The Galaxy maker, Samsung of South Korea, has cunningly persuaded judges to review their preliminary ruling that more than a dozen Samsung devices copied Apple’s patented iPhone features, Bloomberg reports this morning.
Last October, a judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recommended that trade agency impose an import ban on the infringing Samsung device. ITC confirmed Thursday it will review the preliminary ruling.
As a result, Samsung has managed to push back a final decision, which was originally scheduled for March 27…
ITC determined in October 2012 that Samsung devices infringe Apple’s trade dress for the iPhone, a patent for a multitouch screen, one that covers the translucent images for applications displayed on a screen and another one covering how the iPhone senses when headphone jacks are plugged in.
Bloomberg has the story:
The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington said yesterday it would review the findings, and it ordered a judge to address specific issues on two of the four patents found to be infringed.
ITC Judge Thomas Pender in October recommended the agency order a ban on U.S. imports of Samsung products found to violate Apple’s patent rights.
A Samsung spokeswoman is “confident that the full commission will ultimately reach a final determination that affirms our position”.
According to the ITC filing from yesterday, the ITC will review in its entirety the final initial determination issued on October 24, 2012.
The Judge will now have to detail the infringing features of Apple’s patents. Patent blogger Florian Müeller yesterday reported on his blog FOSS Patents that Samsung turned to a Japanese court as it seeks to invalidate another Apple patent.
Basically, Samsung hopes that it can prove an Apple patent invalid by showing that the patented invention was obvious over functionality implemented in an early version of the iPhone Apple released in 2007.
Apple CEO Tim Cook in a conference call with analysts yesterday mentioned nothing about litigation with Samsung, but we know from before that Android litigation in his view is a “necessary evil”.
As the two firms duke it out in the courtroom, their respective earnings reflect rising mobile device sales.
Samsung reported a record holiday quarter profit of $8.3 billion on sales of up to $53.6 billion as shipments came close to 500 handsets per minute, or about 65 million units in the quarter.
Apple yesterday said its net profit for A4 2012 was on sales of $13.1 billion on sales of $54.5 billion. The company sold 75 million devices in the quarter and now has 500 million iTunes account holders in 155 countries, more than 250 million iCloud accounts and $137.1 billion in cash.