

Samsung products affected by the injunction include Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Galaxy S III and Stratosphere devices. However, it does look like Apple under Tim Cook’s control will not open more cases against Samsung.

The plaintiff is Apple and the case is fought between Apple vs Samsung. The company said the decision “will not impact American consumers”, but derided Apple for “abusing the judicial system to create bad legal precedent which can harm consumer choice for generations to come”.

The patent war between Samsung and Apple began under Steve Jobs’ leadership back in 2010 as he declared “thermonuclear war” on Android. In an email to Bloomberg, Samsung wasn’t shy about expressing its disappointment over court orders.

The recent ruling will be enforced in 30 days.

In another patent infringement lawsuit in the same court, Samsung has paid up conditionally $548 million, which is a part of the damages award by a jury in another case in the California court for infringement of both Apple’s utility and design patents.

Apple and Samsung have been in legal dispute for some time now over a number of patents which Apple claims Samsung had copied in order to get ahead in the world of smartphones. “But in the practical context of the Apple-Samsung patent dispute, this injunction doesn’t matter”, Mueller wrote. The smartphone maker also argued that it had to pay all of the profits from the infringed products even though the patented design was just a fraction of the product.

In one brief joined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, groups backing Samsung warned the Supreme Court that the verdict, if allowed to stand, “opens the door to a new species of abusive patent litigation”.