Appeals Court Overturns Sales Ban on Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Prior to Apple's patent trial win over Samsung, the company was awarded an injunction by Judge Lucy Koh barring U.S. sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone. Today, however, a federal appeals court has reversed the ban on the grounds that Apple would not be sufficiently harmed by the infringement.
The appeals court found that the feature was indeed not integral to the success of the Galaxy Nexus, ruling that the lower court "abused its discretion" in issuing the original injunction.Samsung argued, somewhat humiliatingly, that the sales of the Galaxy Nexus were so poor that they didn’t pose a threat to Apple’s iPhone and that the unified search feature was not essential to the success of its device. The appeals court apparently agrees.Samsung and Google developed a software workaround or the patent in question and deployed it shortly after the injunction went into effect. With the ban now lifted, the workaround appears to no longer be necessary. The full order [PDF] is available from the U.S. Courts website.
Update 11:51 AM: Our initial reports seems to have generated some confusion over the exact rationals for the appeals court's decision to overturn the injunction. The appeals court ruled that Apple did not sufficiently show that sales of the Galaxy Nexus benefited from the inclusion of the unified search feature that is the subject of the patent, meaning that the lower court incorrectly overstepped its bounds in issuing the injunction on the belief that Apple would be caused irreparable harm by allowing sales of the Galaxy Nexus to continue.In other words, it may very well be that the accused product would sell almost as well without incorporating the patented feature. And in that case, even if the competitive injury that results from selling the accused device is substantial, the harm that flows from the alleged infringement (the only harm that should count) is not.
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http://www.macrumors.com/2012/10/11/appeals-court-overturns-ban-on-samsung-galaxy-nexus/
